MILWAUKEE — Advocates shed light on addressing food insecurity as part of building healthier communities across Milwaukee County.
Maurice Wince knows what it is like to grow up and struggle with food coming into the home. He grew up with several siblings in Milwaukee.
"One it was a quality and quantity that was never enough," Wince explained.
That experience is part of why he and his wife opened the Sherman Park Grocery store jin one of the city's food desserts. They wanted to help people living near Fond Du Lac and Sherman have access to a full-service grocery store.
"It is extremely important to me as a son of the city to be a part of the solution and not a part of the problem," Wince said.
Marquette University's Neighborhood Kitchen found that Milwaukee County has the second highest rate of food insecurity in the state at 15.4 percent, just behind Menominee County which has a rate of 17.2 percent, meaning people do not have access to enough food to meet their basic needs.
"From where the food is growing to when it reaches you. We’re talking about how the food is planted, how the farmers are being treated, how farmhands are being treated all the way to how the food is being processed to who has access to it," Solana Patterson-Ramos, executive director of the Milwaukee Food Council said.
Milwaukee historian Reggie Jackson highlighted the ripple effect food insecurity causes.
"I want people to understand very clearly that there are forces that have been in place in this country for a number of years that have created opportunities for some people and provided other people from having opportunities to have access to quality food sources. Those things were done very intentionally. It's not accidental," Jackson said.
As Wince gets ready to celebrate 2 years of making a difference he hopes others will join the effort.
"My call to the community would be lean in and lift up," Wince stated.
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