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NEWS ROOM


PERSPECTIVES ON HEALTHY EATING IN URBAN AMERICA
Two South Siders discuss challenges and opportunities for healthy diets

 

Dr. Daniel Block and Orrin Williams will present a lecture entitled “Finding and Growing Food in Chicago:  Food Deserts, New Markets, and Urban Agriculture” at 7:00 p.m. on Tue., Feb. 16, 2010 in the Fourth Floor Auditorium at East-West University, 816 S. Michigan Ave. in Chicago.  The free event, part of the East-West Perspectives lecture series, is open to the public and will be preceded by a reception at 6:30 p.m.

 

Dr. Block is an associate professor of Geography at Chicago State University and is also Coordinator of the Frederick Blum Neighborhood Assistance Center there.  Over the past ten years, he has been involved in a variety of research and organizing efforts related to food access in the Chicago area.  He was a founding member of the Chicago Food Systems Collaborative, through which he led an in depth market basket study of the Austin neighborhood.  He also coordinated the Northeastern Illinois Community Food Security Assessment, an in-depth study of food access in the metropolitan area.  He works with a variety of organizations through Chicago on food access and health disparity issues.  Dr. Block has a Ph.D. in geography from UCLA and a M.S. in geography from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

 

Mr. Williams is the Case Manager for Growing Home. He is also the executive Director of the Center for Urban Transformation (CUT) in Chicago, Illinois. CUT is focused on providing leadership for the creation of sustainable business opportunities in Englewood, in partnership with Teamwork Englewood. Particular interest is given to those enterprises related to urban agriculture, landscape and food processing. He is the author of Food and Justice: The Critical Link to Healthy Communities appearing in Power, Justice and the Environment: A Critical Appraisal of the Environmental Justice Movement, (MIT Press, 2005) as well as numerous additional articles and position papers.

 

East-West Perspectives is a series of monthly lectures hosted by East-West University.  All events are free, and held on the third Tuesday of every month from January to March, October and November.  The April and May events are held on the third Wednesday of the month.

East-West University is a private, not-for-profit, and non-denominational institution of higher learning in Chicago’s South Loop.  East-West is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (NCA), and provides affordable, quality higher education to students from all ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds.