The Teach a Person to Fish Society’s Long-term Goals
Chapter I Project:
TAPTF Society Sustains Sussex
Since 2020, the Teach a Person to Fish Society has been sourcing and rescuing local produce, proteins, and boxed food items from local grocers, farmers, and businesses; cooking and processing these items in our professional kitchen, and delivering the finished, boxed and ready-to-eat meals to food pantries, resource centers, and individuals experiencing hunger in Sussex County. Over a few short years, we have steadily increased our meal deliveries from around 250 a month when we first began in October of 2020 to 2,604 nutritious and delicious meals served last month in October 2023.
We also maintain a network of community and private gardens which supplement our offerings with fresh, locally-grown produce.
Our Meal Delivery Program not only addresses food insecurity in our own community, but it also promotes more sustainability and equity in food access. By rescuing produce that otherwise would go to waste, we are keeping pounds of edible food out of landfills, reducing CO2 emissions, and by redistributing that food locally to those who need it, we are also reducing the carbon footprint of excess driving, shipping, and storage. Our meals are sustainably packaged and are ready to be enjoyed as many of our clients lack access to kitchen facilities and all waste is composted back into our community gardens. We are very proud of the success that we have achieved with our Meal Delivery Program, and we are very thankful for the donations and grant awards that will continue to make this program grow and flourish.
While food insecurity/rescue has been the main focus of our organization, it is only the beginning of what we hope to achieve. A long-term goal of the TAPTF Society is to promote sustainability awareness through robust community outreach programs, and by constructing a Sustainability Education Center (SEC) and Eco-village (intentional community) where we can develop programs to educate the community on a variety of topics, provide training for the future of green jobs, inspire the next generation of farmers, and maintain a community accessible kitchen where we will provide access to meal preparation areas, cooking lessons, career training and nutritional information. A community center where individuals can come to learn about the nutritional and environmental advantages of home gardening and cooking, see the future of green living and how eco-friendly technologies can work for them in their own homes, and be a home base for Sussex County residents where we can meet and develop our work together in the fight against climate emergency.
Sussex County faces a variety of challenges when the effects of climate change begin to clash with the local post-COVID economy. As sea levels rise, disadvantaged communities are the first to feel the harsh effects. Coupled with the fact that Sussex County’s economy is heavily tied to agriculture and tourism, places it in a precarious position in the face of climate uncertainty. We must accept that our coastal community will be one of the first to experience real and dangerous results if we are not compelled to do everything we can to build community resiliency. The urgency for sustainability education in Sussex County is real. The TAPTF Society feels strongly that we can achieve this awareness through a whole human approach:
- Feed those who are hungry immediately
- Provide those who are struggling with nutrition goals and family meal planning with cooking lessons and supplemental produce, reducing an individual’s risk of diet related disease.
- Invite professionals to provide job training for those seeking careers in the future of green jobs
- Expose people to the advantages of green living by employing those technologies to run the facility itself, and
- Finally, offer a large community garden, kitchen and dining facilities to locals and visitors alike, therefore reducing the local carbon footprint on a whole.
We view this point in the fight against climate change as an opportunity to gather ourselves together, arm ourselves with knowledge, and make a plan of action that includes our community’s most vulnerable. The first step in making a dramatic shift in lifestyle is education, we cannot fight what we do not know, and the best way to educate people is to show them first hand that this planet is worth saving and that our daily lives, our health, and our wellbeing all are intertwined.
Let’s celebrate the abundance of Delaware by building a longer, more equitable, table together.
Sustain Sussex with the TAPTF Society’s
Chapter II Project: Sustainability Education Center & Intentional Community
We envision the Sustainability Education Center (SEC) to be a village and living laboratory of clean energy/sustainability low-environmental impact methods, including but not limited to:
- Tiny home structures, low-impact foundation (like pilings), shared black water/grey water disposal (Small 4-unit Septic and/or Compostable toilets).
- Centralized Commercial Kitchen and dining facility w/education, classroom, and office spaces.
- Garden/Greenhouse(s) with Agrivoltaic solar cells that feed a community grid, and battery banks to store backup energy.
- Community Composting and potable water collection/filtration.
*Note: This is a stock photo of a tiny home neighborhood, envision a 4-plex of these homes side-by-side with rustic minimal impact landscape.
The property on which we’re planning to build the SEC is 3.4 acres located at 16660 US-13 in Georgetown, DE. We are currently in negotiation with the owner to either long-term lease or lease-to-own the property. It perks for LPP septic and has access to well water and electricity. In addition, we are working with BlueWater Development of Ocean City, MD to construct the a 4-unit tiny home model for the community.
