The ABQ Resilience Box: A community-engaged food project, successes and challenges of community-based practice in action

The ABQ Resilience Box is a project created and overseen by Middle Rio Grande farmers and producers to get local food and knowledge of farms and farmers directly to their community, while engaging folx traditionally left out of the “local food movement,” and increasing circulation of local economy. It is an annual distribution of local food and products in a box, with the goal of increasing engagement in and access to the local foodshed of the Middle Rio Grande Valley (Albuquerque, NM, and surrounding areas along the Rio Grande) through mutual aid. The ABQ Resilience box completed its third-annual food distribution in November 2022, distributing a total of 188 boxes. For every local food box purchased, an equal box was “redistributed” in community – a tenant of mutual aid, meaning those that have the means support others in the community who otherwise would not, making the community stronger as a whole. In addition to 20+ local produce and value-added food products, the boxes included a “zine” produced and published by farmers filled with art, words, and recipes to further engage with the land, people, and ecology of the Middle Rio Grande Valley. In 2022, $14,499 was circulated (and re-circulated) in the local economy as a result of this project. The funds secured from the Robert Mallory Center for Community Geography allowed recipient Cassidy Tawse-Garcia to engage directly in this community project, both as a participant and a researcher. The grant funds secured snacks for our volunteers, allowed us to defray printing costs’ for project materials, and helped to fund a part-time administrative position, which was essential to the successful execution of the 2022 Resilience Box project.

2022 Resilience Box impact graphic. Graphic Design by Anita Adalja.