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Growing a Movement: How the Midwest Gathering Strengthens Food Justice Through Relationship Building and Shared Analysis

Midwestern farmers, organizers, food pantry leaders, and community advocates are working the land and tackling challenges together for a more just and equitable food system. While their city, county, or state approaches may differ, they share a common belief: food is a human right, and the people most impacted by hunger and poverty must be at the center of building solutions.

For a decade, WhyHunger has accompanied these leaders and invested in their work by hosting the annual Midwest Gathering, a convening space for relationship-building, learning, and collective action.

Our short video shares insights from the gathering and the people who are building a more just food system across the Midwest.

Beyond the constraints of a typical conference, this gathering serves as a place where people can slow down, share meals, exchange ideas, and strengthen the connections that sustain long-term movement building activities.

The Midwest Gathering was created from a simple but powerful understanding: lasting change happens through relationships. As WhyHunger built connections with grassroots organizational leaders across the region, it became clear that one of the most valuable forms of support was creating opportunities for people to come together.

“It is a way for people in the Midwest to come together to talk about the work that we’re doing and the food justice, food sovereignty space.”

–Tosha Phonix, Executive Director of A.C.R.E.S

This type of gathering creates a space where participants can learn from perspectives different from their own, share challenges and successes, and discover new approaches to advancing food justice and food sovereignty in their communities. Resource sharing is essential to countering the dominant narrative of scarcity with one abundance, resilience, and collective determination. Unlike many traditional conferences, the Midwest Gathering prioritized connection over packed agendas. Participants cooked meals together, spent time on farms, engaged in hands-on workshops, and made space for meaningful conversations and shared experiences that can continue long after the event ends. Shane Bernando, co-founder of Food as Healing, even offered somatic healing sessions, allowing participants to connect with their bodies as part of the learning and relationship-building process. Organizers also prioritized local food systems by sourcing meals locally and dining at Cleo’s Bodega, a community-focused market that sells produce and other foods from Flanner House Farm.

School Coordinator, Fernando Dory, in the school’s pasture with sheep. Photo Credit: Melanie Marques
School Coordinator, Fernando Dory, in the school’s pasture with sheep. Photo Credit: Melanie Marques

“What happens if we loosen up and get to settle in and prepare a large meal together or take our time to move through a workshop instead of having a tight 90 minutes and see where it takes us?”

–Megan Betz, CEO & President of Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard

Each year, the gathering highlights organizations that are transforming local food systems throughout the Midwest region; Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, Kansas, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Kentucky and Minnesota. This year’s gathering in Bloomington, Indiana, hosted by the People’s Cooperative Market, featured visits to farms and community organizations that demonstrate what food sovereignty looks like in practice.

  • At Little by Little Farm, in Zionsville, Indiana, organic farmer Rob Pinder has spent more than two decades cultivating food in partnership with nature while connecting the community to life on a working farm.
  • In Indianapolis, Flanner House Farm is expanding access to fresh food, restoring land, and reconnecting residents with agriculture in neighborhoods that have experienced generations of disinvestment.
  • In Bloomington, Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard has reimagined what a food pantry can be, creating a community food resource center rooted in dignity, choice, and access to nutritious food.
  • People’s Cooperative Market is a Black and Queer led anti-racism agricultural cooperative that hosts a farmer’s market, offers community garden plots, conducts research, facilitates cooking workshops, and delivers bags of local produce to Black families every week for free.

While each organization takes a different approach, they share a commitment to building food systems grounded in care, community, and abundance. The gathering brings these leaders together to learn from one another, strengthen relationships, and remember that they are part of a larger movement working toward food justice and food sovereignty across the Midwest.

Sheep in the Shepherd School’s milking quarters. Photo Credit: Melanie Marques
Sheep in the Shepherd School’s milking quarters. Photo Credit: Melanie Marques

For WhyHunger, supporting these leaders and creating connections is an essential part of ending hunger. The organization’s role extends beyond funding to include convening, storytelling, and creating opportunities for grassroots leaders to learn from one another. The Midwest Gathering reflects WhyHunger’s belief that communities already hold the solutions to hunger and poverty, and that intentionally bringing people together can help those solutions grow.

At a time when many conversations about food focus on scarcity, the Midwest Gathering offers a different vision—one grounded in abundance, cooperation, and collective action. By strengthening relationships across communities, organizations, and generations, the gathering is helping build a stronger movement for food justice and food sovereignty throughout the Midwest.

This video is a part of WhyHunger’s Food Justice Voices, a series created to support and amplify the voices of people working to regain control of their communities’ food system. Watch this episode to see farmers, organizers, and food justice leaders at WhyHunger’s Midwest Gathering as they build relationships, share solutions, and strengthen the movement for food sovereignty across the region.

Inspired by the stories in this video? Meet the organizations and community leaders building food sovereignty, economic justice, and community power every day. Get to know our partners linked below and learn how grassroots solutions are creating lasting change.

Read more about their work in North St. Louis Creative Field Guide – ARTBOOK|D.A.P.

Interested in funding this work? Join us in collecting resources for the next Midwest Gathering. These leaders need access to space to convene, travel funds, accommodations, and meals for 4 days and 3 nights. In addition, we stipend our facilitators and a local coordinating team. Please contact [email protected] for next steps.