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Name: Jillian Smalls (she/her/hers)
Major: Marketing and Entertainment and Media Studies
How did I get involved in IMPACT?
  • ​I got involved with IMPACT during my freshman year when I participated in the environmental justice trip to Fort Myers, FL. I didn’t know much about environmental justice before my first IMPACT trip, but I love learning and helping underserved communities, so I found that IMPACT was a perfect way to do both! The environmental justice trip was such an amazing experience 
Why am I interested in my trip focus? 
  •  I am interested in the food justice trip focus because I am also passionate about food and all things culinary and I would love to have a career in food media one day. With that said, I am eager to learn more about the social justice issues that relate to food and the societal systems that create food insecurity on a local and national level so that I can pursue my love for cooking with a more educated and socially aware perspective.
Favorite IMPACT memory?​
  • On my first IMPACT trip to Fort Myers two years ago, one of our service sites was a nature preserve where we removed invasive species of plants. Our community partner used to be Elon Musk's security guard and he gave us all rides on his ATV. It was awesome!
Contact info
jillian.smalls@uga.edu
​(678) 832-9078
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Contact Info: 
matt.mcfadden@uga.edu
(404) 884-1233
Name: Matthew McFadden (he/him/his)
Major: Microbiology
How did I get involved in IMPACT?
  • I first heard about IMPACT during my first semester, when my friend Alison, who was a Site Leader, told me about the trip she went on the year before to Indianapolis. I quickly applied, and that spring break, I also went to Indianapolis! While I was there, I learned so much about public health and its many different areas, including the impact nutrition and food insecurity have on community health. Last year, I went to South Florida for Environmental Justice, a topic I really didn’t know much about, but by the end of the week, I had learned so much about the topic, as well as environmental justice issues local to Athens. Those two IMPACT trips have been by far some of the best weeks of my time at UGA, and I made some great friends that I still keep in touch with today.
Why am I interested in my trip focus?
  • I became interested in the area of public health during my freshman year, and my public health IMPACT trip only made me more interested. After learning about environmental justice and environmental health last year, I decided I wanted to lead a trip focused on another important area of public health, food justice. I was familiar with things like food banks and food deserts, but I quickly learned how pervasive the issue of food insecurity really is throughout the United States. It seems like a country with as many resources as the US should never have millions of citizens facing food insecurity, so why exactly is it so common? I’m excited to tackle this question and learn more about how the Durham community is working towards food justice, as well as what we can do in Athens, along with Jillian and our participants.
Favorite memory from an IMPACT trip?
  • On our IMPACT trip to South Florida last year, we made so much spaghetti the first night that we filled up seven take-out containers with leftovers and waited until right before we had to evacuate because of COVID to eat it all.​

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ABOUT FOOD JUSTICE


​Food justice is a comprehensive social justice issue that intersects with other social justice issues such as community health, racial injustice, education, income inequality, environmental justice, farm worker justice, and more. Equal access to healthy food is impossible without equal access to jobs, education, transportation, well-being and opportunity.
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TERMS TO KNOW:
  • Food Security: all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their food preferences and dietary needs for an active and healthy life 
  • Food System: includes all processes and infrastructure involved in feeding a population: growing, harvesting, processing, packaging, transporting, marketing, consumption, and disposal of food and food-related items
  • Food Sovereignty: the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems
  • Food Desert: geographic areas where residents’ access to affordable, healthy food options (especially fresh fruits and vegetables) is restricted or nonexistent due to the absence of grocery stores within convenient traveling distance 
  • Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP): provides a monthly supplement for purchasing nutritious food. Qualifiers get a debit card to use for groceries
  • Food Waste: food discarded by retailers due to color or appearance and plate waste by consumers ​

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