SM East graduate writes book about food justice in New Orleans

Jeanne Firth experienced culture shock when she transferred to the Shawnee Mission Schools as an elementary school student.

Firth, a 2002 graduate of Shawnee Mission East, transferred from the Center School District south of Kansas City, Missouri. Reflecting on that early childhood move to Johnson County, she now recognizes that it was a drastic turn in her own life that continues to shape the way she questions the world as a social scientist and geographer.

It also heavily influenced her new book, “Feeding New Orleans: Celebrity Chefs and Reimagining Food Justice,” which is about land rights and donations in the Crescent City.

“It was such a radical shift in terms of race, class and culture,” Firth said of her move as a child. “The question of what happened, what is this, how can these two experiences that I’ve had in my life – and thousands of others – be so close to each other and yet so different?”

Her childhood in the Kansas City metropolitan area and the founding of a 2.8-hectare youth farm in a park in New Orleans led her to pursue a PhD at the prestigious London School of Economics with a focus on geography and urban studies and subsequently to her book “Feeding New Orleans”.

KC education shaped themes in the book

Firth’s experiences as a child in Kansas City, Missouri and his subsequent move across State Line Road to Johnson County raised questions about the differences between the two communities.

She and her parents moved right behind her grandparents’ house in Prairie Village, which Firth said had a racially restrictive clause in the property’s deeds at the time that prohibited the house from being sold to blacks or Jews. (A new state law now makes it easier for cities and homeowners to remove such clauses from deeds.)

Firth understands better today than he did then that the racial, class and cultural differences between Kansas City and Johnson County are rooted in the region’s decades-long history of redlining and explicit housing discrimination.

Johnson County’s exclusionary history of redlining and racist property restrictions has caused the county to diversify more slowly than the rest of the country. According to 2020 U.S. Census data, nearly 78% of Johnson County residents are white.

“That’s the story of why I suddenly find myself living in a predominantly white community – not exclusively white, but predominantly,” Firth said of her upbringing.

But Firth also admits that the education she received at SM East, as well as the support and encouragement she received from her teachers and fellow students, helped her believe in herself as a student and academic and advance her career.

Firth founded a youth farm in New Orleans

In 2010, five years after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, Firth moved to New Orleans. She and several others founded the nonprofit Grow Dat Youth Farm, which aims to recruit a multicultural team of teenagers to grow food in New Orleans.

According to the Grow Dat Youth Farm website, over 620 jobs have been created for young people since 2011, 22,000 kilograms of fruit and vegetables are grown annually, and thousands of students and guests are hosted each year.

The goal of the farm is to bring together teenagers from different walks of life, races, genders and sexual identities who might otherwise never meet and to develop leaders, Firth said.

Five years ago, Firth decided to pause her work with Grow Dat Youth Farm and reflect on the farm’s work in New Orleans’ city park.

The farm sits on land that was once documented to have housed more than a dozen plantations, Firth said. When the land became a city park, it was a segregated public space for whites only. Before Hurricane Katrina, the park had several golf courses, including where Grow Dat Farm is located.

Her experiences growing up on both sides of the state line in the Kansas City area shaped her questions about New Orleans history and the post-Hurricane Katrina food justice movement, in which celebrity chefs founded food banks and foundations.

Firth said the result of her five-year doctoral research in geography was “Feeding New Orleans,” which addressed the issue of food justice and reconstruction after Hurricane Katrina.

The book is about land rights, giving

Firth said “Feeding New Orleans” looks at the costs and benefits of the Grow Dat Youth Farm and the Crescent City’s post-Katrina rebuilding.

The book covers several key topics, including:

• the uneven development of the city since Katrina, which has unevenly affected people of different races and classes
• Questioning the history of a piece of land, such as the site of Grow Dat Youth Farm, and understanding how this influences current and future use
• the power structure between donors and donors, such as between donors and donors at a food bank or a foundation

In addition, says Firth, the book also revolves around the hope that people can help make communities more just, fair, loving and caring.

“I hope for all of our communities that we think about what kind of world and what kind of communities we want to live in,” Firth said.

“Grow Dat Youth Farm is in danger,” says Firth

Since at least March, Grow Dat Youth Farm has been fighting a new master plan for the park that would build a road right through the area where the farm is currently located.

Firth said building a road would make it impossible to operate the farm due to degradation of soil quality and loss of space, such as an outdoor teaching kitchen.

“The sad thing is that there is land loss for small farms, particularly small farms run by people of color and women,” Firth said. “That’s the story of several hundred years of American history.”

In late April, City Park decided to pause plans and seek more public feedback on the master plan that called for relocating the 7.2-acre park, The Times-Picayune reported.

The company’s Facebook page states that Grow Dat Youth Farm hopes to secure a long-term lease on its current site in City Park.

The farm is advocating for a long-term lease for itself – and is accepting letters of support – while the process of public participation in the master plan continues, it says on its Facebook page.

Continue reading: This Shawnee Mission East graduate was able to direct a Broadway show