From hunger to hope: Fighting food insecurity for safer communities

One of the ways we’re Living Our Purpose at 84.51° is through skills-based volunteering, which connects our associates with nonprofit projects where they can volunteer their time and expertise. Some of that work is entering an exciting new phase thanks to a generous grant one of our partners has received for a bold project aiming to make our communities safer.

The SAFE (Systems to Achieve Food Equity) Network is a group of community organizations led by Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) that was created to reduce food insecurity by funding data-driven interventions to reduce the meal gap. As our point person for the network, 84.51° Data Scientist Charles Hoffman manages the data pipeline and mapping data that helps identify and direct funding to local nonprofits with the highest potential to impact food insecurity.

That work is on track to make an even greater impact with the announcement that CCHMC and SAFE have received the City of Cincinnati’s Impact Award, an $850,000 grant that supports large-scale social innovation projects. The goal of the grant is to reduce food insecurity in areas affected by gun violence, and the SAFE team used meal gap, gun violence, and population data curated by 84.51° to help rank the communities that best fit these goals.

The project, titled "Hunger, Healing, and Hope," involves collaboration among more than 30 partner organizations. It will establish a network of vibrant neighborhood food and resource hubs, including community-operated urban farms, in the eight neighborhoods identified to have higher food insecurity and gun violence rates. It will also coordinate food and other support for three special populations: firearm injury survivors, system-involved youth, and public-school students.

Data is a key component of the initiative. As a data partner, 84.51° will support data collection, tracking, and analysis to create and maintain a public data platform to track an ecosystem of metrics that will drive insight and action. We’ll also track community well-being and engagement, using ongoing data to guide project updates and improvements.

“The data we produce helps inform community leaders, non-profits, and citizens by aggregating publicly available data in an easily digestible way,” Charles said. “I’m proud that community organizations look to 84.51° and Kroger as a trusted partner to develop these types of solutions within the communities where we live and work.”

This project will not be the first time 84.51° has supported an organization receiving an Impact Award. In 2023, the grant went to Cincinnati enterprise hub Flywheel, to support a hackathon aimed at reducing evictions using predictive analytics. That grant was awarded to Flywheel with data science support from 84.51° – and the winning hackathon idea was developed by a group of our associates.

We’re excited to be a part of SAFE’s transformative project and look forward to the journey ahead. This collaboration highlights the tangible impact of data as a powerful tool to create sustainable change. By working together to address food insecurity and community safety, we’re helping build a future where insights lead to real, lasting impact.