Our Story

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Our Story is the story of The Familyhood Connection Inc, a 501 C-3 corporation in Oakland, CA aka Mo’ Better Food. Our mission is to promote programs that bring the generations together to improve communities.

The Familyhood Connection was co-founded by David N. Roach, in response to “the generation gap” recognized  within the African-American community. One of these generational gaps was, and still remains in the African- American farmer and land owner.
Due to racism, discrimination and sometimes just plain old bad record keeping, land is lost when farmers no longer farm and future generations seek other higher paying careers.

While at Morehouse College, Mr. Roach  was given an assignment to seek economic solutions for the African-American community by then, Director of The Business Department, Dr. William Sheftal. What he discovered led him to believe that “food”, its whole food system, from seed, soil / rocks(since we growing in rocks see: tosoilless.com) ,seed, marketing, distribution, wholesale, added value products, retail and the preparation of “food” is needed by all the generations. Meaning, everybody has to eat…to live.

One of our slogans of Mo’ Better Food was “feed ourselves into independence.”  If, we can set up markets for our small farmers, we can feed ourselves into independence was and continues to be a driving force behind our work.
Over the years of growing our organization and collaborating with other non-profit organizations I became somewhat disheartened by the non-profit system all together and went underground for a couple of years. I still consulted on a couple of projects, but operations as we knew it were postponed. Another reason for going underground, was there were others moving into the space of supporting Black Farmers. Organizations like Farms to Grow, were willing to take over the relationship with the African – American Farmers of California by establishing a farmers market in Oakland every Saturday.

So,underground I went. I witnessed in the non-profit world, a us and them scenario. meaning, our organization to serve them, the community. I witnessed a lot of programs that catered to the youth or seniors , but seemed able to only go so far in making a difference, due to high turnover, funding cuts and knowledge/connection with the people they were trying to serve. I always had this thought, empower the people to govern themselves. In the pursuit of this simple idea of empowering the community to govern itself, , i have encountered a fear centered response by some, who feel, if the community was empowered, the community would have no need for their service/support. Contrary to their belief, i believe they would witness a greater return for their support then ever experienced.  In other words,  Instead of just giving their residents/ patients fish, a greater return would be realized by teaching them how to fish. One teaching method,they learn to eat for a day. The other, they learn to eat for a lifetime. As a non-profit, there will always be new children to teach how to fish. New markets to sell their fish. New markets to cook the fish. Please expand your minds from believing “they cannot govern themselves” and only through your leadership can they survive.

Moving forward, During the days of co-directing The West Oakland Food Collaborative,I would visit McClymond’s High School. The school then had been divided into three schools (Best, Excel and Kizmet) after receiving a small communities grant from Hewlett Packard. A few other high schools in Oakland also divided their schools into small schools.
During the process of dividing the school, and renaming the school, the school simultaneously discarded its long legacy of Alumni participation on and off campus. The climate on campus changed dramatically. With three Principals, one for each school with their own set of teachers, classrooms, the division proved somewhat chaotic.

Not to get into all the reasons for the chaos, but we believed part of the solution, was to return McClymonds to one administration and one school named McClymond’s. We started Friends of McClymonds also known as FAM, We gained the support of the then  President of the McClymonds High School Alumni Association to recruit Alumni and increase the presence of alumni on campus to support the students. After a few years, the school was renamed McClymonds High School again and the Alumni Association became a community organization the school district communicated with to best serve the students in West Oakland

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