Another Re-Birth At CSU

This statement was written for the Community Services Unlimited newsletter by Neelam Sharma in May 2021.

Dear CSU Community,

As many of you know, in Oct 2019 I changed my role at CSU from Executive Director to Co-Executive Director. This official shift to a shared leadership structure was partly a formalization of an incredibly rewarding, long term working relationship with my colleagues Heather Fenney (now CSU Co-ED) and Dyane Pascall (now a CSU Board member). This change was also made in preparation for my departure from CSU. With a full heart and much excitement for the future I am happy to share the news that I will end my long tenure at CSU in December 2021.

In addition to the roles mentioned already, over the past 25 years, I have also served at CSU as a volunteer and as a Programs Director. I am so very proud of the work that WE have accomplished together, going from an entirely volunteer group operating out of the garage in the backyard of the Orange House on 49th Street, to the Herculean task of buying and developing the Paul Robeson Community Wellness Center. During this time there have been many amazing people I have met and worked with on numerous and diverse projects and from whom I have learned so much, I am deeply indebted to you. A special shout out to those who as peers and mentors have always been ready to listen and from whom I have sought advice in tough moments.

I am grateful that in my remaining time at CSU I will have the opportunity to work with a talented team of people to imagine a new role and structure for the organization that is attuned to a changed reality, read more about this in the statement below. I am humbled to be leveraging the local work we have done at CSU to have helped found, and to be building the EFOD Collaborative and Fund and I am delighted for the forthcoming space and time to explore new pathways for myself.

Sincerely, Neelam Sharma

“revolution is not an action; it is a process. Times change, and policies of the past are not necessarily effective in the present.” From Revolutionary Suicide, by Huey P. Newton

Community Services Unlimited Inc., (CSU) was founded in 1977 as the non-profit arm of the Southern California Chapter of the Black Panther Party. When the political organization that spawned CSU ceased to exist its non-profit vehicle went through its first major transformation, of which it has since had several. We are excited to share the news with you, our long-time supporters and partners, of another major re-birth of CSU that is underway.

In February 2020 we announced via this newsletter that CSU had shifted to shared Executive leadership:“Our long time Executive Director Neelam Sharma and Associate Director Heather Fenney are now serving as Co-Executive Directors.” What we did not announce, but did share with our close partners and allies, was that Neelam Sharma was transitioning out of an employee role at CSU (see her statement, below). This shift is the result of many years of planning to prepare for the departure of a long standing Executive Director, and to fortify CSU against the challenges that face many small grassroots community non-profits during times of leadership transition (see this article for more information).

Our intention at the time was to recruit a new Co-ED during the summer of 2020. The universe however, had other ideas about our well laid plans. When the COVID pandemic hit, we like many had to re-channel our energies to ensure the very survival of CSU and of our social enterprise the Village Market Place. With the ingenuity and commitment of our team and through numerous critical partnerships we have not only survived but have pivoted to serve our community in different ways during this time of crisis and emergency. We are proud to have provided high quality nourishing foods to hundreds of South Central families both directly and through our partners with our sponsored groceries program. We quickly moved to online ordering and home delivery and continued throughout to offer 50% off EBT purchases and we have helped more families than ever access dollars to buy food through our CalFresh Outreach Program. This re-focus along with the safety measures necessitated by the pandemic have meant that many of our initiatives to make the Paul Robeson Center a busy hive of community events and workshops and an incubator of local food based businesses have been on hold.

Like our founders our central commitment is to “serve the people, body and soul” and we continue their practice of embracing change to create new and more relevant pathways to fulfill this core goal. The pandemic has provided a long moment for some deep thought and we have been using this time to think about our work, how the field has changed and what this means for us?

When CSU began its journey into building food justice we were very much swimming upstream. Our ideas and projects were initially dismissed by many people, for example, we were told that Produce Stands would never take off and could not impact food justice. We were ridiculed for building fruit tree orchards and vegetable gardens in local schools and told that the kids would destroy them. We were told again and again, that the reason healthy food outlets do not exist in South Central LA is because the people who live there don’t want them! Some two decades later these very strategies are at the center of local and national efforts to build a just, resilient and sustainable food system, in some cases being co-opted by mainstream organizations. With the growth of the VMP we have demonstrated unequivocally that in fact local families absolutely want healthy foods!

Along with other grass roots community organizations around the country CSU has been instrumental in challenging and de-bunking mainstream ideas about communities of color and food. Working alongside community members and partners we have built solid, sustainable food resources in South Central LA that have created training opportunities, jobs and permanent infrastructure on the road toward a resilient local food system that is connected to local and regional farmers and local food and plant based entrepreneurs. The pandemic has garnered even more interest in food justice work as it has starkly exposed the mainstream food system and its structural inequities. We are humbled and excited to see the many food based start-up projects and businesses that are being created by community members in South Central LA.

We have helped build the field nationally and we have worked to build local interest. How can we now be most useful in our mission to serve the people? At CSU we been thinking for some time about how to pass on ownership of the programs we have built and innovated to trusted community allies and partners. This is precisely how the South Central Growers and Harvesters Network was born a few years ago. The shift we have seen in community interest and engagement in food system projects has further deepened our intent to make this happen. As we think about these plans alongside our executive leadership transition we are excited by the possibilities that lie ahead of us. There are many questions we have still to consider and numerous details to pay attention to, but we trust in our core value of emergence and as we travel the path of inquiry we will be inviting our trusted partners and allies to cogitate with us. There are some things we do know, one of them is that we will not now be hiring a new Co-ED, but working to radically re-think and rebuild our organizational structure. There are many things we don’t know, one of them is the timeline for this CSU rebirth, but we will be sharing news as it unfolds over the coming year, so stay tuned.

CSU Co-Directors and CSU Board of Directors