Dominique Edwards

Area of Achievement

Environment and Nature

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Working towards ensuring communities of colour have access to fresh, nutritious food.

Born in Michigan City, Indiana, USA.

African American.

2012: Attempted to launch a community garden (Michigan City Global Gardens Project).

2016: graduated from DePaul University with a Masters in Sustainable Urban Development and Food Systems.

2016: Presented her research at Harvard University at the Just Food Forum.

2017: Served on Plant Chicago’s Auxiliary Board, turning a plot of land into a local Agrihood (urban agriculture hub).

She always loved science, and when she was aged 12, she won an award for her science project in vermicomposting. She noticed tap water tasted and looked different in her friends’ homes and began to take samples of them to test the water.

Completed a degree in Biology at Purdue University Northwest, USA. Moved to Indianapolis to begin a career in science. She moved back to Michigan City from Indianapolis to start her own business,making natural products from locally harvested plants.

In 2012, she aspired to build a community garden but the national organisation that planned to help her had to cut their budget. Dominique then asked the city government and people from homeless shelters to get involved, but Was not successful in attracting support.

Dominique completed a Master’s degree in sustainable urban development and food systems at DePaul University in an attempt to understand the difficulties she was facing setting up a community garden.

Michigan City then became a ‘Food Desert’ meaning there was no availability of whole foods like fresh fruit or vegetables (US Department of Agriculture). Dominique learned that there were pockets of industry causing pollution in the United States, where ‘communities of colour’ were situated. These communities were at risk from the air, soil and water pollution caused from the industry using hazardous chemicals. Dominique saw this Environmental Racism reflected where she grew up.

For a project during her Master’s course, she used GIS (Geographic Information Systems) to map the kind of food available to the population of Northwest Indiana. Herher results showed that one in seven people in the region did not have access to nutritious food.

Dominique has given talks about food deserts and environmental racism in many conferences, at Harvard University (Just Food Forum in 2016), non-profit organisations, and to government officials.

Dominique has had various roles in the non-profit sector including:
Previously the Director of Development for Gary Urban Farms
Public Participation Planer at the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission.
Founder and board member of the Northwest Indiana Food Council.
Serves on the Michigan City Sustainability Commission.
Member of the Auxiliary Board for The Plant in Chicago

Her mother died in 2009 due to complications from diabetes, which she had developed due to a lack of nutritious food available to the community. Her family began to grow their own vegetables to cope with the trauma of losing a loved one and to increase their access to nutritious food.

‘My skills and my voice were needed more in my community, and I couldn’t do that as a scientist hiding in somebody’s lab. As an activist building community gardens, I ended up becoming an urban planner. That was my goal, to get my Master’s degree and come back home.”

“Since I’m an urban planner, I don’t have any favourite parts of my community,” she said. “It’s a force of habit to study, know and love a city in its entirety, even the parts that everyone else doesn’t think are so great; those are actually the parts I love the most.”

‘While I was studying at DePaul, every paper, project, and presentation I did was on Michigan City. I spent years studying, analysing, interpreting data, and even designing old vacant areas of the city in my urban design course. It isn’t about what I can give back to the community, it’s about what value I can add to my community.’

Black urban growers: blackurbangrowers.org HOME | blackurbangrowers
Healthy food access portal: healthyfoodaccess.org Healthy Food Access
Kheprw Institute: kheprw.org Home – Kheprw Institute
National Black Food and Justice: blackfoodjustice.org National Black Food & Justice Alliance (blackfoodjustice.org)
Miriam Flemming McDonald, Lucassie Arragutainaq, Zack Novalinga (compliers). 1997. Voices from the Bayditional Ecological Knowledge of Inuit and Cree in the Hudson Bay Bioregion. Canadian Arctic Resource Committee: Yellowknife

Credits (where info sourced from)
Rao, A., 2020. One Earth: people of color protecting our planet. Canada: Orca Book Publishers. Pp169-175

A La Porte County Life in the Spotlight: Dominique Edwards – LaPorteCountyLife

Meet Our Team – South Bend, Indiana (southbendin.gov)

History of Black Land Loss in the United States Tickets, Wed, Feb 16, 2022 at 12:00 PM | Eventbrite

Volunteer Spotlight: Dominique Edwards (plantchicago.org)

About Us — NWI Food Council

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