Bridging the Gap: Community leaders strengthen Pittsburgh’s food system with New Sun Rising’s support

Posted on by Alyse Horn

Terri Minor-Spencer, founder and president of West End P.O.W.E.R, and Tacumba Turner, Freight Farm Program Manager, stand next to lettuce growing on a panel inside of the freight farm. (Photo by Alyse Horn, New Sun Rising).

Nestled next to the Community of Change Center on Centralia Street in the West End sits an unassuming white freight container.

Inside, the 320-square-foot metal structure houses a drip irrigation hydroponics system that grows 2,500 pounds of produce annually. The plants grow vertically on mobile panels that hang from the ceiling with nutrient-rich water that is plumbed overhead and, with a little help from gravity, drips down the panel to the plants’ roots.

Managed by West End P.O.W.E.R., the freight farm received a Food Justice Fund (FJF) Grassroots Grant to pilot Growing Justice, a system expansion to increase year-round production of fresh vegetables. They’re also hosting educational programming around healthy food, and engaging groups of youth and formerly incarcerated individuals in job training through roles in farm maintenance, harvesting and food distribution.

“There are domino effects to not having healthy foods to eat,” said Terri Minor-Spencer, founder and president of West End P.O.W.E.R. “I want this conversation to be more tied together with how the choices that we make have a lot to do with what we put in our bodies.”

The City of Pittsburgh released FJF grants in two rounds. The first, launched in 2024, was for large-scale food system investments and $1.1 million was awarded. The second, launched in 2025, was for grassroots organizations with a budget of $500,000 or less. In September, a total of 30 local food justice nonprofits were awarded $1.5 million.

New Sun Rising (NSR), a nonprofit focused on supporting vibrant communities, is managing distribution of those funds. They serve as an operating system for community-driven development by providing leaders with skills, funding, connections and data to overcome the challenges of our time.

“These 30 grantees know what their communities need and how to provide it. NSR’s role in this program aims to fill the spaces between funder requirements and grantee resources,” said Judi Costanza, director of vibrancy funds at NSR.

To support multiple food pantries in her native North Side of Pittsburgh, Jana Thompson saw the grant as an opportunity to fill gaps in food distribution infrastructure that often gets overlooked. Her project, Moving Food: The Last Mile, is providing 6,000 bags, 55 backpacks and 200 wheeled personal buggies to pantry clients who do not have access to personal transportation. Thompson said the majority of those who utilize the pantry are elderly or disabled. Providing people with the capability or choice for how they transport their food means they can get it home safely.

“I’m on the ground watching people struggle to get here and struggle to get on the bus. They’ve got everything wrapped in little plastic bags and they’re trying to be particular about how they put it in this bag, but what’s this going to look like when they get home? They deserve to have that tomato look good,” Thompson said.

To apply for the FJF Grassroots Grants, organizations needed to be 501(c)(3) nonprofits or unincorporated groups represented by a fiscal sponsor. Thompson said she had a fiscal sponsor when she applied, but the rigor of managing government funds made the arrangement impractical.

Volunteers for Garfield Eats at Isaiah’s Kitchen made meal kits for families to take home and cook for themselves, each equipped with instructions and necessary ingredients to feed two people. (Photo courtesy of Garfield Eats at Isaiah’s Kitchen)

At the brink of returning the grant, NSR stepped in to serve as fiscal sponsor for the project and “caught me when I was in free fall,” Thompson said.

For the FJF, NSR is fiscally sponsoring five projects. Rooted in community work and a deep appreciation for grassroots solutions, NSR has partnered with local communities for 20 years to provide grant administration for mission-aligned projects.

“As an intermediary, NSR flexes in the space between top-down institutional funding programs and intelligent and insightful bottom-up grassroots community programs,” NSR’s Costanza said.

Maintaining accountability and transparency in the use of public funding is critically important. Community members and food advocates can follow the social and economic impact of the $1.5 million grassroots grant investments by visiting the FJF dashboard created by NSR.

The city expects to open the second round of applications for the FJF Grassroots Grant in May 2026.

To learn more about New Sun Rising, visit https://www.newsunrising.org/.

This article first appeared on Pittsburgh’s Public Source and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.