After attaining her Bachelor of Arts in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Colorado, Boulder, Jessica Abad served with Peace Corps in Senegal where she worked as an Agroforesty Extension Agent on an array of rural community development projects. Jessica hopes to use her RARE AmeriCorps Program – Resource Assistance for Rural Environments experience to further define her professional goals and interest. Ideally, she hopes to find work that will allow her to be involved with helping communities in America preserve their amenities and create more succinct practices to ensure our environment is conserved.
Jessica is placed with Oregon Food Bank where she will conduct a comprehensive inventory of regional food systems and resources in Washington County. She will examine local food self-sufficiency including local retail, livable wage farming, and local farmers markets. Jessica establish partnerships with the local farming and agricultural community as a means to increase involvement, and to increase the ability to produce and market locally grown products.
Oregon Food Bank’s (OFB) mission is to eliminate hunger and its root causes. Formed in 1982 as Oregon Food Share, the organization merged in 1988 with Interagency Food Bank to become Oregon Food Bank, a nonprofit, charitable organization that serves as the hub of the OFB Network, a statewide network of 20 Regional Food Banks (RFBs) – four are OFB branches – and over 900 agencies and programs serving Oregon and Clark County, WA.
Organization: Oregon Food Bank
Community: Washington County
Population: 545,000
Learn more about Jessica Abad and the Oregon Food Bank: