Yasmeen Salaam-Sabir
Food Innovation Fellow 2016-2017 // Civic Innovation Resident 2018
Carver’s Produce
Mission
This mission of Carver's Produce is to become a thriving food hub that provides local growers and food enterprises a space to store, preserve, and develop products for last-mile distribution in low access areas.
Summary
Carver’s Produce is a food hub that connects small farmers to new distribution channels within food desert communities. The food distributor transforms access to affordable fresh and natural food products, working closely with local farmers to deliver seasonal box shares to food hub sites bi-weekly. Like traditional co-ops, Carver’s sources from sustainable farmers, connects communities, and empowers holistic wellness.
Experience
Yasmeen Sabir has over a decade of social justice experience as a community organizer. She was a youth advocate for social justice in San Diego, California and remained an advocate while attending college at Tuskegee University; where she served as Programs and Research chair for the NAACP. While conducting agricultural research for an economics professor, Yasmeen realized that Tuskegee residents had to travel 30 miles to a nearby city if they wanted to access high quality produce. Yasmeen founded Carver’s Produce in response to this alarming fact and immersed herself in the local food movement. Carver’s Produce expands the tradition of Dr. George W. Carver, a professor and agricultural scientist at Tuskegee who revolutionized southern agriculture through crop rotation and distribution.