Buffalo faced one of its darkest days on May 14, 2022, when the only grocery store in a historically Black neighborhood was the target of a racist mass shooting. Long before that horrific day, Alex Wright saw clearly how institutional racism led to disinvestment and a lack of access to healthy, affordable food in his hometown and was doing something about it. Alex has been developing solutions and building community around his vision - and that vision stretches far beyond East Buffalo.
A few years later he took his idea one step further by creating Blegacy Farms when he bought a 22-acre parcel of land in Franklinville, NY, and started offering people of color the opportunity to grow fruits and vegetables on a plot of the farm and work towards ownership of that land. The risk was low knowing the Co-op would be an immediate customer and would link them to other potential customers.
"The Food Future work is so important to me because I want to make sure that as we're building, and as we're thinking about the future of food, we are doing it in an inclusive way. This group had real conversations about that," said Alex.
This storytelling project was made possible through funding from the WNY Foundation
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