Fresno Metropolitan Ministry

Programs: Fresno metro ministry (metro) is a multi-cultural, multi-faith community-benefit organization. Our mission is: "learning, connecting and engaging to achieve healthy people and healthy places. " metro was founded 47 years ago by churches moving out of downtown fresno to address the social, economic, health and safety issues experienced by children and families that remained in our neglected and disinvested neighborhoods. Metro is focused on increasing access and consumption of healthy food, the quality of the built and physical environment, and overall health and economic opportunities for underserved communities. In 2015, we launched food to share, a multi-faceted local food systems program focused on healthy food recovery and distribution, access, cooking skills and consumption to directly implement the fresno general plan healthy communities element policies city-wide. Ultimately, this work promotes food assistance awareness, creation of a food policy council through metro's development of the fresno food security network, and a full range of urban agriculture activities including community gardens, urban farms, and on-site farmers' markets. Better blackstone was launched in spring 2015 to address underlying social and community organizational capacity issues while simultaneously promoting physical and economic development. Our strategic approach to better blackstone is a layering of activities with multiple themes including resident leadership, food business entrepreneurship, advanced energy systems, electric vehicle (ev) ready community infrastructure, multi-mobile streetscapes designs, and urban design for new transit-oriented and affordable housing infill development, among others. Also, for more than two decades metro has annually produced making connections, a comprehensive community resource guide of nearly 400 local and regional social service organizations, city, county and state agencies and cbos that provide needed supportive services to thousands of community members. Annually, hundreds of organizations and individuals purchase making connections and refer to it daily, as they connect those they serve with resources, often as basic as food, shelter and clothing.