Building Resilient Communities (BRC) is Groundwork’s program that makes available grants and Groundwork staff to support food pantries, schools, farms, and other organizations in increasing the amount of locally grown food available to people in Michigan communities. In this piece, Groundwork’s Amanda Brezzell discusses a BRC project they managed at Detroit’s LACC Child Care Academy. Amanda knew the neighborhood deeply as a child—it’s where Grandma lived—so the project was infused with rich layers of meaning.
I grew up with parents who both worked outside of our home. This meant that before my siblings and I were school-aged, we spent our days at our grandma’s house or with one of the older women who belonged to my family’s church. No matter whose home we ended up going to, my parents knew they were sending us to a loving environment where we would not just be looked after, but truly cared for with good food, enrichment, and safe spaces to explore. I remember trying to sleep in the backseat as we would drive each morning, and the feeling of the car moving through traffic. To this day, I could travel from my old childhood home to my grandma’s house with my eyes closed.
Last April, as the first signs of spring emerged, I found myself traveling to Northwest Detroit along the same roads I traversed as a child to meet with the team at LACC Child Care Academy for the first time. The corridor the academy sits in is the same one we used to pass each day on the way to getting dropped off, and as I drove, I remembered the sweet feeling of going to my grandma’s house. As I walked into the warmth of the building and was greeted by friendly staff, I knew immediately that the children being served at the academy were not just being looked after, but they, too, were embraced in a loving environment with people dedicated to making sure each child was well cared for.
LACC Child Care Academy is an early care and education center (ECE) serving children in Northwest Detroit ages 0–13. Many families in the area, like mine, have parents who work long hours with the local auto manufacturing plants and other industries that support the city of Detroit. Because of this, in addition to traditional daycare, LACC provides after-school and overnight care to support working families. To ensure that children and their families are truly cared for throughout the year, LACC introduces students to a wide variety of fresh, culturally relevant foods, and experiences that expose them to new worlds.
The team at LACC used the grant to purchase a new oven for the academy’s kitchen, expand the sensory garden, and deepen connections with Keep Growing Detroit, a local farm and garden support organization.
Building Resilient Communities in the ECE Space
The 10 Cents a Meal for Michigan’s Kids and Farms program expanded to accommodate “early care and education” sites across the state in 2021. In doing so, the program implementation team learned a lot about how this space differs from school settings and other institutions, as it relates to participating in the program. Refrigeration space, equipment upgrades, connecting with farmers, and having adequate food prep space are among the challenges that early care and education sites face. Understanding this, Groundwork sought to expand the Building Resilient Communities Program to address ECE challenges and build a true network of farm to table support for children being cared for in these spaces.
In 2024, Groundwork Center, with the help of the Kellogg Foundation, conducted a first round pilot of the Building Resilient Communities Program in Detroit, Grand Rapids, and Battle Creek to address challenges in the ECE space. In Detroit, the pilot sites included Deeply Rooted Produce & Mobile Grocery Story, A & W Learning Center, and LACC Child Care Academy. With the funding, all three sites made improvements to their operations, and are supported in the movement of local food. The team at LACC used the grant to purchase a new oven for the academy’s kitchen, expand the sensory garden, and deepen connections with Keep Growing Detroit, a local farm and garden support organization.
The Impact of Building Resilient Communities at LACC
A few weeks before applying for the BRC grant, the previous oven at the academy broke, leaving the staff and students with no other way to cook. This, of course, posed a real problem, disrupting meal times and the curriculum created to incorporate scratch cooking. In addition to facing necessary kitchen upgrades, the center was also laying plans for expanding the garden site. Without knowing where the funding would come from, the team at the center remained dedicated to creating spaces for students and finding a solution to resuming scratch cooking.
As previous 10 Cents a Meal grantees, LACC received CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) boxes from Keep Growing Detroit. This provided them with fresh produce from Detroit farmers on a weekly basis. Even though students experimented with taste tests and fresh food, because they weren’t always helping to grow food, there was a slight disconnect for students between the idea of fresh food and where it really comes from.
Groundwork learned about LACC’s situation when, during the BRC site recruitment process, I connected with Keep Growing Detroit, and they made me aware of a site partner who was really dedicated to scratch cooking and gardening classes, but the partner’s oven had recently broken and their garden needed an upgrade.
Over the course of several months, I worked with the dedicated director and assistant director, Laurie Clark-Horton and Michelle Thomas, to add kitchen upgrades and expand the garden to be a sensory based, educational and recreational space, as well as a food source for students and their families. With the material support of Keep Growing Detroit, the academy saw a complete redesign of their garden space, which included kid-friendly tools, child-sized workbenches, a rain catchment system, and new garden boxes. The academy also introduced a pollinator garden and signage to keep the space organized. Scratch cooking for the students resumed almost immediately after the oven was purchased. As we moved through the spring and into the summer, I watched the new seedlings planted by the students grow, and eventually, I arrived for a site visit one day and was greeted with fresh vegetables harvested from the garden.
Expanding the garden and upgrading the kitchen brought several benefits. Students had the opportunity to start seeds, plant transplants, care for the garden, learn about pollination, and harvest vegetables for their meals. Because there was a need for educational materials that reflected the cultures represented within the academy, in addition to kitchen and garden upgrades, LACC also purchased educational materials and childrens books that highlighted the student’s cultural ties to agriculture. With the remainder of the awarded funds, the team purchased additional garden boxes, tools, and equipment to expand the garden again in the spring of 2025. The new science curriculum for the students now reflects the many cultures represented at the academy and incorporates the expansion of the garden area, and the new stove will continue to support nutrient dense meals and student taste tests.
Many families across Detroit and the state struggle with finding safe, affordable care for their children, and having a place that feels like a second home, like LACC, is like finding gold.
The Future for LACC and Building Resilient Communities
My final site visit to LACC was bittersweet. Laurie and Michelle are two women who remind me of the people who truly make the culture of Detroit what it is. Without knowing where funding would come from, they still made sure to put their students and their families first, and dream up programs that would support them. Because of their willingness to explain their situation to their partners at Keep Growing Detroit, they were connected with the Groundwork Center, and programming designed to give communities access to resources that allow them to thrive on their own. Students who attend the academy are growing up in the same neighborhood that I grew up in, and are just steps away from my grandma’s house, a place that I traveled to nearly every day as a child and associate with warmth and care. Many families across Detroit and the state struggle with finding safe, affordable care for their children, and having a place that feels like a second home, like LACC, is like finding gold.
Supporting LACC in their mission to create a truly loving environment for students is a perfect example of why the Building Resilient Communities Program was developed. As we move toward a sustainable food future, making investments into programs like this, supports communities in developing agency within the local food system. This transfers power back to communities and allows them to make the necessary decisions to keep themselves safe and fed on their own terms. For 2025, with the funding from the Kellogg Foundation and the Michigan Health Endowment Fund, Groundwork Center will be conducting phase two of the expansion pilot, this time adding Genesee County to the list of new counties impacted. 
Policy and Engagement Specialist Amanda Brezzell writes from their hometown of Detroit, Michigan, where they support the 10 Cents a Meal Program and farm to table policy action through Groundwork Center for Resilient Communities.
Groundwork is currently recruiting for our 2025 Building Resilient Communities sites statewide. If your organization is interested in getting involved and participating in BRC please fill out this form: forms.gle/dXKxDz9zcj7eApQy7
Amanda Brezzell is Groundwork’s Policy & Engagement Specialist.
amanda.brezzell@groundworkcenter.org
