An Interview with Zoe Grodsky
Zoe Grodsky grew up in Watertown, Massachusetts in a Jewish family where food, justice, and community care were very central. She says her family had an “open-door policy,” where people were always flowing through the house, coming to eat, drink, and talk together. Her Jewish culture and her family’s many dietary restrictions have taught her how sharing food also means sharing love and traditions. Her Dad was in the fair trade world, so the means of food production were often discussed at the table. This upbringing has compelled her to work for the Cumberland County Food Security Council (CCFSC) out of her current home in Portland, Maine.
As Zoe was growing up, she didn’t want to be a part of the popular image of environmentalism: mainly older, white, conservation-specific organizations. However, once she started college, she was exposed to grassroots environmentalists who were much more aware of intersectionality. She became a part of the Divest movement at Middlebury College and went on to be an environmental justice campaign organizer. When COVID-19 hit, everything changed, and Zoe had to complete her education virtually. She decided to follow her friends to Portland, Maine while finishing her Senior year. In her quest to understand the Maine political and social justice landscape, she found a connection to Changemakers. Zoe says it was, “described to me as this place where all these rad young people who are doing environmental justice work around the state and are really passionate are coming together, and I was really excited about the opportunity to meet folks.” Zoe attended her first Changemakers gathering online in the winter of 2021, and learned a lot. The gathering made her feel less alone by enabling her to make connections with others with similar values, and showing her all the amazing work that was taking place statewide.
Today, Zoe is very passionate about creating a more just world through relationship and community building, which she says can be achieved by taking care of your community and yourself. Zoe has learned the importance of self-care over the past few years, during which she’s sustained several head injuries. One of her guiding sayings comes from Jewish text, and can be roughly translated to “It’s not your obligation to finish the work and nor are you free to desist from it.” This quote has taught her about fully and intentionally sustaining her body and soul while balancing her work and the pursuit of justice. With CCFSC, she works with the Portland Public School Food Security Network, Food Fuels Learning, where she gets to hear from and collaborate with high school students. She spent this past summer playing and eating with kids and families. Forming these personal relationships has been really important to her, “I think it’s awesome to be able to build those environments where it’s more of a community building space.” Zoe hopes to create a space where anyone is welcome. She explains how, “In an ideal world we wouldn't have food security networks, right? Because in an ideal world we’d have small farmers, and everyone would be able to get their food that they wanted, and that was nutritious and culturally important, and there wouldn't be concern about knowing where their next meal is coming from and everyone would have the resources to provide for their families.” However, our extractive and racist economy intentionally keeps families in poverty, and therefore food insecure. Because of this, she explains how we need to address the climate crisis holistically. The food security programs strive to build autonomy for communities, especially for the heavily impacted immigrant communities and communities of color. As a white person, Zoe says she needs to be constantly unlearning racism in order to truly engage in social justice work.
However, the path towards environmental and social justice is a never-ending one, which can sometimes become daunting. She says, “I know that despair is not useful, and it’s not what’s going to get us out of here [but it’s] also hard and scary for me to think of something that’s going in a better direction than what we’re dealing with right now.” This fear is something we all feel at times, and yet, Zoe says she simultaneously finds hope in our current world. When she learns about amazing projects, such as those around community building, solidarity economies, and cooperatives, she finds comfort in knowing there’s plenty of people that know way more than she does about how to work together to solve our issues. Zoe emphasizes that there's always going to be more for her and others to learn from the wisdom of the collective. She says that learning, relearning, and education are all powerful movement building tools.
When asked about her vision for her future, Zoe says, “I think of food as part of this larger picture of climate and economic and racial justice and I don't know if personally I’m going to be in food systems work forever, but I think it’s completely aligned with all of my values of working for this broader vision of a better future we could all have together, and it feels like just one piece of the puzzle.”
-Story by Sophia Anderson