PITTSBURG, Kan. — Eat Well, the official food policy council of Crawford County, is back in business. Prior to getting the ball rolling, community members, leaders and food partners gathered on Friday for a “Crawford County Food Summit.”

The event, aimed at planning around the most pressing food-related challenges and opportunities in the county, was held at the John U. Parolo Education Center on the campus of the Community Health Center of Southeast Kansas.

“We are very excited about today,” said Wesley House Executive Director Matt O’Malley. “... About six months ago, we, Wesley House, applied for a grant through the Hunger Free Kansas initiative and in January, we gathered about 40 people to learn from the Kansas Health Institute, Kansas Appleseed, and Building Health about some of the data around hunger and some of the policies at the state level that have to do with hunger and the food ... The next step, we are going to gather people to go over some more information. What we did is we launched a survey ... This is sort of the next step in this work.”

From Wesley House to Gorilla Pantry to the Community Food Pantry in Girard, representatives gathered to network and develop plans and solutions to address hunger in the area.

The attendees reviewed the Crawford County Community Food Survey, which had 156 responses from March to April 2026. A presentation highlighted trends, challenges, and opportunities identified through the survey, which was followed bydiscussion and action planning.

After a break, the attendees went into “sense making” where they broke into facilitated small groups to reflect on the data presented, sharing reactions and discussing key themes.

The final activity was a community action strategy planning session, using insights gathered from previous discussions and survey to review strategies while also identifying the actions that “matter most for improving the local food system.” The top priorities identified are then used by the Crawford County Food Policy Council, Eat Well, to guide decision making and community change.

“What we are leading to is the resurgence of Crawford County’s Food Policy Council,” said O’Malley. “So Crawford County has a county commission food policy council known as Eat Well. Eat Well used to meet regularly but then Covid happened and that really affected how many people were meeting and how often meetings were happening and things like that.

“What we are doing today is we are taking steps to reinvigorate Crawford County Food Policy Council and get folks like you, who are interested in food systems work together to hopefully meet more in the future. I’m very excited to announce that we have a chair that is willing to step up for the Crawford County Food Policy Council and that’s Hope Harmon ... Now what Hope needs is people. Hope needs people who are willing to be in a food policy council and meet quarterly and talk about some of the challenges we face when it comes to food systems work.”

For more information, visit livewellcrawfordcounty.com.

This reporting is made possible, in part, by the Support Local Journalism Project Fund. Learn more at: southeastkansas.org/Localnews.