The Grassroots Movement Behind the Mayor

H E A L T H

BP Eric Adams addressing SOMOS jumpstart participants

by Lianna Levine Reisner

In his first few months as mayor of New York City, Eric Adams has unabashedly shown off his healthy lifestyle and his love of plant-powered meals. This is no surprise to the city’s plantbased health advocates, who have counted him as a friend and ally since his dramatic health recovery from advanced diabetes while previously serving as Brooklyn Borough President. Adams has brought political attention to plant-based eating and inspired others to reconsider what’s on their plate. But what may be lesser known to the vegan world is the growing, multicultural plantbased health movement in the New York area, backing up his message and widening the base of people embracing whole plant foods. That movement

PPMNY In-Person Tabling Event

is driven by a passionate force of people operating as a grassroots network, organized by Plant Powered Metro New York (PPMNY) – a health empowerment nonprofit that raises awareness among, educates, and supports diverse local communities to reclaim their health with plants. Established in early 2019, PPMNY was initially a fusion of smaller local groups started by volunteers affiliated with the PlantPure Communities pod network. In creating PPMNY, our founding members joined together as change agents working toward a shared mission and getting others involved in the movement. Alongside these grassroots leaders, PPMNY partners with the plant-based healthcare community, as well as local influencers in public health, culinary arts, and others who are invested in the power of plants. “It’s a huge paradigm shift. People who’ve been transformed by a plant-based lifestyle, as I have, need an outlet for action,” says Enrica Sacca, PPMNY founding member and Queensbased organizer who reversed colitis with diet change. This was the seed for PPMNY’s model of community empowerment. The three pillars of our work are education, training, and convening. We’re building out an educational engine that offers accessible learning and tools for people at any stage of plant-based awareness, as well as deep educational experiences that enable meaningful dietary change.

PPMNY Central Park Gathering. Photo by Ron Adar

PPMNY Farmer's Market Tour

We’re also putting the pieces in place to develop effective and empathic grassroots leaders and influencers as catalysts of change, engaging their respective communities. And we are connecting the dots to enable collective action, whether in healthcare, faith communities, or other groups with a shared interest in health.

What does this movement look like in practice? Kele, Alexandra, and Jeff, and Margie are a few community members making it happen:

• Kele is a community chef and food justice advocate from

Lesotho, Southern Africa, who splits her time between

Brooklyn and Manhattan. When she joined PPMNY’s 21-day jumpstart in the fall of 2021 to experiment with eating only whole plant foods, she reversed longstanding aches and pains, gained newfound energy at age 58, and lost some weight to boot. She became so inspired by our movement that she became a PPMNY organizer to help more people in her circles get healthy. • Alexandra is a first-generation

Haitian medical student in

Brooklyn. After steeping herself in our jumpstart for Black community leaders, she was determined to share what she learned with her community, in their language. She organized radio broadcasts about plantbased nutrition on the local

Haitian station and then ran a seven-day challenge in

Haitian Creole, complete with traditional recipes reimagined for health. • Jeff is an oncology pathologist based in Manhattan who learned about plant-based nutrition through the efforts of the American College of

Lifestyle Medicine. With a goal to become a plant-based health coach in the future, Jeff jumped into PPMNY’s mentor training program and started to exercise his passion for helping others as a lifestyle mentor. • Margie is the programming director for a Bronx-based agency serving older adults.

After learning about plantbased nutrition from her colleagues and then hearing a presentation by PPMNY, she invited us to be a featured part of a months-long plant-based initiative for her constituents, many of whom struggle with multiple chronic diseases. We brought out a plant-based doctor and a culinary educator to set the stage and then followed it with a four-week nutrition and cooking class four weeks of nutrition and cooking classes, covering various types of chronic diseases.

Chef Brandy Cochrane Deviled Potatoes demo

PPMNY Chef Carole Levy virtual demo

Following a virtual community screening of Forks Over Knives in 2020, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams joined the Zoom gathering to share about the imperative for a different approach to food and healthcare based on whole plants.

PPMNY Virtual Potluck + Recipe Swap

Here’s why these folks matter:

For Mayor Adams to successfully usher in not only awareness but also support for food and health systems that are based on plants, he needs many more constituents asking the city for real change. That’s what we hope to generate through this local movement, in partnership with his office and our friends in healthcare. We believe that, with a network for action and support, each empowered person can open the doorway to health for an entire community — in NYC and beyond.