We will work toward developing comprehensive and meaningful solutions to food insecurity and related issues for low-income populations. Our new collaborations will:

• Shape undergraduate, graduate, and honors research projects.
• Generate undergraduate, graduate, and honors outreach projects.
• Provide interdisciplinary training in issues of poverty and food insecurity.
• Provide academic and socially relevant opportunities for students and faculty.
• Strengthen the functional outreach roles of the University within medically and socially underserved communities.
• Foster a sense of civic responsibility within the University Community around the issue of poverty.
• Create opportunities for students to pursue careers dedicated to developing solutions for hunger and poverty.
• Furthermore, the Partnership will provide regionally and nationally recognized training, linking the resources and intellect of our academic programs to the greater community. The Partnership will serve vital community needs and train professionals to address these pressing social issues.

• A comprehensive consideration of the issues of poverty and hunger which cut across a range of disciplines, and in so doing, provide new and expanded opportunities for faculty, their students and community institutions to collaborate and build synergy for the development of new, integrated approaches and solutions to the problem of hunger.
• A living, learning community classroom and laboratory for undergraduate and graduate students across diverse disciplines. Formal courses, symposia and seminars will be developed to provide training and “think tank” opportunities to address current and emerging research problems that bring together faculty, students and community stakeholders.
• Integrated research that will help shape solutions relating to an adequate and safe food supply and improved access to nutrition information, which will have direct policy and systems implications related to the needs of the public.
• Dissemination of research findings that will improve student and public literacy related to nutrition, hunger, food accessibility and food security through traditional academic/scholarly mechanisms as well as through grass root presentations to the community and its stakeholders.
• A national information clearinghouse for applied research, grassroots agency/stakeholder training, nutrition and food programming for targeted audiences and the agencies that serve them.
• Expanded outreach and education that will improve the health and wellbeing of Rhode Islanders, especially older adults, children and those of limited resources.
• A model for partnering the intellectual and outreach resources of the University in order to impact a major community, state and national concern and bring positive change to the lives of individuals.