Justina Utionkpan, whose family moved to Far Rockaway from Nigeria, noticed stark differences between the food she ate in her home country and what’s now available to her. In her radio piece, she focused on the plethora of fast food in her neighborhood—something which her Nigerian parents strongly disapprove of spending money on. As Utionkpan said in a phone interview, “There’s a deli on every corner. This has an impact on people’s health.” She recognizes that when cheap, unhealthy food is readily available, fewer people will bother cooking at home. Many of her classmates eat fast food almost every day.

“When you tell a high school student that they’re making pieces about food in their community, they think about food as a big idea, and community as a big idea rather than themselves within it,” says Pierce.

By focusing on the personal, their stories began to take on a candid quality that trained journalists don’t often have. “The students spoke from the heart and it ended up being really compelling,” Fairbanks says. The students illuminated many of the topics food advocates focus on, “But it wasn’t because they had a strong background in food or policy,” she says. “They were just telling it like it is.”

The radio pieces explore topics like the impact of good food on physical performance, a stepfather’s struggle to eat healthy, or how a lack of time can change a mother’s eating habits. In a media landscape where food access is often discussed by advocates and doctors focused on policy change, the Scholars’ radio pieces are a breath of fresh air for their direct line into people’s daily lives. But that doesn’t mean the students aren’t curious about the forces that shapes their community.

While discussing her story, for instance, Utionkpan expressed curiosity about the part of government that might be responsible for making healthy food easier or cheaper to purchase. The U.S. Department of Agriculture may be a foreign concept in Far Rockaway, but its effects are all too real.

“I don’t understand why they make healthy food expensive, but then expect people to eat healthy,” Utionkpan says. “There’s economic hardship everywhere—even here—and people turn to the cheapest thing they can find.”

Listen to all five Saxelby Scholars radio pieces here.

Heritage Radio Network is currently running a Kickstarter campaign to rebuild their website and continue broadcasting the work of the Saxelby Radio Scholars, in addition to the 39+ live shows that play on HRN each week.

Photos courtesy of HRN.