.jpg "Lacy Wright poses in front of green trees")
Photo by Aubreonna Chamberlain/DePaul UniversityDigital maps often lead us to the fastest route home and in many cases, new adventures. For DePaul student and geographic information systems maven Lacy Wright, maps help guide her on a different journey: one toward alleviating food insecurity in Chicago’s under-resourced communities.
Wright, a senior studying geography with minors in urban planning and sustainability, is one of 15 students selected to be part of DePaul’s Student Urban Research Corps. Under the guidance of DePaul geography professor Euan Hague, this group of undergraduate and graduate researchers support urban planning initiatives through their digital programming, mapping and analytical skills.
"When I heard about SURC, I thought it’d be a great opportunity because it lets me work directly with community organizations, which I'm passionate about,” Wright says.
Though Wright possesses many technical skills, digital mapping is her specialty. She is currently leading a GIS mapping project for the nonprofit organization Chicago Grows Food, which addresses food insecurity via urban farming and gardening. The organization distributes growing kits throughout Chicago in different schools and at community events. Wright’s task is to demonstrate the scope of these gardening kits.
With the support of Hague and her peer Chris Impellizeri, Wright spent the spring quarter using the software ArcGIS to program three interactive maps with high-tech filters that can zoom in and out of different neighborhoods, zip codes and schools, layering data in a way that allows Chicago Grows Food to see the exact footprint of each kit distributed.
After discussing what kind of map Chicago Grows Food envisioned, Wright, Hague and Impellizeri drafted multiple “sample maps” to create the most optimal graphic design for tracking kit distributions. She says these visuals not only conceptualize the spatial impact of Chicago Grows Food, but they also help strategize ways to reach more people.
“GIS is emerging in nonprofit work and people are realizing there are more benefits than they thought,” Wright says. “Working with Chicago Grows Food has given me hands-on experience using the software skills I learned in the classroom, and I'm really grateful to have had this opportunity."
Once Impellizeri graduated, Wright took charge of the project and now mentors two other DePaul students working with her.
Even though Wright spends a lot of time working with numbers and screens, she enjoys the direct collaboration with the nonprofit organizations she supports. Each one of her maps not only makes urban planning more effective but tells a story of how just one gardening kit can make a substantial difference in tackling food inaccessibility.
“St. Vincent’s values are about helping those in need through community service,” Wright says. “As an educational institution, DePaul has a lot of power to fund projects like this, so it’s important to use that power we have to help nonprofits and communities.”
Wright is now adding more enhancements and features to her maps with the goal of finalizing this year’s kit distribution data. Based on previous numbers from Chicago Grows Food, she can expect to see over 3,000 kits across her maps.
“Having this experience has been very helpful,” Wright says. “It’s something I’ll be using once I graduate and enter the workforce. I’d love to work with an environmental organization or non-profit.”
As Wright prepares for graduation next year, her passion for food accessibility and equity extends beyond the horizon of her time at DePaul. She is just at the beginning of her path toward social justice, creating a more sustainable future one map at a time.