Dreaming Out Loud Celebrates One Year of Marion Barry Avenue Market & Café

Dreaming Out Loud, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, celebrated the one-year anniversary of the Marion Barry Avenue Market & Café in Wards 7 and 8. The market and café serve as a community hub, offering fresh produce, groceries, prepared foods, and café offerings. This milestone highlights the organization's broader mission to foster a sustainable local food ecosystem that connects agriculture, healthy food access, and economic opportunity.

Founded by Chris Bradshaw, Dreaming Out Loud aims to end food apartheid by providing residents with access to fresh, local food. The organization's flagship project, the Marion Barry Avenue Market & Café, operates as a neighborhood gathering place where residents can connect with local farmers and food businesses.

The market and café are part of Dreaming Out Loud's larger initiative to strengthen the infrastructure that connects food production, sourcing, distribution, and preparation. The organization manages two farms in the District: the Farm at Kelly Miller, the largest production farm in the city, and the Farm at Fort Stanton in Ward 8. These farms provide residents with opportunities to reconnect with land and agriculture while supplying produce for the market, community-supported agriculture (CSA) programs, culinary operations, and community programs.

Through its Food Hub, Dreaming Out Loud aggregates, procures, prepares, and distributes food from its farms and regional farmers and producers. This approach expands market access for growers while moving locally sourced food into schools, community organizations, markets, and households. The organization offers multiple ways for residents to obtain fresh food, including farmers markets, CSA subscriptions, grocery delivery, food access programs, and benefit-based purchasing options.

The Marion Barry Avenue Market & Café now participates in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), providing residents with another way to purchase food. This participation supports Dreaming Out Loud's work to connect neighborhood households with fresh food through accessible community markets and purchasing options.

Throughout the year, Dreaming Out Loud has brought residents, farmers, entrepreneurs, artists, and partners together through various events. These activities include festivals, Black August programming, food justice conversations, chess activations, and neighborhood gatherings. These events give people opportunities to eat, learn, celebrate, and build relationships while participating in conversations about their communities. They also connect residents with the people and businesses shaping the local food system.

In addition to its market and café, Dreaming Out Loud's Food as Medicine initiatives and partnerships further connect food access with health by putting nutritious, locally sourced food directly into the hands of families and community members. The organization's vertically integrated approach connects land, farmers, food businesses, distribution, culinary operations, and markets while supporting entrepreneurship, education, and economic mobility.

As the Marion Barry Avenue Market & Café enters its second year, Dreaming Out Loud plans to strengthen connections between farms and households, expand opportunities for farmers and food entrepreneurs, advance Food as Medicine initiatives, and create pathways to employment. Residents' participation in shaping the local food system remains central to the organization's work.