During the month of May many people across the US will be taking the Eat Local Chalenge: To eat foods from within a hundred mile radius of home. The Pledge of the “Locavore” is:
If not LOCALLY PRODUCED, then Organic.
If not ORGANIC, then Family farm.
If not FAMILY FARM, then Local business.
If not a LOCAL BUSINESS, then Fair Trade.
Are you upo for the Locavore challenge?!?
Visit www.locavores.com to find out more.
The Ella Baker Center has just launched their new Oakland: A Model City website by kicking it off with the food section . It’s an awesome site that’s all about what’s good in Oakland and how to truly build a sustainable and socially justice city. The food site gives People’s Grocery mad love. Many thanks to EBC. Check it:
http://ellabakercenter.org/page.php?pageid=298&contentid=374
We believe in having deepened and lasting relationships with the network of individuals, groups and organizations that we work with. So once in a while we like to organize an event that is just about appreciating those people who are so vitally important to our work in some way. On April 4th we held an event at the OCSC in the Berkeley Marina to celebrate and appreciate the people who help make People’s Grocery’s accomplishments possible.
The event was held in a beautiful room overlooking the bay. The room was generously provided by Anthony Sandberg, President of the OCSC sailing school. We had the great privilege of a guest talk by Anuradha Mittal from the Oakland Institute, who is an extraordinarily articulate organizer and leader in the sustainable food systems movement across the world. The OCSC sailing school also took our guests out on sail boats on the bay.
Alot of building and networking took place. We were fortunate to have many of the great people we are working with attend the event, including YVOD (our web designers), Design Action (our graphic designers), Plan Resonate (our business planning consultants) and many others such as David Roach of Mo Better Foods and Ted Nordquist of Wholesoy. It was also the first time that our recently hired managers made a public apprearance: Juhandry Dessames, Office Manager, and Jason Uribe, Farm Manager.
We have an exciting opportunity this summer to partner with the SAGE Center (Sustainable Agriculture Education) to take on several acres of farm land in Sunol (about 30 minutes south of Oakland) to increase our food production and provide a hands-on training environment for young people in sustainable food systems. Sage is developing the concept of Urban EdgeAgricultural Parks or AgParks, which are basically a way to establish agriculture as a valued urban-edge amenity that is part working farm and part parkland. SAGE recently came out with an “Urban Edge Agricultural Parks Toolkit” which introduces the components of the AgPark model, a step-by-step process for setting one up and case examples of similar projects. Learn more about it: Projects of SAGE- Sustainable Agriculture Education.
People’s Grocery’s involvement is tentative however as we have not yet secured the funding to support the expansion to the Sunol site, or to hire additional staff support for it. But we’re hopeful that we will get the funding as this is a tremendous opportunity for both expanding the capactiy and impact of our organization, and strengthening the local food system through a urban and peri-urban relationship. Keep an eye on this one.
People’s Grocery is slowly developing our online presence and deepening the online experience for all of you who visit this website to learn about what People’s Grocery is up to and what’s going on in the food justice movement. We have wanted to get into blogging for a while since it’s a great way to keep the updates active.
I tend to have a lot of thoughts and ideas about People’s Grocery that I like to share with whoever will listen. I used to always write long emails to my co-founder, Malaika Edwards, about some idea or another. Now that she’s moving on I need some folks to share my thoughts with. And who better to do that with then you all - the supporters, partners and explorers of the People’s Grocery website.
Not to say that my ideas are any more deserving of being read or heard than anyone else. Which is why this blog is an interactive forum in which anyone who visits it can post. I welcome and encourage your input and ideas. The real foundation of building a sustainable and local food system is strengthening relationships among everyone who is a part of that food system and sharing and cultivating our collective ideas for innovative solutions to increasing access to healthy and local foods in ways that strengthen our communities and young people. So check out this blog once in a while to see what’s happening. Peace. Brahm.
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