Neighborhood Nutrition Centers

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“I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.”
e. e. cummings
- quoted by Wayne Roberts at the Food Policy Council Morning Plenary

Preliminary to the 13th Annual Community Food Security Coalition Conference was a gathering of the Food Policy Council “From People Power to Public Policy: A Gathering fo Local and State Food Policy Councils.”
We’d been asked at the end of the day to reflect on our “aha” moments. What did we learn? What was [...]

I’m thinking about the last few days and have so much to tell about, such as the “Notes Toward the Definition of Urban Ecology,” a lecture by David Thompson, Director of the Chicago Center for Urban Ecology, or: “CCUE” (Cee – Cue), given at Belmont Library. The lecture was organized by my friends over [...]

Today the Hull-House Kitchen Re-Thinking Soup served sweet potato soup. Creamy, delicious and a perfect misty, mid-day meal. Tara Lane, the kitchen manager gave a great description of the difference between yams and sweet potatoes. A yam has sweeter flavor and a brighter orange color – coming off a tropical vine and can [...]

Thursday, October 1, I had the privilege to attend an afternoon panel discussion at Northeastern Illinois University, featuring Gary Cuneen, Founding Executive Director of Seven Generations Ahead; Lucy Feliciano-Gomez, Lead Health Organizer for Logan Square Neighborhood Association; Orrin Williams, Center for Urban Transformation; and Frances Moore Lappe (and here, I’ll need to learn how to [...]

I engaged in the Advocates for Urban Agriculture (AUA) pot luck annual membership meeting Wednesday evening at the Garfield Conservancy. Part of the evening was spent in individual groups discussing what the future of AUA is to be, and much of our group’s discussion surrounded around how to improve web communications. How to [...]

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today released a report indicating that a “Majority of Americans not Meeting Recommendations for Fruit and Vegetable Consumption.”
From the press release: “The Healthy People 2010 objectives aim for at least 75 percent of Americans to eat the recommended two or more daily servings of fruit, and for at [...]

Work continued at Englewood and S. Normal this Saturday, although a smaller crowd this week. A group of university students were scheduled to show up, but didn’t.
Still, there was a solid crew of about eight or nine working with Ellen and John. Dip’s farmers market was closed up today – since he had [...]

on David Letterman, 9/22/09
“That’s the problem with agriculture. There’s no networking. When I was there a couple of years ago they had a bumper crop everywhere from the Capital south and west. Every year from the Capital south and east seems like there’s a famine in the Horn of Africa. They have plenty of food [...]