There’s a moment when you realize why you come to a conference. The personal connections lead to information and the workshops, well, they lead to information too.

Today’s most interesting workshop topics were Reinventing Food Distribution without Reinventing the Wheel and Fresh, Local Food for ALL: Increasing Access to and Diversity Within CSA.

We chose the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) workshop, and with great reward. The concept of Neighborhood Nutrition Centers is based on utilizing CSA growers to provide the food to be distributed from the centers. At this workshop, two CSA-use programs were highlighted.

Laura Dowd of the Local Foods Connection presented her organization, which funds CSA purchases to give to families in need – currently serving 33 families and 10 agencies. This model does not charge the family for their food, and pays full price to the growers for produce and food. Ms. Dowd has some interesting aspects of the program whereby participants can complete certain tasks to earn points, to be used for purchasing kitchen equipment in their store. Most new kitchen items are donated from manufacturers or local stores – with some purchased by Local Food Connections.

The other organization, the Madison Area Community Supported Agriculture Coalition serves families by providing CSA shares at 50% of the growers cost, while still paying growers full price. A majority of this program is paid for by sales of their cook book From Asparagus to Zucchini: A Guide to Cooking farm Fresh, Seasonal Produce, and the annual Bike the Barns fundraiser.

We’ve taken a lot of inspiration from this workshop, and may need to consider a trip to Madison to learn more about MACSAC.

And the personal connections? A special shout-out to Elizabet Humble of the Hometown Harvest SE Iowa. Don’t let the cops get you down. Remember, calm and assertive.

Finally, we received notice that Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack will be making a Tuesday morning appearance at the conference. This will be the first time that a cabinet-level person from the administration will be speaking at the Community Food Security Coalition. The importance of this movement is snowballing.

(Did I mention that we had snow in Des Moines on our first morning?)

Dr. Eduardo Sanchez at the CFSC Sunday AM Plenary

Sitting on the morning panel, Dr. Eduardo Sanchez, a member of Blue Cross of Texas, whose name has been mentioned as a possible Surgeon General – and we can see why.

A healthy food system leads to healthy people. He discussed the educational attainment component. Studies show that those who complete 1 year of college education are healthier. He equated this statistic to food in our schools. By providing quality food to our students we can improve their brain power, provide more educational success and affect the health of our nation.

Provide food accessibility through affordability, universal food access, and quality – where it comes from and what’s in it?

Dr. Sanchez also spoke eloquently about doctors receiving fair wages already – and that reforming the wages for our farmers to provide healthy food will be more effective in “universal care.”

His mantra, “Good food, most of the time.”

On to workshops…

During an afternoon workshop session at the Food Policy Council meeting, we participated in Building the Values Chain – Advocating for Personal and Collective Values Panelists: Cynthia Torres, Boulder County Food & Agriculture Policy Council, IATP Food & Society Policy Fellow; Amy Telligman, Graduate Student, University of Colorado Environmental Studies Program

We were asked to rate the following personal values:
- Enlightenment, knowledge, understanding of an issue
- Rectitude, to have ethical standards
- Skill, to have ability
- Affection, to have family, friends and warm community relationships
- Power, access to influence in decision making
- Wealth, to have money or its equivalent, economic viability
- Respect, to show and receive deference
- Well-being, to have health, physical, mental, emotional

Groups were formed and we were asked to collectively rate the values for a group coming together to work on a social issue. Interesting question. The dynamics of the group process led us in many directions, and questions.

Does the term “well-being” mean that you strive to have well-being as a goal of the process, or is well-being a value that is necessary in order for the group to succeed? I maintain that groups can work with those who have lesser qualities of health – and still be a substantial contributor to the group. (some elderly may have less mobility, but have a great wealth of knowledge and experience to contribute. We might get a great idea from from someone who is less mentally well, and should include their ideas, too.)

How would you rate these values?

“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

Mark Winne CFSC Food Policy Council Program Director

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 significant?

During the morning session, Wayne Roberts, PhD, Toronto Food Policy Council, author, “The No-nonsense Guide to World Food” (click here for a preview), spoke of work at the University of Toronto. There, they have increased local buying of food to 25%. Roberts related that while there has been a 10% increase in food costs in buying locally, there has been a corresponding 10% savings in waste management.

There are ways to offset costs in buying locally from your farmer. Aha. Get your produce from the Neighborhood Nutrition Center, and realize a 10% savings on your next purchase by returning the produce scraps for compost. NNCenters can then create a sale-able compost product to help cover a part of the operational costs.

Aha.

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 at Urban Habitat Chicago (click here to see their website).

But really, I’ve got wash in the washer, my cats both were at the vet this morning, one is still not happy (but okay), and here I am off to Iowa. Wish you could join me (although some of you reading this already are and I’ll see you there).

The conference (click here for CFSC website) will be more fun to write from Des Moines. Speaking of which, click here for a Des Moines link.

On the scattered notes scene:
I’m reading poetry at Hotti Boscotti tonight 10/8/09
between 8pm-10pm (I’m usually early in the show)
3545 W Fullerton
Chicago IL

And for this final part of the note. Thank you to all of the supporters of Neighborhood Nutrition Centers. In our first three weeks of the friends and family appeal, we’ve raised over $1,500 and have additional in kind donations totaling $1,000. Congratulations.

The response has been fantastic. Community Food Security Conference. Speaking engagements. Invitations to community organizations to sit at their table. Conferences. As well as talking with governmental officials, architects, members of the food community (aren’t we all?), Growing Home, Inc., Angelic
Organic Gardens, and many, many others.

We’ve got a great start. Off to Iowa. Continue to contribute by contributing friends to join the FaceBook cause (click here).

See you in Des Moines,

Les

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 grow as long as 7′. The word yam comes from the African word yami, which means “to eat.”

The southern sweet potato is closer to the white potato, as it has a higher starch content with not as much moisture and is noted for a more yellow flesh. There are up to 150 varieties of the southern sweet potato.

The sweet potatoes for today’s soup came from the McNichol’s farm in Marango, Il. The difference in coming fresh from a farm, as opposed to your local grocery store is that the store variety has been dipped in wax for preservation – and therefore must be peeled. From the farm – just wash and boil.

The conversation at the Hull House centered on the Chicago Rarities Orchard Project (CROP) a non-profit organization founded to establish community rare-fruit orchards in Chicago. These orchards, designed for reclaimed spaces, are dedicated to preserving a few of the thousands of varieties of tree fruit that aren’t commonly commercially grown, while providing open space and educational opportunities to Chicagoans.

We learned that one hundred years ago, there were 150,000 named apple varieties in the United States. Today, 90% of these have gone extinct.

CROP is currently seeking an orchard space through its collaboration with NeighborSpace, and is currently housing its saplings at the Chicago Honey Co-op.

The preservation of fruit varieties, which leads to better crop diversity and prevention against crop pest devastation is a long-term, noble endeavor. Hats off to CROP.

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 add an accent grave on the “e” in Lappe), Author Diet for a Small Planet and with her daughter Anna Lappe founders of the Small Planet Institute.

Ms. Lappe provided a card at her evening lecture which illustrates the circular motion of the Spiral of Empowerment, or “Premise of Possibility” and on the reverse the Spiral of Powerlessness, or “Premise of Lack.”

“Spiral of Powerlessness, Premise of Lack: goods & goodness”
“Human nature is selfish, competitive & materialistic, so…
we’re incapable of deliberating to achieve common good, and…
we must distrust government & trust an impersonal, fixed law – the market – to decide social outcomes.

“But markets only work if driven by highest return to existing wealth, so…
wealth inexorably concentrates.

“Concentrated wealth then infects & warps political decision-making, so…
power inequities worsen, generating scarcity from abundance & with it needless suffering & destruction of the natural world.

“Fear, depression and violence spread…
competition and consumerism intensify & our ecology collapses…
all reinforcing the limiting premise.”

Here, the arrow on the card circles back to “Human nature is selfish, competitive, & materialistic…”

On the reverse of the card:

“Spiral of Empowerment, Premise of Possibility: goods & goodness”
“Within human nature are deep needs for fairness, cooperation, & effectiveness, so…
we’re capable of learning the skills of deliberative problem-solving, and…
democracy becomes no longer a fixed structure but an evolving, values-driven culture we create.

“Rules, set democratically, keep wealth widely dispersed…
so markets remain open, competitive, & life-serving as guided by democratic politics.

“Political decision-making is freed from the influence of wealth…
so more and more people have a voice in problem solving.

“Problem-solving power, concentration & hope grow…
enabling progress toward resolving local-to-global crises – & reinforcing the liberating premise.”

And, again, the card circles back to the initial statement: “Within human nature are deep needs for fairness, cooperation, & effectiveness.”

- Frances and Anna Lappe (reprinted without, yet, permission).

Choosing the Spiral of Empowerment brings forth many, many possibilities. We begin to see our own coalition grow through e-mails, joining on the internet, and donating at least $5 to the cause; but then ask, what else can we do?

Whom do you know in Englewood? We’d like to be introduced to churches, businesses, community members in the Englewood or West Englewood area. If you have a connection to a friend, a store owner, a minister, a vendor, a grower, a mechanic … we’d like to be introduced. Part of the mission of NNC will be to develop under a fair distribution of wealth and commitment. By meeting the people in various neighborhoods, we can better determine what location is right for NNC.

The Center will be formed through a coalition of neighbors. These neighbors will work together to form an organization to bring in fresh food. The community kitchen demonstration area would feature local cooks, sharing information and knowledge- and help re-stimulate the taste for real food.

We now have people giving money and giving time. There are people already working on neighborhood mapping, and community outreach – if you’d like to join a team, go to the tab to Donate Time and send us your information.

Frances Moore Lappe’s talk on Thursday evening advanced clear, succinct ideas. Her discussion of how to reclaim our political discussion, “Rules set democratically, keep wealth widely dispersed…” was inspirational, with a recommendation to visit change-congress.org on campaign finance reform, and follow the lead of states such as Maine, Connecticut, and Arizona in their Voluntary Public Financing acts.

Let’s follow the example of the Spiral of Empowerment.

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 gather e-mail addresses, how to provide more resources on the blog and websites, how to network through internet links.

On an interesting side conversation, I spoke with a south-sider living around 95th. Her reaction to all the brainstorming was that she knows a lot of people who don’t internet. Oh, they might check their e-mail or play solitaire – but blogging and that stuff, they don’t do that. Not the friends she knows.

And it caused me to think when I got home that we should remember non-electronic advocacy. A lot of the urban farming movement is as a result of those that want to unplug, get off the grid… and simplify. Many spend their free time in gardens, tending chickens, and engaging in environmentally sound practices – they like to shut off their computers (if they have them) and leave the blogs to us computer connects.

It’s a good point. In order to spread out into all Wards, or into four quadrants for neighborhood meetings, the outreach should also take into consideration the culture and neighborhoods being invested into. Not all are on the information super highway. Believe it or not.

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 least 50 percent of Americans to eat the recommended three or more servings of vegetables daily. However, CDC surveys indicate that only 33 percent of adults meet the recommendation for fruit consumption and 27 percent get the recommended servings of vegetables. The statistics are even worse for high school students – 32 percent report eating at least two servings of fruit daily and 13 percent say they eat at least three servings of vegetables each day.”

The State Indicator Report on Fruits and Vegetable, 2009 is available here.

If ever there were a time for Neighborhood Nutrition Centers, the time is now.

This has been an incredible day of chance meetings, and planned meetings – beginning with a meeting with a community organizer on the south side regarding the work I am doing for the property tax initiative I am also engaged in.

From there, I went on to meet with Beth Gunzel at Growing Home, Inc. to discuss utilizing some intern assistance at Growing Home to start looking at the Englewood demographics, and help determine a pilot project location. Coincidentally, I ran into Gaston Armour at Growing Home, who is the Strategic Coordinator of the Office of Security and Emergency Preparedness for the State of Illinois. We had met on a previous occasion, and I have sent him materials on the project. He began discussing with me a possible location, a DHS building which was just recently closed down. We will be following up on that after Iowa.

Also at Growing Home was the project manager Orrin Williams – who provided me with contact information to a local alderman’s office. Orrin spoke to them about the project, and they say they are interested in discussing it with me.

After Growing Home, it was a stop at the Jane Addams Hull House Kitchen “Re-Thinking Soup” program. 60 gallons of soup made with a bag of rice and some celery form the store – and the rest from the Jane Addams own garden. It was wonderfully rich, as was the program.

The featured speaker, Rochelle Davis, Founding Executive Director of the Healthy School Campaign, spoke about the many issues and programs tied in to the Healthy Schools Campaign – noting that childhood obesity has tripled in the past thirty years. I’m very interested in the work of HSC – and hope to explore developing possibilities with their work.

I also – on the chance meeting side of things – sat next to urban beekeeper Michael Thompson, of the Chicago Honey Co-op. I had a great time at the co-op this summer for their Open House, in conjunction with the City Farm. Ask me some day to tell you the story of going from the Chicago Honey Co-op to the City Farm… suffice to say, bicycling in the city is faster!

Lots to think about this afternoon, as I went to Uptown – and walked a friend’s dog.