The Food Project: Youth. Food. Community.

Our friends at b.good, local purveyor of hamburgers and related foodstuffs, have some exciting news: the beef in their burgers will now come from local family farms!

b.good have been supporters of TFP for years and they have worked with our program participants to craft several tasty community lunches over the last few summers, so we're especially pleased and proud to see them take this step. And excited to have a taste!

chiliA friend of TFP recently passed on the URL to the facinating new blog FED UP WITH LUNCH: THE SCHOOL LUNCH PROJECT. "Mrs. Q", an anonymous teacher in a US school, eats the lunch from her cafeteria every day and writes a post about it, complete with a photo. In addition to the lunch profiles, recent posts have included a FAQ on the project and an open thread that's pulled in some interesting perspectives from other school lunches across the country. Well worth a vist if you'd like to see for yourself what American children are faced with on a daily basis.

 that happen to mention us!

1. Jesse Kurtz-Nicholl of the Center for a Livable Future launches a passionate defense of school garden programs. It's news to me that school gardens need defending from anything but challenged school budgets, but apparently the movement is becoming big enough to spawn a backlash. Fortunately, "then they fight you" is step 3 of 4 according to Gandhi!
2. One of my personal heroes, Bryant Terry, includes us on his short list of "organizations. . .doing particularly effective work right now" in a brief interview with change.org.
3. Our School at Blair Grocery is working to bring food security and rebuild community in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans. And, they're hoping to use a couple of our books to help anchor a new Urban Farming Library. 

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Following are excerpts from an online discussion here about an anti-soda video from the NYC Dept. of Health. What do you make of the video and the related questions? 

J: *Warning* could gross you out. Do you think it’s effective in
delivering the message?

http://www.youtube.com/drinkingfat

A: I’m so thirsty now

K: I’ve succeeded in grossing out several staffers by showing this just now!

(if you're just seeing the preview of this, more meaty discussion in the full version)

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Register now for...

The Food Project Institute

Winter Institute - February 4-6, 2010

Lincoln and Boston, MA

Download Registration Form (PDF)
Many people come to The Food Project during the summer and are inspired by the well-orchestrated symphony of activities - with beautiful, healthy food, and highly motivated, diverse teens working with passion towards a common mission. It seems to flow effortlessly.

The truth is….our summers are the complementary outcome of the other half of the year when we run vibrant youth programs such as the Academic Year Program and the Internship Program and plan for the next summer.

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Next Tuesday, the On Your Feet Project is hosting round two of their Speaker Series at Suffolk University Law School.  Learn about local and sustainable cooking and eating choices just in time for the season of over eating. This panel of local growers, purveyors and eaters will offer up some great food for thought.

The Food Project has had a lot of exciting visitors over the last few months and our youth have been the hosts for so many of them. As our season winds down and our last groups of volunteers visit the farm, it's exciting to show how much we can accomplish in just one day in the fields.

Please take a few minutes to watch this inspiring new video and think about the impact that a whole season at The Food Project has on our local food system and how you can be a part of it. Anna Lappé offers a great introduction, and this year's D.I.R.T. crew really shines.

Practical Guide to Healthier Living - MSN.com

Underwater Cabinet Meeting Food crops require certain things from our environment to grow, including the right amount of rain (not like this past June!) and the proper range of temperature. Significant changes to the climate threaten to disrupt these conditions.

If, then, you also enjoy eating food, you may wish to join our friends at the Real Food Challenge, Slow Food, and hundreds of like-minded organization in participating in this Saturday's international day of climate action. The basic idea is to show world leaders, a month in advance of the climate negotiations at Copenhagen, that there is widespread support for a treaty that will keep atmospheric carbon dioxide levels down somewhere reasonable.

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Here's an account from TFP intern Jamila Kibirige on her experience participating in last month's Rooted In Community conference:

On July 28, 2009 I had the privilege to attend the RIC conference that took place in Portland, Maine. There were three organizations that were in charge of the conference: The Food Project, Lots to Garden and Cultivating Community.

The role that I played was to lead the opening ceremony where we talked about safe space and I was in charge of a group of different people from all over the country in making up rules for the conference so that they can all feel free to share.

The conference was 5 days long and we had a lot of different activities to do. After we arrived that Wednesday we met the different groups and had the opening ceremony. The next three days we had the opportunity to do some fieldwork on the gardens of the three planning organizations. We got to ride bicycles and it was fun because it was a lot of people on bicycles throughout the city. We had a lot of different workshops too.

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If you run in the local food crowd, you've probably heard about the Labor Day Eat-Ins happening this Monday. If not, a brief summary:

The Childhood Nutrition Act, which is responsible for the budgeting and implementation of public school lunches, is coming up for reauthorization this fall. A nation wide effort is being made to allocate more funds towards the cafeteria budget, and increase the quantity of healthy local foods available to school children. Currently, there are over 280 such eat-ins planned for this Labor Day. As an event organizer with the Boston Localvores, we're organizing one such Eat-In at the Boston Common, by the Gazebo, from 12pm-2:30pm this Monday, September 7th. There will be petitions to sign, information to read, and literature available for those who want to become more active in guaranteeing healthy, local food for school children. 

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