Greater Birmingham Community Food Partners

Join our friends at WE Community Gardens for their annual Collard Greens Cookoff.  This promises to be a tasty, fun event.  Hope to see everyone there.

Some of our partners have fundraisers coming up!  Each of these have wonderful chefs and causes attached to them, so I encourage you to try to attend.  They are pricey, yes, but a great way to support the work of these non-profits so that they can continue the programs and work they are doing in our communities.

Well folks, it is happening!  We are currently planning the 2010 Food Summit.  It will be held November 12-13. Speakers are being lined up, events are coming along…trust me, it will be a great event for our community!

November 12 8am-4:30pm at the Avon Theater

November 13 will be a day of fun activities throughout the community.  Canning classes, cooking demonstrations and a grand finale in the park!

Check the Food Summit tab at the top of the page for more details as they become available.

Registration to open by October 1.

For more information, follow us on twitter at www.twitter.com/foodsummit2010

Fed up with school lunch?

August 30th, 2010

We had a great turnout at our Lunch Line screening Saturday, where we hosted the Southeastern premiere of a documentary that shows “how you can impact children’s health and work within the system.”

We were lucky to have one of the filmmakers, Michael Graziano, drive down from Nashville. The film, produced by Graziano and his partner Ernie Park at Uji Films, was alternately hilarious, sobering, and poignant. It follows six kids from Detroit who are just trying to make their school food healthier. In the meantime, it offers a comprehensive look at the history of school lunch; the current state of the program, which feeds over 31 million children daily; and the future of school lunch.

We packed the house with over 60 attendees, who together donated over $500 to help mobilize Alabamians to end poverty in our home state. These donations will be matched dollar-for-dollar by the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham.  Thank you!

Most importantly, we started a discussion about the school lunch program, the food system, child nutrition, hunger, and childhood obesity – one we hope to continue during our Hunger Workshop tomorrow in Huntsville and the Food Summit on November 12-13 in Birmingham. We’re planning further Lunch Line screenings in Montgomery and at UAB, UA and Auburn; details TBA! If you would like to host a screening with us, contact T.C. McLemore.

Our panel discussion included (above, left to right):

Amanda Storey, coordinator of Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities Jefferson County

Scott Silver, the Farm-to-School Coordinator for Jones Valley Urban Farm

Sharon Boshell, Area director for the Child Nutrition Program in Shelby County

Jennifer Horton, parent and chair of the CPC Education Workgroup

Michael Graziano, co-producer of Lunch Line

Amanda, our moderator extraordinaire, sent us these resources about school lunch reform:

• www.onetray.org
• www.healthyschoolscampaign.org
• www.chefann.com
• www.lunchbox.org
• www.farmtoschool.org
• www.fedupwithschoollunch.blogspot.com
• www.scoolfood.org
• Birmingham News article on free and reduced school lunches in Alabama
• School Lunch: A Peculiar History – written by local Birmingham blogger Jason Horn.

To advocate for the Child Nutrition Act working its way through Congress, see Slow Food’s Info on Child Nutrition Reauthorization.

Big thanks to Amanda, Jenn, Scott, Sharon, and Michael for bringing their knowledge, experience, and viewpoints to an excellent panel discussion!

Thanks also to our audience members, who asked great questions; Merrilee and Brad at the Bottletree Cafe, who generously gave us their space; and Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival, Slow Food Birmingham, and Greater Birmingham Community Food Partners who promoted this event all over the city.

**Thanks Robyn, for once again writing a post that I couldn’t even begin to try to compete with, so instead copied it directly!

I was planning a post about this, but then read Robyn’s post at Alabama Possible and realized that she had already done a wonderful job! So, I copied it word for word!

Things that are possible: ending childhood hunger

Childhood food security – image via npr.org

The Obama administration has pledged to end childhood hunger by 2015. What does that mean, and how can we reach that goal? NPR’s All Things Considered recently looked at this question over a 2-part series.

Part 1:  A Daily Fight to Find Food: One Family’s Struggle

Part 2: Eating Nutritiously A Struggle When Food is Scarce

The Diane Rehm show also devoted an entire hour last week to a discussion of childhood hunger in the United States.

As the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Bill moves through Congress, we know that these conversations will continue to be important. We cannot forget that 13.3 percent of Alabamians lack food security, while around 5.4 percent of our neighbors have very low food security – meaning they are chronically hungry.

Want to learn more about childhood hunger and child nutrition programs in Alabama? Join us for a screening of the film Lunch Line, August 28, at the Bottle tree Cafe in Birmingham. A panel following the movie will discuss the future of school lunches and child nutrition programs. This is the Southeastern premiere of Lunch Line, so buy your tickets today!

We also invite you to come to the table for the Alabama Food Summit November 12-13 at the Birmingham BJCC, where we will discuss food security, the food system, and creating sustainable solutions to our state’s hunger problem.

Thanks Robyn, for all the hard work you do.  Folks, keep up with Alabama Possible/Alabama Poverty Project by checking out their website and liking them on Facebook.  They are also on Twitter as http://twitter.com/alabamapossible

Mark your calendars, the Food Summit is coming!  November 12-13 at the BJCC.  What is the Food Summit?  It is a gathering of everyone involved with or interested in our local food system to assess the state of food in Birmingham and Jefferson County. One of our keynote speakers is Mark Winne, author of Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the table in the land of plenty.

We are working to make this the best, most informative food summit ever, but we need your help. Do you have an area of expertise related to community gardening, farming, food security or the food system? Do you have a specific topic you would like to see covered at the annual Food Summit?  We need your voices, and we want YOU to submit proposals for a talk or a break out session.

We’re looking for topics related to one of these areas of focus:

1.  Bringing food security to your community
2.  Food policy and advocacy
3.  Economic development and food

Please submit proposals by August. 15, 2010 to bhamfoodsecurity@gmail.com

If you are interested in helping plan and execute the Summit, please let me know.

Thanks to the Birmingham YMCA, as well as The Modern Brand for the wonderful video that spells out the obesity epidemic we are facing here in Jefferson County. We are very proud to be a part of the Health Action Partnership and fight the good fight.

Yesterday we convened the first meeting of the Food Security Task Force, which is charged with drafting a Food Charter for Jefferson County.  The meeting went swimmingly, with many voices all “at the table” to discuss the state of our food system and how we can improve upon it.  For more details about Food Charters, check out the Food Charter page (found under Food Policy Council header).

This is a very exciting time in Birmingham!

Many of you have expressed interest in writing letters to your elected officials about our food system.  We encourage that wholeheartedly!  In fact, to make it easier, here are the folks you need to know about.

Want to write a letter to a Government official?  Here are the contacts you need to know (click the link for contact info):

Local:
Birmingham Mayor: William Bell 205.254.2283
City Council: varies.  Click on this link to find out who your is.

State:
State House (to find your district, head over here)
District 52 is represented by John Rogers

District 53 is represented by Demetrius Newton

District 54 is represented by Patricia Todd

State Senate
District 18 is represented by Rodger Smitherman, a Democrat

Federal
U.S. Senators:

Richard C. Shelby (R)

Jeff Sessions (R)

Governor: Bob Riley (R)

Congress: Artur Davis (note this is for District 7, covering Birmingham and Jefferson County)

If you are interested in writing template letters that others can use to encourage a healthy food system in Birmingham, Jefferson County or all of Alabama, please get in touch with me.  What a great way to get involved.

Speak your mind!  Be heard!  Change your world!

Our friends at WE Community Gardens need your help to win a grant that would help them continue their wonderful work.

To read more about this contest from Nature’s Path and vote, head on over here.

The voting process is a bit confusing, so here are the instruction to make it a bit easier!