Category Archives: Notices from Community Partners

Breaking Ground

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Building Resilient and Innovative Food Systems

Join the Halton Food Council to hear from a panel of farmers, policymakers, community groups, and grocers as they share their stories about the opportunities and challenges to build a more resilient local food system.

Thursday, November 6th, 2014

8:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

A local breakfast and lunch will be served. For more information contact haltonfoodcouncil@gmail.com or call 647-830-0328. Space is limited.

Register at http://haltonfoodsummit.eventbrite.ca 

Project SOIL Webinar

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Shared Opportunities on Institutional Lands: Challenges and opportunities of on-site food production

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 3:00 – 4:30 p.m. EDT

In Ontario, several institutions are already producing food on their properties as a way to generate revenue; supply nutritious fresh food for consumption (by staff, patients, students, etc.); provide skills training and therapeutic benefits; and build social enterprises.

Project SOIL is a three-year feasibility study that explores the potential of on-site food production at public health care and educational institutions in Ontario.  This webinar will share how project partners at health care, social service and educational institutions went about getting gardens off the ground at their institutions, as well as some of the lessons we learned in the first year of working with pilot projects across the province.

Webinar participants will include:

  • Chef Christopher Jess, high school culinary arts instructor in Fergus Ontario, and the guiding force behind the Food School Farm (Centre Wellington District High School);
  • Doug Dowhos, Supervisor of Employment Options for St. Joseph’s Care Group and creator of the GreenWerks Garden social enterprise (Lakehead Psychiatric Hospital);
  • Tami Proctor, Registered Horticultural Therapist  leading the Victorian Garden project at Homewood Health Centre;
  • Louise Quenneville, Emergency Preparedness Coordinator and Project Manager at Hôpital Glengarry Memorial Hospital; and
  • Jenny Weickert, Our Farm coordinator at KW Habilitation.

 

For more information and to register, please contact Irena Knezevic at irena.knezevic@carleton.ca

Upcoming Events

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Organic Seed Workshops

As part of their work for The Bauta Family Initiative on Canadian Seed Security, Everdale is offering a special series of organic seed production workshops in 2014 across Ontario! Coming soon:

Field Day: Fundamentals of Seed Production
Date: Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Time: 1:00pm – 4:00 pm
Location: Guelph Centre for Urban Organic Farming
Cost: Pay what you can

Seed Saving and Seed Production Workshop
Date: Saturday, Sept. 27th, 2014
Time: 10 am to 4 pm
Cost: $85/person
Location: Everdale Farm

Read more…

 

The Harvest Table Fundraiser Dinner

Saturday October 4th, 2014 at 5:30 pm

Please to join FarmStart to celebrate the fall harvest and support a new generation of ecological farmers at the 3rd Harvest Table Dinner, at Earth to Table Farm in Flamborough, Ontario on Saturday, October 4, 2014. The crisp fall evening will be filled with charm and delectable things to taste! Join us for a farm tour and hors d’oeuvres, a four course family-style Harvest Table dinner, live entertainment, silent auction and more. Executive Chef Jeff Crump of Earth to Table (and the Ancaster Mill) will prepare the delicious meal featuring the farms fresh organic vegetables and pastured chickens, along with other locally produced organic meat, cheese, beer and wine. Read more…

 

Food Secure Canada Assembly

Food Secure Canada has announced the full programme for its bi-annual assembly, Waves of Change: Sustainable Food for All, which will take place at the Halifax Habourfront Hotel from November 13th to 16th.

With more than sixty workshops, plenaries, and working groups, these three days of action-packed learning by Canada’s food movement will provide an unique opportunity to tackle a broad range of food issues and to create effective, collective responses to current challenges of sustainability, hunger and health. Read more…

 

 

Upcoming Webinars

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Collective Impact and Community Economic Development
September 23, 12 pm Eastern

Canadian Community Economic Development Network
Increasingly, community organizations are engaging in collaboration as a means to try and solve some of the most complex issues that they face. But these challenging issues require a new approach, a new framework.

Join internationally recognized trainer and community builder Liz Weaver for a workshop that provides participants with an overview of collective impact and how this approach can enhance the impact of community change efforts. Read more…

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: CHOOSING THE RIGHT SYSTEMS FOR YOUR FOOD ENTERPRISE

September 24th at 2PM Atlantic / 10 AM Pacific

Food Business Bootcamp – Food Secure Canada
Choosing a mobile device these days can be overwhelming, never mind selecting the best information technology system for your food business. Yet understanding both your needs and the range of options to meet them can save you critical money in both the start up and ongoing phase of your operation.
Saloni Doshi, Strategy Consultant with New Venture Advisors.
Read more…

 

Food Hub Benchmarking Study 2014
Thursday, September 25, 2014 3:30 PM – 4:45 PM ET

The NGFN Food Hub Collaboration
Food Hubs are delivering on their promise of enabling identity-preserved, primarily local and regional food to enter the wholesale market, enabling small and mid-sized farms access to buyers that would otherwise be unattainable. But aggregation and distribution of food is a very thin-margin business, and hubs take on additional expense working with smaller farmers, providing technical assistance, and other grower and community services. Are food hubs able to support themselves with their operations? What are industry-standard financial and operational benchmarks for food hub businesses? Read more…

 

Measuring Your Local Impact

September 25th at 1-2 PM Pacific

BALLE (the Business Alliance of Local Living Economies)
Place matters, people matter, ownership matters… and how we measure them matters.
Local leaders are constantly asked to quantify their impact on their communities for funders, partners and standard reporting. The challenge is knowing the right questions to ask and having useful, accessible tools that are relevant for the New Economy.
In this free webinar, hear what BALLE is learning from our network leaders, hands-on case studies from two BALLE fellows, and an update on the Quick Impact Assessment for Localists, a new online tool BALLE is piloting in partnership with B Lab to help conveners measure outcomes among businesses in their communities. Read more…

 

Communities Defining Quality Collective Impact

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2014 – 16:00 TO 17:00
Over 49 communities are working together through the StriveTogether Cradle to Career Network to define quality collective impact. Join this online panel discussion to learn about the proven, rigorous approach these communities are using to build civic infrastructure and hear stories about how cross-sector partnerships on the ground are implementing innovative approaches to support the unique needs of every child.

Opportunity Development Co-operatives

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Unleashing Local Capital (ULC)  has a food system connection.   ULC helps communities establish local RRSP-eligible investment cooperatives to support local economic development opportunities   One of ULC’s first investment cooperatives is described in this video:

Sangudo Opportunity Development Co-operative

Like many rural Albertan communities the hamlet of Sangudo was in a slow state of
economic decline. In this video, some of the community members who were instrumental in developing the Sangudo Opportunity Develoment Coop, discuss how they created the organization that raised the capital to invest in local businesses. Watch YouTube video…

The Sangudo investment coop went on to make  additional investments in the abattoir, which has expanded from 1.5 staff at the takeover, to 20 staff at peak and it now has some of the most advanced meat processing technology in the province.  The group in Sangudo also invested in a new restaurant start up, which served a good portion of local food (including from the abbatoir).   We know have 8 communities with ODC with several are focused in investing in various links in the local food system.  Read more at the Alberta Community and Co-operative Association…

Growing the Food System in the Headwaters Region

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The Headwaters Food and Farming Alliance is pleased to release a report that is the culmination of in depth research into the challenges and opportunities of a local food system found in the Headwaters Region. The report offers 28 recommendations to HFFA and the broader Headwaters community on how to take action to support the development of a resilient, sustainable and productive local economy based on the rich agricultural resources available in this region. Read more…

Access the executive summary here (pdf 607kB).

A Place for Food in Public Spaces

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Wisdom from community builders

Upcoming webinar: Thursday, July 3, 2014 12-1 p.m. EDT

To learn more and register, visit www.cfccanada.ca/webinars

Join Community Food Centres Canada for a free webinar that will explore different ways community-builders are using food programs like community gardens, markets, public suppers, and bake ovens to animate local parks. We’ll highlight how the principles of placemaking can transform public spaces by highlighting local assets and serving common needs.
On the panel are Jutta Mason, who for over 20 years has led the transformation of Dufferin Grove Park to a vibrant, community-supported park, and Sabina Ali, who alongside a Women’s Committee in her culturally diverse neighbourhood of Thorncliffe Park, started a plein air South Asian bazaar and community Tandoor oven. Moderator Liz Curran, the Manager of the Regent Park Community Food Centre at CRC, is developing a suite of food programs to animate the newly re-developed Regent Park neighbourhood, including gardens, a greenhouse, and bake ovens.
We hope you can join us! Feel free to Share it on Facebook, forward via email, or Tweet about it (we’re @aplaceforfood and you can use the #placemaking tag)

When: Thursday, July 3, 2014 from 12 to 1 p.m. EDT

Where: Your Computer

How Much: Free!

To LEARN MORE and REGISTER, visit www.cfccanada.ca/webinars

In the meantime, if you’re interested in whetting your appetite leading up to the webinar, we recently wrote a piece about how Regent Park Community Food Centre is undertaking placemaking in a nearby public park; and if you’d like to learn more about how community gardening programs work in the context of a Community Food Centre, have a look at our info-packed module on the topic.

As with all our webinars, this one will be posted to The Pod Knowledge Exchange along with a host of downloadable resources a week or so after the event. Become a member of The Pod to stay in the loop about this webinar and others yet to come.

Collaboration on Local Food in Niagara

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My Sustainable Canada

Thursday, 15 May 2014 from 12:30 PM to 4:30 PM (EDT)

Jordan, ON

This event brings together public sector institutions in Niagara with the local value-chain to explore two questions that will help to get more local, sustainable food into Niagara’s institutions:

What’s already going on?
How do we collaborate?

This afternoon workshop will bring together participants from across Niagara for a dynamic and delicious session facilitated by My Sustainable Canada, the Greenbelt’s 2012 Local Food Champions.  The afternoon starts with lunch, gets fun with Pecha Kucha style talks, and goes serious with a facilitated discussion around collaboration between institutions.  See the full agenda here.  Attendees of the morning workshop hosted by the Niagara Health System are welcome to join us.

FarmWorks Receives National Award

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FarmWorks honoured among Tides Top 10 awardees

Tides Canada named FarmWorks Investment Co-operative Limited among its Tides Top 10 – a national annual award honouring some of Canada’s most innovative social change efforts that inspire people to take action, think in new ways and make the world a better place.

We chose them for: Creating meaningful partnerships with investors and with loan recipients, businesses and other lenders – partnerships that contribute to the growth of food-related enterprises across Nova Scotia.

“Our Tides Top 10 award is an opportunity to shine the spotlight on some of Canada’s most innovative social and environmental initiatives,” said Ross McMillan, President and CEO of Tides Canada. “Each of this year’s recipients has demonstrated innovation, creativity and impact while working at the intersection of social, ecological and economic considerations. We’re pleased to recognize and celebrate their collective dedication to social change.”

FarmWorks Director Ann Anderson said “We’re pleased that Tides Canada has recognized the work we’re doing to put food back where it belongs as a driver of economic and social change. Good food is crucial for our well being and sustainable local food is necessary for our security.”

Visit www.tidescanada.org/tidestop10 and www.farmworks.ca/home to learn more.

About FarmWorks

FarmWorks promotes and provides strategic and responsible community investment in food production and distribution in order to increase access to a sustainable local food supply for all Nova Scotians. FarmWorks’ Community Economic Development Investment Funds provide financing for farms, farm-based secondary processing, and value-added food products, enabling all Nova Scotians to invest in and build a sustainable agricultural and food system.

About Tides Canada

Tides Canada is the country’s largest public foundation dedicated to the environment and social justice – a network that connects an ecosystem of donors and doers who care about our people, our environment and our future.

Media Contact

Linda Best, FarmWorks Investment Co-operative Limited

Phone 902-542-3442, Cell 902-670-3660, lbest@ns.sympatico.ca