FRESH the movie | Tag Archive

Posts Tagged ‘Community’

Posted on August 24, 2010 - by Angie

FRESH 1% Applicants

As you may already know, FRESH has decided, in the spirit of generosity, to give 1% of our 2010 annual income to a nonprofit who is doing incredible things in the food world (read previous blog here). We received 42 applications and as we have been reading through them, we decided that they were all doing such incredible work that we needed to share them with you. Please scroll down to peruse! Applicants are organized alphabetically.

In a few weeks, after we’ve gone through the applications, the FRESH team is going to pick 10 submissions to offer to you (50K FRESH supporters) to vote on. Stay tuned!

AmpleHarvest.org
The Ample Harvest campaign diminishes hunger in America by helping backyard gardeners share their excess garden produce with neighborhood food pantries.

Bountiful Cities Project
The Bountiful Cities mission is to create an urban land community spaces that produce food in abundance while fostering social justice and sustainability.

Bowdoin Organic Garden
The Bowdin Organic Garden strives to foster an appreciation for an understanding of taste and high quality food and draw the correlations between seed selection, growing methods, food preparation and pleasurable outcomes.

California Food and Justice Coalition
The Coalition promotes the basic human right to healthy food while advancing social, agricultural, environmental and economic justice priorities.

California Institute for Rural Studies
The mission of CIRS is to conduct public interest research that strengthens social justice and increases the sustainability of California’s rural communities.

Ceres Community Project
Through an integrated model, Ceres brings teens into the kitchen to teach them about growing, preparing and eating whole foods. The teens learn by volunteering as the program chef’s, preparing delicious and nutrient rich free meals for families dealing with cancer and other life threatening illnesses.

Collective Roots
Through the integration and implementation of two key program areas, garden based learning and food system change, Collective Roots is seeking to educate and engage youth and communities in food system change through sustainable programs that impact health, education, and the environment.

Community Agriculture Network
The mission of Community Agricultural Network is to engage students in meaningful dialogue about sustainability issues using technology, to facilitate relationships between students in classroom and people working on sustainable urban agriculture projects, and to motivate students to take action for sustainability in their own communities.

Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA)
CISA has brought together farmers and community members to support and strengthen agriculture in western Massachusetts through programs which promote local farm products, educate community members and consumers, provide technical assistance to farmers, and analyze and address gaps in the local food system.

Community Kitchens Northwest
This organization brings people from all backgrounds together to cook up good, healthy food to take home and eat later.

Cooper Landing Community School
Offers a program that is designed to create health awareness and to address social and community concerns through the use of skills, ideas and knowledge offered by people in their town.

D.C. Farm to School Network
The mission of D.C. Farm to School Network is to improve the health and well being of schoolchildren in the District of Columbia, and of our local environmental and food economy, by increasing access to healthy, local, and sustainable foods in all Washington, D.C. schools.

Engaged Community Offshoots, Inc. (ECO)
ECO works to strengthen communities through the recalibrating the regional food system in the Chesapeake region by introducing new ways of making food and money that are environmentally sustainable.

Farm Aid
Farm Aid’s mission is to build a vibrant, family farm-centered system of agriculture in America.

Farming Concrete
The purpose of Farming Concrete is to preserve and legitimize community gardens by collecting data and mapping urban sustainability.

FarmFolkCityFolk Society
The FarmFolkCityFolk Society has supported community-based sustainable food systems in British Columbia by engaging in public education with farm and city folks; actively organizing and advocating around local, timely issues; building alliances with other organizations; harnessing the energy of our volunteers; and having foresight into the future of food and agriculture.

Free Farm Stand
The Free Farm Stand is dedicated to aiding the food security and health of their community through garden and food education and the growth, harvest, and dispersal of organic backyard and community grown produce.

Full Circle Farm
An 11 acre educational farm that offers garden-based education to middle school children all school year long.

Garrard County Farmer’s Market
With a goal of promoting local food, the market serves as an avenue to educate the community about food and health.

Greater Grand Rapids Food Systems Council
Through policy, projects and education, the Greater Grand Rapids Food System council works to make the food system more sustainable, with an emphasis on affordable, healthy food available to everyone.

Hayes Valley Farm
Hayes Valley Farm’s mission is to serve as a community and agricultural hub empowering San Francisco residents to connect with one another, grow their own food, and learn about sustainable ecological systems.

Healthy Solutions
Health Solutions is working to enhance the lives of the undeserved, underprivileged, and/or marginalized and to help them make informed decisions through the creation of community based food systems allowing all community members access to healthy, affordable foods, quality jobs through agriculture and education and training.

Indiana University Food Studies
The Indiana University Food Studies program is working cooperatively with many organizations in their local community and on campus to promote new thinking about food,food security, and sustainability, with the a focus on food that is good for the community, food that is good for the environment and the future, and food that is good for human health and all its dimensions.

Just Harvest Education Fund
The Just Harvest Education Fund works to ensure that the public safety net of food and income assistance is strong, accessible, and responsive to people in need, to enable low-income people to navigate the complexity of safety net programs and to empower them to speak for themselves to policymakers on the issues that affect their ability to keep food on the table.

Kaslo Food Security Project
The Kaslo Food Security Project aims to build a resilient food system for North Kootenay Lake residents by working directly and in support of our regional farmers, retailers and residents.

Life Cycles Project Society
A predominantly youth driven organization that is geared towards education and building community connections through hands-on projects that work towards creating better local and global food security.

Michigan Organic Food and Farm Alliance
The Michigan Organic Food and Farm Alliance works to raise public awareness about the need for a decentralized, earth and people-friendly food system.

Mission Food Access Network
The Mission Food Access Network includes members of local groups and citizens who are working towards a healthy, sustainable food future for Mission. The goals of the Mission Food Access Network consist of decreasing hunger, improving nutritional health, and increasing local food sustainability.

Karpophoreo Project
The Karpophoreo Project is a ministry of Mobile Loaves and Fishes that reclaims abandoned backyards and front yards, church lots and empty lots to feed, settle, and employ the population most in need of the centering effects of a functioning local food economy, the homeless.

National Hunger Clearinghouse Program/ WhyHunger
The National Hunger Clearing House collects and distributes information about programs that address the immediate and long-term needs of struggling families and individuals in order to build the capacity of emergency food providers.

Northeast Animal Power Field Days
This annual event has become a clearing-house for educational and operational resources, building networks, and sharing experiences around the many aspects of draft animal-power, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, and local food systems in the Northeast.

Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Jersey
The Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Jersey serves the state of New Jersey and surrounding areas with year-round public programs including farmer meetings, workshops for homeowners and consumers, professional development training, farm business planning courses, and the annual Winter Conference.

Our School at Blair Grocery
The mission of Our School at Blair Grocery is to create a resource rich safe space for youth empowerment and sustainable community development. Our School at Blair Grocery envisions a community where empowered youth engage in reflective practice with others to actualize effective, replicable Environmental Justice based local solutions to global challenges.

Produce to the People
Produce to the People works to build food security and community health through garden and food education, the creation of green jobs for youth, and the growth, harvest, and dispersal of organic backyard and community grown produce.

Research, Education, Action and Policy (REAP) on Food Group
REAP is committed to projects that shorten the distance from farm to table, support small family farmers, encourage sustainable agriculture practices, preserve the diversity and safety of our food supply and address the food security of everyone in our community.

Rural Education Action Network
The mission of the Rural Education Action Network is to celebrate renewable land-use practices that advance the cultural web of our local communities.

Seven Generations Ahead
SGA advocates for pro-active community solutions to global environmental issues, and works with municipal, business, and community decision-makers to promote green community development, clean, renewable energy, eco-effective products, zero waster strategies, green building design, and fresh, local, and sustainable food raised using healthy practices.

Sierra Bounty
The mission of Sierra Bounty is to create a healthy, sustainable food community by uniting farmers with their local market and supporting efforts to increase access to fresh, organic produce for all residents of the Eastern Sierra.

The Lord’s Acre
The Lords Acre grows fresh produce to provide nutritious food from a local, sustainable resource garden in support of local nonprofit food banks.

Tierra Miguel Foundation
The mission of the Tierra Miguel Foundation is to inform and educate on the value of local, sustainable agriculture practices and to demonstrate these practices on our 85- acre working produce farm.

Triskeles
Triskles’ mission is to provide and run practical, experiential programs (Food for Thought, for one), for underserved youth, that emphasize sustainable, healthy practices which teach the importance and long-term benefits of making healthy food choices and other life altering decisions. The impact of these activities expands to their families and communities through the gardens they plant and harvest, the recipes they prepare and share, and the skills they learn while working on local farms (teamwork, time management, etc.) – all of which engender a healthy lifestyle for our leaders of tomorrow!.

United Methodist Ministries – Missouri River District
The United Methodist Ministries utilizes creative collaborations to work towards the eradication of hunger, poverty and racism.

Virginia Food System Council
The mission of the Virginia Food System Council is to advance nutrient-rich and safe food system for Virginians at all income levels, with an emphasis on access to local food, successful linkages between food producers and consumers, and a healthy viable future for Virginia’s farmers and farmland

YouthLaunch
The mission of YouthLaunch is to provide empowering service experiences for young people through innovative programs that combine the best practices of positive youth development with the transformative powers of service.

Posted on July 19, 2010 - by Lisa Madison

FRESH 1%: Practicing Generosity When Times are Tight

from Ana Joanes, director of FRESH

This week we decided to give one percent of all of FRESH revenue of 2010 to one of the incredible non-profits out there that are making a difference in the sustainable food movement. Although now doing so seems obvious, the decision did not come easy. Making FRESH was a labor of love, but the stress of unpaid debts and the responsibility to keep our office started to weigh me down. Soon I found, passion and faith were slowly replaced by an attitude of scarcity – a protectively closed heart and mind. My financial insecurity made it hard for me to truly appreciate what came out of what seemed to be a wild and out-of-reach dream 6 years ago.

For years, while making FRESH, I would wonder how my movie would ever get seen (the majority of independent productions never find their audience) and I would daydream of ways for my movie to contribute to the movement I was recording. And now, it’s happened. FRESH was released in May 2009, a little over a year ago, and against all odds — no money, no distribution company, no festival wins — it took off. FRESH has now been screened thousands of times around the country in people’s living-room, churches, libraries, school and universities, and, in independent theaters and art houses. And most importantly, FRESH has been used as a platform to raise awareness and transform inspiration into action. With our growing visibility (and mailing list) we decided to start our own activist campaigns, raising awareness and calling to action our supporters on a variety of issues around our food system.

With so much positive going on, I decided that I couldn’t wait for some secure financial future to start giving back. Hence came the idea to give 1% of our revenue to a non-profit that embodies the passion and hope that we believe will change the face of the sustainable food movement. We will accept entries for this grant through August 6th, choose 12 and then open up a voting process to our supporters (there are 50,000 of you!). Stay tuned!

APPLICATION PROCESS IS NOW CLOSED! SORRY!!!

Thank you,

Ana Joanes
Director, FRESH

photo from flickr user micah.e

Posted on June 15, 2010 - by Lisa Madison

The Fight Against Monsanto in Haiti

On June 4th, 10,000 peasant farmers gathered in protest in Haiti to burn over 400 tons of hybrid corn and vegetable seeds donated to the country by Monsanto. This was a hugely symbolic gesture and one that the rest of the world needs to listen to. Haiti is asking for our help in establishing a local, sustainable food system from the rubble that the country currently lies in. This is our opportunity to raise our voices in protest against Monsanto’s involvement in the fragile beginnings of true food sovereignty in Haiti.

This past Saturday, I was lucky enough to attend a Brooklyn church’s community meeting I heard peasant farmer Leader Chavannes Jean-Baptiste of the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP) share the concerns of Haitian peasants regarding Monsanto’s donation hybrid seeds. I was greatly moved by his words and I want to share them with you. Below are the highlights from his speech. Please note that the quotes are not exact as Jean-Baptiste was speaking in Creole and his words were translated into English.

Hybrid seeds are a poison gift. They don’t reproduce, and therefore cannot be shared among a community. Haiti does not yet view seeds as a commodity like the US does. These hybrid seeds threaten the cultural fabric in Haiti because they break the cycle of food sharing.

Jean-Baptiste believes that Monsanto has taken the opportunity of the recent earthquake in Haiti to intentionally introduce the seeds and destroy Haitian agriculture, creating a dependency on Monsanto each season for new seeds.

If the Haitian government accepts Monsanto’s seeds, rather than trying to build a system of food sovereignty, the Haitian farmer will become a day laborer, working for industrial farms. This would completely transform the economy to an industrial system instead of working to support farmers through a local economic system.

“We are an occupied country and want to recover our freedom, starting with food sovereignty. The struggle against Monsanto is not a small thing – they are extremely powerful. We need to unite ourselves – this is a global struggle.”

“Haiti is essentially road kill, and not even road kill that can serve as proper food. We are at the point that the dogs and vultures are tearing us apart. Companies like Monsanto are devouring what is left of us at this point.”

“This is a country that is used to struggle. We will fight and have the capacity for resistance, particularly when the threat is to the very fabric of our country. A large population of Haitians do not yet understand the implications of the relationship with Monsanto, many have never heard of the company before. The first task is to educate. “

I received a handout at this event that I can’t seem to find online that has a number of important and informative facts regarding Monsanto and Haiti. I’ve scanned it and made it available – you can VIEW HERE.

There were also three letters that we were asked to sign. Please feel free to download, sign and send.