Greetings,
This email is going out to all of you who are either already in a food group on the Transition Whatcom networking site, or you attended the 2nd day of the Great Unleashing and were a part of the food planning group. At this time, I am no longer a TWIG (the initiating group) but will be acting on an INTERIM basis as the TW Food Security Workgroup Coordinator. Once the group is more solidified, I am hoping that this role will be one I can share with others on a rotating basis.
First of all, if you wish to NOT be involved in or informed about the Food Security Workgroup of Transition Whatcom, let me know and I will remove your name from the list.
The Food Group has been loosely connected since the Great Unleashing, and we had one awesome and well-attended potluck at Dale Krause’s place on Mt. Baker Highway. The next dinner was less well attended, but I am hoping we can continue those occasionally through the summer. At that first potluck, I introduced a possible organizational structure for TW, and showed how I thought the Food Security Workgroup might fit into that structure.
As we all know there have been many kinds of local food security/resilience building projects and organizations already doing great work, many for years. Therefore, it seems that our work should include the following general actions (this list incorporates your suggestions):
1. Collect a complete and very thorough list of all currently active “food security” related efforts happening in Whatcom County.
2. Contact the organizers/coordinators of these existing efforts and if they are not already involved, invite them to represent their projects or organizations in this Workgroup.
3. Ask them how TW and this Workgroup can support their efforts.
4. Discern where there are gaps in food security work in our County...and develop projects to begin to address those voids.
5. Support the existing TW groups and projects.
And eventually,
6. Assess our communities’ needs for food as energy prices climb and the bulk of our diet that comes from distance places or fossil-fuel-dependent industrial ag-farms becomes prohibitively expensive. We will develop a 10-20 year plan for dramatically increasing local food availability from individual home gardens to supporting the local “ag” industry and everything in between.
I have created a Food Security Workgroup page on the TW networking site, and you are invited to join that group to provide ideas and stay informed about the Workgroup activities. Please continue to use the existing food –oriented group pages that are focused on events, specific projects and organizations (BUGS, for example), and neighborhood groups.
Right now we are at Step 1- see above! Please join the Workgroup ‘group’, we’ll get a list started and share it there, and you all can add to it until we get a complete picture.
To join the Workgroup go here: http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/group/foodsecurityworkgroup
Kate