County-wide Food Drive Committee Meeting!

County-wide Food Drive Committee

Date and Time:  July 29, 2013    7:00 PM

Location:  MSU Extension- Ionia 50 E Spraque Rd.,Ionia, MI  48846

• Recipient Organizations
• New Registration Process
• Volunteer Needs
• Changing up the routine for pick up day

• Mini Drives
• Registering for  Mini Drives
• Team Leaders Needed
• Anyone else we should be contacting?

• Canned Art
• Rules & Requirements
• Judges
• Prizes
• Resources Available in 2012
• http://ioniahost.com/fooddrive.html
• Blog
• Picasa Web Photo Album
• Facebook and Google+

Next Meeting:  Choose Date, Time & Location

Download a printable copy of this agenda: 

FNCS Recipe Box, Online Source for Healthy Recipes

FNCS Recipe Box, Online Source for Healthy Recipes

FNCS Recipe Box, Online Source for Healthy Recipes

USDA Food and Nutrition Service sent this bulletin at 07/16/2013 05:17 PM EDT

Check out the FNCS Recipe Box, our new webpage full of quick, delicious, cost-effective recipes for every type of cook.

You’ll find a wealth of nutrition information at the Recipe Box.  It consolidates the nutritious (and tasty) know-how of USDA’s Food Nutrition and Consumer Services agencies, Food and Nutrition Service, and the Center for Nutrition
Policy and Promotion.

From one central location, our new webpage greatly improves access to healthy nutrition information already available from USDA, by offering it in one central
location. Hundreds of low-cost recipes are available on the site, plus state-of-
the-art nutrition guidance – including a host of kid-friendly recipe ideas developed
during the First Lady’s Let’s Move! Recipes for Healthy Kids Challenge.

Encouraging Americans of all ages to make healthy nutrition choices is a key
focus of USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service and the Center for Nutrition Policy
and Promotion.

CFN July Meeting Minutes

Community Food Network Meeting

Date and Time: July 1, 2013

1:30pm to 3:00pm

Location:  MSU Extension Office (Ionia)

In Attendance:  Terry & Margo Burton (Portland Branch Produce Patch), Amanda Lask (Washington St Garden), Ross Pope (Mid-Michigan Dist Health Dept), Gordie Moeller (Farmer’s Markets), Nick Smith & Barb Hardy  (Shiloh Food Pantry) and Penny Beeman (United Way & Volunteer Connections)

Committees

• Awareness & Resource Committee:  Please submit photos and stories from your garden or pantry to be used in the CFN Blog!  See the pictures that are posted now at:  http://communityfoodnetwork.blogspot.com/p/2013-picture-slideshow.html  

Gordie has resources available about Farmer’s Markets and local Farmers who are accepting Bridge Cards.  These can be downloaded from our website at http://www.ioniahost.com/garden/resources.html with large posters available at the United Way Office or by emailing Penny or Gordie.

• Educational Committee:   As Tamice finishes up her AmeriCorps term, this committee is looking for a new leader!  Please let us know if you would like to help this group create educational resources for Montcalm and Ionia Counties!

• Gardens & Pantry Committee:

Portland Branch Produce Patch:  will not be planted this year, Margo and Terry are available to help with questions or concerns from your garden!

Washington St Garden:  The kids have planted a Soup Garden and are taking care of the Giving Garden at the First Presbyterian Church as well, also assisting with the ISD Garden.

Greenville Trailside Garden:  All plots are full!  The pavillion, fencing and rain barrels are now in place, still working on a gate.

Ionia ISD Garden:  Pictures uploaded to CFN Blog, garden is doing great and will soon be making their first produce donation to local pantries.

Ionia Animal Shelter:  Work day scheduled for July 11th

Greenville Community Church:  has a garden again this year thatnks to a volunteer who has put in alot of time and money to make it happen!

Belding Community Garden:  garden is in full swing and growing beautifully! We have a packaging sponsor for our food pantry items this year! We are also the Michigan Municipal Leagues Region 3 Community Excellence award winner!

Higbee Acre Garden: has tons of pictures posted to our blog, be sure to check them out!

Muir Gardens and Food Pantry:  Pat is taking it easy due to Health Issues, but the garden and pantry are operating as expected.  Pictures will soon be posted thanks to Jen Dugan!

If you can not attend the meetings, but would like to update this group please email iccfoodnetwork@gmail.com!

• Volunteer Recruitment & Projects:  Food Drive Committee Meetings on Monday evenings (Which works best? July 15th, 22nd, or 29th?  Which Time works better 3pm 5pm, 7pm?  July 29th at 7pm at the MSU-E was chosen for the first meeting!

Required Meeting for all Participating Food Pantries on Sept 23rd?

Upcoming Events

• Healthy Recipes Contest

The Ionia Kids Club has decided not to host this event this year!  If your organization would like to host a Healthy Recipes Potluck, there are resources available on our blog:  http://communityfoodnetwork.blogspot.com/2013/06/healthy-recipes-contest.html

• Harvest Weekend Events   

October 11th & 12th - We need Volunteers to plan this event!

• County-wide Food Drive   

October -November ending on National Family Volunteer Day on Nov 23rd

The next meeting will be the on August 5th at 1:30 pm at the Mid-Michigan District Health Dept.  There will be some nursing students from the Mid-Michigan District Health Dept joining us for this meeting where we will focus on needs of the Awareness & Resource Committee.

For a printable version of these minutes follow this link.

The Higbee Acre Update

Fresh Celery!  YUMMM!

Volunteer Plants that returned from 2012 gardening.

Early Childhood Celebration & Ice Cream Social

Learn about these family friendly community events hosted by our Great Partners by visiting this Great Partners Info Google Folder which will soon be available on our CFN Website!

National Food Day

National Food Day is October 24^th! 

As you may know, Food Day is a nationwide celebration and a movement toward healthy, affordable, and sustainable food that builds all year long and culminates in a day of action on October 24 every year.

The theme for 2013 is food education, with a special focus on bringing the public, especially kids, food education and cooking skills.  This serves as a great opportunity for our WIC clinics to highlight their new and ongoing efforts.

To help support our participation in this event, the coordinators of Food Day have created the attached PDF that lists ideas for how your WIC clinic can be involved. In the past, the Genesse County Health Department, for example, planned alongside community partners to host farmers’ markets events. This year, the Hawaii WIC Program will launch a "Be Sugar Savvy" campaign.

More information regarding Food Day Campaign can be found on their official website: http://www.foodday.org/

Food Day's national priorities address overarching concerns within the food system and provide common ground for building the food movement. Food Day aims to: 

• Promote safer, healthier diets: The foods we eat should promote, not undermine, our good health. Yet, every year we spend more than $150 billion on obesity-related health care costs, plus another $73 billion in reduced productivity.

• Support sustainable and organic farms: Currently, sustainable farms receive little to no federal support and often lack market access to keep them competitive. Meanwhile, the largest 10 percent of industrialized farms—which contribute to poor health and severe environmental degradation—receive 75 percent of all farm subsidies.

• Reduce hunger: Currently, around 50 million Americans are considered "food insecure", or near hunger, and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps) participation is at an all-time high. SNAP is vital to reducing hunger, but the program’s budget is under constant attack while federal measures to increase food access are minimal.

• Reform factory farms to protect the environment and farm animals: Today, most farm animals are confined in “factory farms”—sometimes containing as many as 50,000-100,000 cattle, hens, or pigs. These practices result in needless animal abuse and illness, environmental degradation, and harm the people who live in and around those facilities.

• Support fair working conditions for food and farm workers: 20 million workers throughout the U.S. food system harvest, process, ship, sell, cook, and serve the food we eat every day. And yet, many farmworkers earn well below poverty levels while the tipped minimum wage for restaurant servers has remained at $2.13 per hour for the last 21 years.

Click on the priorities for facts, resources, and actions you can take to help work towards a healthy, sustainable, affordable, and fair food system!

Be a leader of the Real Food movement

Host an event (or two) and bring the celebration to your community on October 24. Getting involved is easy. Anyone can organize Food Day activities in their community, whether you’re actively involved in efforts to reform our food system, or whether you’re simply interested in learning more about food issues. Food Day will be as successful as you make it.

Teach a cooking class to help build healthy relationships with food, or organize a vegetable-identification contest in your child's elementary school. A healthy potluck dinner with friends and family is another easy way to celebrate. College students could organize forums that explore how our dietary choices impact the environment, the health of farm workers, and the treatment of animals. Health departments could kick off weight-loss campaigns. And city councils could hold hearings on how to bring supermarkets and farmers’ markets to underserved areas.

Looking for something a little simpler? Try incorporating Food Day into an existing community event or harvest festival around the same time as Food Day. Invite farmers to talk with customers at your favorite local restaurant or farmers market. Or, host a healthy potluck dinner with friends and family as another easy way to celebrate.

For more event ideas and organizing tips check out our Guides for Organizers. 

Ionia ISD Garden Update

Ionia County Intermediate School District

Through a partnership between the Ionia County Intermediate School District and the Community Food Network there will be a new Educational Garden located at the ISD. AmeriCorps Members, Tamice Gates and Lyndia Ricter will be garden coordinators working to plan create lessons and schedule volunteers  If you would like to volunteer, please contact Tamice at the Ionia County Intermediate School District at 616-527-4900 or tgates@ioniaisd.org.

It only takes a seedling!

The ISD Educational Garden is pleased to recieve a $400 mini-grant from Katie's Krops to purchase some supplies for the ISD Educational Garden!

This is the front of the garden!  The inside was planted by staff and students  and contains several different types of veggies.  In front of the garden, Ionia Kids Club members planted potatoes and onions.  Along the fence you will find a row of various types of sunflowers.

Outside the fence:  Sunflowers  Inside the Fence:  Various vegetables marked with signs.

This is a row of squash!

Along side the squash is several rows of carrots!

These rows contain peas and beans!

This is the view from the back of the garden facing the parking lot!

Volunteers Needed! 

The ISD Educational Garden is open for volunteers to lending a hand!  The garden is cared for by ISD Staff and Summer School Programs taking place.  Additional weeding and watering is needed by community members.  If you would like to help in this garden contact the ISD at 616-527-4900 or contact the Community Food Network at iccfoodnetwork@gmail.com.

Volunteers will be able to enjoy tasting some of the produce during harvest time and remaining produce will be distributed through local food pantries or soup kitchens.

Hunger in America - locally!

How can you help in Ionia County?

Join the planning committee for the County-wide Food Drive, coordinated on behalf of the Community Food Network and its partners.  The County-wide Food Drive will consist of several business and organizations working together to collect food in October and November with all donations coming together for National Family Volunteer Day in November.

The 1st Planning Meeting will be held on July 29th at 7PM at the MSU Extension Office in Ionia!  If you would like to attend please RSVP to iccfoodnetwork@gmail.com!

Source: Hunger in America via Infographic File: Infographics and Data Visualization