When the Local Food Matters Working Group decided they wanted to host a community forum, they didn’t expect that more than 65 people would be jumping at the chance to get up at 8 a.m. on a Saturday and participate.
But that’s what happened. Not only that, but more than 100 people took the time to go online and participate in the group’s e-survey.
“There was a lot of really engaged discussion which was so great,” said Joyce deBoer, one of the founding members of the Local Food Matters Working Group.
“We came out of it with a set of five good priorities,” added Jill Dewtie, another founding member of the group.
Four of the priorities were identified through the responses of the e-survey, and one more came out in at the actual forum, which was organized by the working group with the help of Interior Health.
The priorities include: Shared Spaces, such as a community garden or even tool and seed sharing; Social Enterprise and Farmers’ Markets; Local Food Security and Policy; Food Systems, which means getting food from the garden/farm to the table; and finally Co-ordination and Communication.
“The last one was a theme that we kept coming back to, and it ties into all the other priorities,” said Dewtie.
Therefore, that is the priority that the group is going to focus on for the time being. They had committed to taking an action after the forum to make sure the momentum does not get lost, but the hope is that once the connections are made, smaller groups will take on projects that they are passionate about.
“There likely won’t be much happening until the fall,” said deBoer.
“Unfortunately this isn’t the best time of year to get stuff off the ground, because everyone is out in their gardens.”
The working group is putting together a report from what took place at the forum, and it will be distributed to everyone on their email list. They are also taking the time to educate themselves on some of the things other communities, similar to Golden, are doing.
“We don’t need to reinvent the wheel,” said deBoer.
“And there is a lot of things going on in other places.”
