You're Invited to a Food Justice Table

[Guest guest]

Wow!  Just reading this invitation makes me feel like we're not alone in our

efforts.  There are others who are also cultivating a position on food rights

and food freedom here in Minnesota.

 

Happy reading,

 

Mel O.

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Dear People Who Live and Work in ,

My name is Boehnke and I'm part of a small, multi-racial group of

neighbors that

have been meeting for 8 months, supporting each others backyard gardens, doing

a food distribution every Sunday at 2pm at Peavey Park,

and working to create a safe community outside of policing. As part of our

work, we want to bring together all the exciting food organizing going on in

to meet each and figure out how we can build together.  Therefore!

You are cordially invited to a Roundtable Discussion on Food Justice in

on Thursday December 1st, 7-9pm at the Waite House Community Room, 2529 13th

Avenue S, Minneapolis.

This roundtable will convene people who are active in organizations and

projects that impact the food system. The goal of this gathering is to

connect our knowledge, resources and work to build more neighborhood capacity

around food justice.

At the December roundtable, we will:

* Learn about each others work

* Hear a proposed framework for food justice

* Agree upon shared goals for building capacity in the neighborhood

* Discuss what each of us can offer toward those goals and formulate next steps

We envision the group reconvening once more in February to

line everything up for moving into the spring and to give ourselves time to

engage new leadership in .

We'd also like to invite you to be part of the process of building for this

event, specifically by sitting down and talking about the work you do, what

you're about, and giving your feedback on the process above and vision below,

and inviting additional participants.

Please RSVP to dboehnke@... along with times you can meet up to chat as

this meeting will only be as good as the efforts that go into it.  We are

excited to meet you and to see what can come of neighbors working together.

Sincerely,

Boehnke and other neighbors

 

Vision for a Food Justice Table—Draft to Circulate for Feedback

 

We, residents seek to…

1. Grow access to fresh, healthy, food as a community resource for ourselves

and our neighbors.

2. Produce food as a step in our community taking back ownership of the systems

required for our survival and prosperity. 

 

3. Center the interests and leadership of those most

impacted by the systems in which we live, who are also the mainstream of

, working class people, people of color in particular

 

4. Ensure that the benefits of food production are equitably

distributed and contribute to neighborhood development, not neighborhood

displacement through gentrification.

 

5. Organize with the broader vision of everyday people in taking back

our power to address the whole range of issues that affect

us, and doing so such that we—not the city government, businesses, or

nonprofits—control the process.

To achieve these goals,

we seek to create a neighborhood-wide process to bring together people across

to strengthen existing networks, build new ones, and increase our

capacity to bring about concrete benefits for people in . We envision

goal setting around backyard gardening, urban farming, food preservation,

animal husbandry, food distribution, composting, and more.

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