Listen to OKT’s Lisa Oliver King talking up LadyfestGR 2013 on WYCE’s Catalyst Radio

Mar19

Jean Grae is the LadyFest GR late-night performance Friday, March 22 at The Pyramid Scheme.

Reposted from The Rapidian

INTERVIEW

After a successful inaugural LadyfestGR in 2012, the now annual event is set to kick off next week, expanding to two days of women-only musical performances, a variety show and workshops. LadyfestGR, on March 22 and 23, again will pass along all proceeds from the festival to a local nonprofit, and this year’s beneficiary is Our Kitchen Table – the food and social justice organization, in part focused on teaching women and children about growing their own food.

In the Catalyst Radio studio are Jes Kramer, an organizer for LadyfestGr, and Lisa Oliver-King, executive director of Our Kitchen Table.

Catalyst Radio LadyfestGR interview with OKT’s Lisa Oliver-King

 

Weekend events: LadyfestGR and OKT Convenes

Mar19

Ladyfest March 22 & 23

OKT will be presenting a container gardening workshop at Ladyfest, 4 p.m. Saturday March 23 at the 106) GALLERY, 106 S. Division Ave. Grand Rapids. Check out the full line-up of performers and workshops  at LadyfestGR.com . Please support Ladyfest! OKT has been chosen to receive proceeds from the event this year.

OKT Community Convening March 23 & 30, April 20 & 27

Let’s discuss, reflect on and learn together about the topic “What Does Access to Food Look Like in Grand Rapids.” We will dialogue about local food access, food justice principles and food politics at Madison Square Church, 1441 Madison Ave. SE, Grand Rapids.

 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.  Saturday March 23 Access to Food – Local Efforts, Facilitated by Jeff Smith, GRIID
Jeff Smith has been involved in community organizing and social justice work for 30 years and has  been doing media and popular education work for nearly 25 years, most of it through the Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy (GRIID). He also is an urban food gardener of 25-plus years and serves as Urban Farmer / Food Justice Educator for Well House.

9 a.m. to 1 p.m.  Saturday March 30 Food Politics Facilitated by Cynthia Price*, Greater Grand Rapids Food Systems Council 

Cynthia Price is the chair and co-founder of the Greater Grand Rapids Food Systems Council, a food policy council which has been around since 2001. Her day job is as a newspaper editor, reporter and photographer for two papers, one in Muskegon and one in Grand Rapids.

Coming up in April!

Lila Cabbill, president emeritus of the Rosa Parks Institute, will facilitate the April 20 convening. La Donna Redmond*, nationally renown food justice activist, will facilitate the April 27 convening. Look for more information in your email and on the OKT website soon!

 

     

Nationally renown activist, LaDonna Redmond, to lead OKT’s April 27 Convening on food justice

Mar12

LaDonna Redmond is at the forefront of the food justice movement. She currently leads an Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) project that focuses on health, justice and the food system. The project centers on health disparities resulting from the food system, from the farm to consumers—particularly as they affect low‐income populations and communities of color. It also entails creating universal Food Justice Principles. Our Kitchen Table attended IATP’s Food + Justice =Democracy conference September 2012 and took part in the co‐creation of these food justice principles.

As a next step, local collective gatherings across the nation are reviewing the draft principles. Redmond will lead part 4 of the Grand Rapids area Convening, hosted by OKT, on April 27. Parts 1 and 2 will take place 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday March 30 at Madison Square Church, 1441 Madison SE. All are free and open to all community members. Part 3 will take place April 20.

A speaker, radio host and former Food and Society Policy Fellow, Redmond was one of 25 citizen and business leaders named a Responsibility Pioneer by Time Magazine. She successfully worked to get Chicago Public Schools to evaluate junk food, launched urban agriculture projects, started a community grocery store and worked on federal farm policy to expand access to healthy food in low‐income communities.

“We have a food system that has largely been built on the backs of people who don’t have a lot of rights and access to our public policy infrastructure,” said Redmond. “We need to collectively better understand the inequities in the food system and make sure we include people who have faced these inequities in finding solutions.”

Here is a video of Redmond presenting at TEDxTC

Sickly sweet: The science and policy of fructose overconsumption in America

Mar11

Free Webinar!

Monday March 18, 2013 12 – 1 p.m. EST

REGISTER HERE

America’s’ sweet-laden diet is helping drive obesity and chronic metabolic disease. Join Dr. Robert Lustig, noted pediatrician, neuroendocrinologist and author, as he explores the science behind this phenomenon, as laid out in his new book, Fat Chance. Lustig also addresses America’s fructose addiction as an outgrowth of bad policies and a bad environment. His research reveals how food industry practices lay the groundwork for overconsumption of fructose, how government policy first enabled them, and then more recently turned a blind eye as sugar politics became charged.

Co-sponsors:

  • Collaborative on Health and the Environment
  • Health Care Without Harm
  • Healthy Food Action
  • San Francisco Bay Area Physicians for Social Responsibility

Garden education under way for 2013

Mar10

Compost class (2)OKT collaborative partner and biochemist Clinton Boyd, PhD. led classes on “How to Plan Your Food Garden,” which included information on making your own compost. This two-class series will be repeated May 11 and May 18.

OKT March Madness! Get in the game!

Mar6

How to Plan Your Food Garden 2013How to Plan Your Food Garden

10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Saturdays March  9 @ LINC
1167 Madison St. SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49506

Are you interested in planting your own food garden and don’t know where to start? During this free workshop, you will learn soil and food gardening basics with OKT collaborative partner and biochemist Clinton Boyd, PhD.

OKT Community Convening – RSVP by March 18

Let’s discuss, reflect on and learn together about the topic “What Does Access to Food Look Like in Grand Rapids.” We will dialogue about local food access, food justice principles and food politics at Madison Square Church, 1441 Madison Ave. SE, Grand Rapids.

  •     9 a.m. to 1 p.m.  Saturday March 23 Access to Local Food Options for Families Strained with Not Having Enough Food’
  • ·     9 a.m. to 1 p.m.  Saturday March 30 Current Food Policies and Draft Food Justice Principles. This session will be led by nationally renown food justice activist LaDonna Redmond (see attached). The Draft Food Justice Principles were developed using the People’s Movement Assembly processwhen food justice advocates from across the US convened for the Food + Justice = Democracy conference hosted by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) in Minneapolis, MN in September 2012. IATP has asked food justice advocates from around the nation to support and advance the co-creation of these food justice principles by hosting collective gatherings to review and “dig deep” into the draft principles. For more information about the principles, visit www.iatp.org. Advocates from outside of the Grand Rapids area will join us on March 30, as well.

Ladyfest March 22 & 23

OKT will be presenting a container gardening workshop at Ladyfest, 4 p.m. Saturday March 23 at the 106) GALLERY, 106 S. Division Ave. Grand Rapids. Check out the full line-up of performers and workshops  at LadyfestGR.com . Please support Ladyfest! OKT has been chosen to receive proceeds from the event this year.

“We Are Harriet Moving Tribute” March 10, 2013 at Alger Middle School

Mar6


S.T.A.R.S (SISTERS TAKING ACTION REVERSING STATISTICS) invites all community members to join the  We Are Harriet Moving Tribute, 4:30 p.m. March 10, 2013 at Alger Middle School, 921 Alger St. SE in Grand Rapids. The goal is to get 100 women walking for 100 minutes for the 100th celebration

Thousands of women and girls throughout the country will walk in solidarity to commemorate 100 years since the death of Harriet Tubman.

The event also seeks to promote walking as a way for black women and girls to turn health risks around. Today, Black women and girls face an unprecedented crisis. Black women are dying younger and at higher rates than any other group in the United States—living 3.5 years less than the national average. Studies show that 1 in 2 Black girls born in 2000 will likely get diabetes; 4 in 10 Black high school students are overweight, and; 4 out of 5 Black women are over a healthy body weight leading to deadly diseases like heart disease, stroke and diabetes. Walking 30 minutes every day and eating healthy, whole foods can prevent and reverse these diseases.

Visit  www.girltrek.org for more information.

Do we really need industrial agriculture to feed the world?

Feb22

Reposted from Don’t Protest Growtest

The biggest players in the food industry—from pesticide pushers to fertilizer makers to food processors and manufacturers—spend billions of dollars every year not selling food, but selling the idea that we need their products to feed the world. But, do we really need industrial agriculture to feed the world? Can sustainably grown food deliver the quantity and quality we need—today and in the future? This Food MythBusters episode takes on these questions in under seven minutes. So the next time you hear them, you can too.