Even if you missed week one, stop by to cook and taste some really healthy soul food! This week’s menu includes sweet potato biscuits, iron skillet cornbread, blueberry cornbread and sweet potato muffins with ginger.
Tag Archive | Shakara Taylor
OKToberfest!
Join us for these fall events!
Shakara Taylor to host OKT food justice event Monday
Shakara and her daughter shared many important insights at her April presentation.
Diagramming Your Food System
6 to 8 p.m. Monday July 18
Garfield Park Lodge
334 Burton St. SE
Grand Rapids MI 49507
On Monday, OKT’s special guest, Shakara Taylor, will help us to identify how the industrial food system functions in our neighborhoods and, despite its limitations, figure out ways to build a healthier food portfolio for our families and community. Whether you are a parent, grandparent or live alone and want to discover better ways to stretch your food dollar and improve your diet, this workshop is for you. OKT also welcomes those who work on issues of hunger, under-nutrition and food justice.
A mother, returning generation farmer, educator, activist-scholar and PhD student at Michigan State University, Department of Community Sustainability, Shakara explores decolonial pedagogies in the food justice and food sovereignty movements within the communal praxis of black agrarianism. Her personal journey of loving, healing and decolonizing is intimately wedded with working and learning with the land. She is committed to working with communities and using land-based activism to build food sovereign communities.
Taylor brought new insights on food justice
Shakara Taylor & her daughter, came from Lansing to share their vision of food justice.
On Monday April 25, Shakara Taylor led about a dozen OKT constituents and community members through an interactive evening that focused on creating food justice in our communities. As she spoke to “Diagramming Your Food System,” she shared that our current industrial food system is not broken, but rather working just like it is meant to, i.e., as a capitalist creation it serves very well as a profit making machine. Like LaDonna Redmond has asserted in her TEdX talk, Taylor stressed that there has never been a just food system in the US as, from the beginning, it was built on stolen land and by exploited human labor. (In the past that meant African slaves; today it means migrant workers of Latino and Afro-descent.)
Taylor asked the group to call on their memories of community and family as a way to help envision healthier food access for all. Some shared stories of parents and grandparents who grew and preserved their own foods — or got foods from relatives’ farms. Others spoke of a time when neighborhood families got together to gather, prepare and can foods together. A younger participant recalled growing up entirely on packaged, processed foods. In conclusion, Taylor asked each group member to share their thoughts on what the current food system looks like in contrast to what they would like it to look like.
If you missed out, you will have another opportunity to experience this enriching presentation. Taylor will repeat this program on July 11 and present another food justice program as the featured speaker for OKT’s November Women of Color Cook Eat & Talk.
Shakara Taylor to host OKT food justice event Monday
Diagramming Your Food System
6 to 8 p.m. Monday April 25
Garfield Park Lodge
334 Burton St. SE
Grand Rapids MI 49507
On Monday, OKT’s special guest, Shakara Taylor, will help us to identify how the industrial food system functions in our neighborhoods and, despite its limitations, figure out ways to build a healthier food portfolio for our families and community. Whether you are a parent, grandparent or live alone and want to discover better ways to stretch your food dollar and improve your diet, this workshop is for you. OKT also welcomes those who work on issues of hunger, under-nutrition and food justice.
A mother, returning generation farmer, educator, activist-scholar and PhD student at Michigan State University, Department of Community Sustainability, Shakara explores decolonial pedagogies in the food justice and food sovereignty movements within the communal praxis of black agrarianism. Her personal journey of loving, healing and decolonizing is intimately wedded with working and learning with the land. She is committed to working with communities and using land-based activism to build food sovereign communities.
Amazing Women of Color to lead OKT events
As part of its Women of Color strategy, OKT is bringing some amazing women to Grand Rapids to educate and inspire. If you made it to our February Women of Color Cook, Eat & Talk, you heard Lila Cabbil, president emeritus of the Rosa Parks Institute, speak on white
allies against racism via teleconference.
Lila Cabbil will be here in person May 21 to facilitate a daylong Anti-racism Summit. Lila worked alongside Rosa Parks for decades. She is one of the editors of the book Accountability and White Anti-Racist Organizing: Stories from Our Work. Lila continues to work tirelessly for water justice in Detroit and, now, Flint. In addition, she has worked with Our Kitchen Table staff on team-building.(We are truly blessed!)
Detroit food justice and media activist, Lottie Spady will facilitate OKT’s May 12 Women of Color Cook, Eat & Talk: Herbs from Your Garden as Medicine. A media-maker and herbalist who often lends her talent to OKT’s programs, Lottie spent many years working with the East Michigan Environmental Action Council (EMEAC). She utilizes a framework rooted in popular education, social justice, and social entrepreneurship to help develop relevant 21st century skills that community residents can translate into community and economic development. Lottie will speak about the uses of medicinal herbs we can grow in our own gardens. (OKT food gardeners grow many such herbs!)
On August 11, the Women of Color Cook, Eat & Talk will feature Adela Nieves speaking on “Food as Medicine.” Adela Nieves ADS, CCT, RMT is a Traditional Community Health and Healing Arts Practitioner, currently studying to become a Naturopathic Doctor. Deeply committed to integrative wellness approaches, she practices Acudetox (ear acupuncture), indigenous traditional medicine, cupping therapy, whole person natural care, and Reiki for individuals and groups struggling with addiction, PTSD, stress and trauma. Her philosophy is to support those in their journeys to tell their own stories and define health, healing, and wellness for themselves.
Next fall, Shakara Taylor will lead the November 10 Women of Color Cook, Eat & Talk. She is also facilitating OKT’s “Diagramming Your Food System” workshops in April and July. A mother, returning generation farmer, educator, activist-scholar and PhD student at Michigan State University Department of Community Sustainability, Shakara explores decolonial pedagogies in the food justice and food sovereignty movements within the communal praxis of black agrarianism. Her personal journey of loving, healing and decolonizing is intimately wedded with working and learning with the land. She is committed to working with communities and using land-based activism to build food sovereign communities.
Spring into Activism: OKT April Events
Activist, farmer, mother and MSU PhD candidate, Shakara Taylor will lead “Diagramming Your Food System” on April 25.
APRIL 18 6 – 8 p.m.
Food Justice Primer
OKT’s Stelle Slootmaker will facilitate an introductory dialogue on Food Justice at Garfield Park Lodge. Even if you’ve been to OKT Food Justice classes in the past, we hope you will stop by to share your thoughts and how you are working for food justice locally. At the conclusion of the dialogue, you are invited to stick around for a yoga nidra relaxation exercise. (Bring a blanket to lay on if you wish to practice this lying down.)
APRIL 22 6 to 7:30 p.m. Earth Day Spring Tree Tour
Laura Casaletto will take you on a foraging adventure in Garfield Park that teaches you to identify edible trees and shares information on other edibles growing in our neighborhoods. After the 30-minute walking tour, come to the lodge for snacks and dialogue on other neighborhood edibles. The Earth Day Spring Tree Tour remains one of OKT’s most “poplar” events.
APRIL 25 6 – 8 p.m. Diagramming Your Food System wsg Shakara Taylor
Learn to identify how the industrial food system functions in your neighborhood and, despite its limitations, figure out ways to build a healthier food portfolio for your families and community. A mother, returning generation farmer, educator, activist-scholar and PhD student at Michigan State University Department of Community Sustainability, Shakara explores decolonial pedagogies in the food justice and food sovereignty movements within the communal praxis of black agrarianism.
Our Kitchen Table 