A series of three virtual workshops to provide meaningful peer-learning and partnership building opportunities across the Puget Sound regional food system in response to the COVID-19 crisis. 

These workshops will spotlight new models and programs that food businesses, community members, and organizations have developed to address the negative impacts of the pandemic. We’ll identify opportunities for collaboration and contribution to support their work and explore how these new systems can help build a more resilient, sustainable, and just local food economy going forward.

Farm to Food Assistance: Meeting Community Needs Long-Term

Thursday, 11/12/20, 10am-11:30am

WA state has seen food insecurity double since the onset of the pandemic, with 40% of food assistance recipients having never accessed a food assistance program before. Food banks and pantries have seen increases in need from 40% to even 600% in some communities. Because of the risk to both volunteers and food recipients, in-house shopping models have had to make way to pre-packed food box deliveries, where transportation is in short supply and where the demand for food is outstripping what’s available, in part due to centralized supply chains. At the same time, farmers and producers lost whole markets due to business and farmers market closures or restrictions and found themselves with an excess of product.

In order to address the needs of both the agriculture sector and those in need of food assistance, the USDA created the Farmers to Families Food Box program to direct those farm products to food insecure households. At the same time, a number of local organizations were created or expanded with a variety of different models to provide a similar service and address the gaps that remained as they found resources insufficient to meet the extreme demand. 

We’ll discuss how these new programs have been able to create local supply chains between local farms and producers and food assistance organizations while also providing fresh, nutritious, and culturally relevant foods to communities in need. We’ll hear from folks who have created or are managing those programs to see what’s working, and where we can continue to replicate the benefits in future food assistance programming — in the near-term and beyond the pandemic. We’ll also look at how the farm and food business community can provide support now to help build a stronger local food pipeline for the future and explore where there are funding models that can provide access to fresh, nutritious, culturally relevant foods without emergency funding.

Farmers, food preservers and producers, distributors, food service, retailers, food recovery, food access, and food assistance service providers are all invited to join to listen and contribute to the conversation.

Ariel Bangs, Chef & Owner of Healthy Creations and Founder of Plant Based Food Share

As a private chef and baker, Ariel is the visionary of Healthy Creations, a culinary anthropology company. She creates specialty meals and desserts for those with food sensitivities—a much needed addition to the catering world. She is the founder of Plant Based Food Share, which is working to eliminate food insecurity and improve the health & well-being of the diverse & underserved communities impacted by hardships due to COVID-19, poverty, and dietary racism.

Roxana Pardo Garcia, Project Lead and Co-creator of Feeding el Pueblo

Roxana Pardo Garcia aka La Roxay is a self-identifying Hood Intellectual Xingona who was born and raised on occupied Coast Salish Territory. Roxana is the Founder of La Roxay Productions and the current Owner, Cultural Worker, and Certified Xingona.

Her 10+ years of Community involvement and organizing include being a youth worker – specializing in working with Black, Indigenous, Youth of color – a community engagement expert, mentor, and a spirited South King County advocate.

Roxana uses indigenous knowledge and her genetic memories to do work that will allow people to live with dignity, respect, self and collective determination – because we know, nothing will liberate the hood, but the hood itself.

Gary Newte, Director of Sourcing and Procurement at Northwest Harvest.

Gary has been working in a variety of roles at Northwest Harvest over the last 12 years.

Maddie Price, Coordinator for the King County Farmers Share program of Harvest Against Hunger

Madeline (Maddie) Price holds an M.S. in Conservation & Rural Development from the University of Kent, as well as experience as an environmental educator and volunteer coordinator to engage the public in ecological monitoring and stewardship and in organic farming. 

Maddie now coordinates the King County Farmers Share program of Harvest Against Hunger, based in Seattle. Harvest Against Hunger (formerly Rotary First Harvest) is a nonprofit that tackles hunger and food waste by building partnerships along the supply chain, connecting farms, food pantries, truckers, and volunteers to increase access to fresh, whole produce across Washington–and across the US through the AmeriCorps Harvest VISTA program.

Andrew Yokom, General Manager at the Puget Sound Food Hub

Andrew graduated from Macalester College in St. Paul, MN after studying Biology and Environmental Science, developing a passion for understanding and improving American agriculture through local food systems development.

After serving as the Operations Manager at the Great Basin Community Food Cooperative in Reno Nevada for 5 years, Andrew became the General Manager at Puget Sound Food Hub. This robust farmer-owned cooperative operates in the Puget Sound region to market, aggregate and distribute locally produced food from farms to restaurants, hospitals, preschools, grocery stores, universities and more. They share a vision to provide our region with direct access to locally produced foods while supporting the sustainability of their local farms.

The Good Food Resilience Series is an initiative of Seattle Good Business Network’s Good Food Economy program, connecting the Puget Sound food community in order to strengthen the local food pipeline and build a resilient, sustainable, and just local food economy. Made possible with support from a Regional Food System Grant from King Conservation District.
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