Exploring the Food System on the West Side: Summer Tour Series
Westside Waste Tour
Wednesday, July 29th 6:30pm to 8:30 pm
In 2007, about 3.6 millon tonnes of solid waste was generated in Metro Vancouver. Current initiatives like recycling, backyard composting, municipal leaf and yard waste composting are diverting over 50% of those materials. Metro Van has adopted the Zero Waste Challenge and hopes to get to 70% diversion. So how are we doing waste-wise on the west side? Come poke around in back alleys, garbage cans and compost bins with us. We’ll look at how grocery stores and restaurants are managing their waste. Are any of them composting? If not, what are the barriers? We’ll see a unique mid-scale composting system designed a local co-op housing development. We’ll check out some backyard bins too; 46% of Vancouverites are already composting in their backyards – many of those west siders! Learn about food recovery programs and innovative initiatives designed to waste not. Find out what you can do in your own backyard to reduce edible and inedible food waste.
The Gauntlet: A Look at the Emergency Food System
Wednesday, August 26th 6:30pm to 8:30pm
As we walk in our west side neighbourhoods, many of us run the daily gauntlet of outstretched hands, from the homeless to the NGO’s. We look at the emergency food system and the charity model and ponder: to give or not to give? Talk to service providers and learn about food programs on the west side that cater to vulnerable populations, as well as other initiatives that help increase access to fresh fruits and vegetables for all.
Food system tours $35 each. Register at info@gardenheart.com.
Presented by Garden Heart Productions (compostdiary.com)
and the Westside Food Security Collaborative (kitshouse.org/ link on community)
Sustainability Tours
Simon Fraser University (SFU) Applications Course – Oct 1-3.
Registration for full certificate program closes JULY 17
I co-teach this course which is part of the new certificate in sustainable community development jointly offered by SFU’s City Program and the Centre for Sustainable Community Development. It’s basically a three day tour. Here are a few highlights from last year. Vista D’Oro Farms, a beautiful diverse farm. After a discussion of food security and the agricultural land reserve, we sipped wine and shopped for artisinal preserves at their farmgate shop. Still Creek, one of Vancouver’s only remaining urban streams. Vancouver Film Studios and Canadian Tire have contributed to daylighting and restoring sections of the buried stream as part of their development agreements with the City. We also got a tour of the Film Studios and heard about their zero waste strategy. Regrettably for some, we did not see any stars. We went to the landfill and talked garbage. And we did a walking tour of Hastings and Pender and learned why one street had plenty and the other was a food desert. Find out more (including last year’s itinerary) at:
Gaining Ground Conference Tours: OCT 19-23
Register now for the tours in October at the Gaining Ground Conference. The theme this year is Resilient Cities: Urban Strategies for Transition Times. I will be leading four, resiliently themed tours along with the help of other experts. Visit a farm, stroll our green streets, walk through the infamous downtown eastside and the soon to be famous 2010 Olympic site.
With any tour registration, receive a one-time $50 coupon that can be applied to subsequent Simon Fraser University (SFU) City Program 2-day courses, in either the Sustainable Community Development program or the Urban Design Program. http://www.gaininggroundsummit.com/vancouver2009/vancouver2009_theme.htm
About Spring Gillard
After abandoning a successful advertising career, Spring Gillard worked at City Farmer, an urban agriculture group for 14 years. Her book Diary of a Compost Hotline Operator, Edible Essays on City Farming (New Society, 2003) recounts her adventures there. The book won a Garden Globe award of achievement from the Garden Writers of America. She has been published in numerous local and international media including Audubon, Organic Gardening, the Vancouver Sun and the Globe and Mail. She is currently finishing up a second book, this one on the politics of food.
Spring has spoken at events across North America including the Seattle, San Francisco and Vancouver Garden Shows and was keynote speaker at the American Community Gardening Conference in Toronto. She has given talks, developed and delivered courses, workshops and tours for numerous organizations and academic institutions including Simon Fraser University (SFU) and the University of British Columbia (UBC).
She has been interviewed on BBC radio, had a regular radio segment on CBC’s North by Northwest, was a popular and repeat guest on CBC Almanac, Sounds Like Canada and The Vicki Gabereau TV Show.
Spring sat on the Vancouver Food Policy Council for two and a half years and now volunteers with the Westside Food Security Collaborative. She is an associate at SFU’s Centre for Sustainable Community Development and co-teaches the Applications Course for a new certificate program in sustainable community development jointly offered with City Program.
Through her communications company, Garden Heart Productions, Spring plans special events, organizes green tours and helps promote a variety of groups working on sustainability and food security issues. compostdiary.com
Spring Gillard
Garden Heart Productions
Ph 604.714.1394/Fx 604.714.1396
www.compostdiary.com
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