Agriculture Awareness in Metro Vancouver
Metro Vancouver supports agriculture awareness by providing funding grants to non profit organizations to educate the public about local agriculture production. A total of $30,000 will be granted in 2010.
Organizations interested in applying for a funding grant should review the eligibility criteria below and submit a completed application form at the Metro Vancouver website: http://www.metrovancouver.org/planning/development/agriculture/Pages/AgricultureAwarenessApplicationForm.aspx (Scroll up the page to see the mandatory requirements)
Application deadline: March 31, 2010
For further information on the grant program: Contact Theresa Duynstee at 604-451-6024 or send her an email
Growing Out of Hunger
Thursday, March 25, 7-9 pm
Featuring Will Allen, CEO, Growing Power Community Food Centre, Milwaukee & Chicago. Find out how this former professional basketball player, corporate sales executive and urban farmer is feeding 10,000 people and starting a community food revolution out of his inner-city farms in Milwaukee and Chicago. Will Allen is transforming the cultivation, production, and delivery of healthy foods to underserved urban populations http://www.growingpower.org/blog/. This event is free, however pre-registration is required.
Location: Croatian Cultural Centre, 3250 Commercial Drive (and 14th), Vancouver
For more information and to register: Visit the SFU website.
Workshops with Robin Wheeler
Coming up on Saturday, March 6th and Sunday, March 7th. Her offerings touch on a variety of subjects, including gardening and urban agriculture, food security, community building, traditional skills, and sustainability.
Robin is the founder of The Sustainable Living Arts School, and the author of Gardening for the Faint of Heart and Food Security for the Faint of Heart. She lives on the Sunshine Coast, and brings a vast wealth of knowledge and experience with her to each gathering.
The workshops are always a real treat. You can expect your knowledge to expand and your soul to be delighted...and sometimes for your hands to get dirty.
We hope you'll join us!
Cheers,
Ross Moster
Village Vancouver
www.villagevancouver.ca
Saturday, March 6th
Introduction to Medicine Making 9am-noon
Mount Pleasant
There are so many plants that are safe, easy to recognize and locate, and effective. We will learn some recognition techniques, and then how to make teas, poultices, tinctures and infused oils for personal use. We'll learn about solvents, supplies and storage.
Designing for Long Term Storage 1:15-2:45 pm (potluck at 12:30)
Grandview Woodland
Food storage is missing from our modern habit and building design. We will discuss food preservation (tubers, grains, onions, etc.) and how to choose locations for many food types so that appropriate storage areas can be created in apartments and houses. We'll also examine common problems and strategies to reduce waste.
Intentional Community - Shapes in Sharing 3-4 pm
Grandview Woodland
City dwellers have many skills and resources all around them, but may not have a mechanism for organizing and drawing on those skills in times of trouble. This class will look at the different shapes in sharing that take place so easily in rural communities and may need a boost in the city. We will talk about building trust and safeguarding our precious possessions while opening up to a wider community and its valuable support.
Apartment and Container Gardening 4:30-6 pm
Kitsilano
We will cover the problems of tiny gardens and will address some cures. We will talk about the best plants for small gardens and how to get the biggest, healthiest harvest possible.
Sunday, March 7th
Food Preservation 9-10:30 am
Kitsilano
In times of rising food prices, it is great to have skills in taking advantage of sales and seasonal plenty and preserving it for future times. We will cover the Top Ten preservation techniques and how to get confident in their use.
Edible Landscaping 11am-1pm (potluck to follow)
Main St.
This class teaches all aspects of edible landscaping - what it is and how to design one for yourself. We will look at areas such as microclimating, soil improvement and plant selection. In most cases we have time to go out and start one in the host's own garden.
Intensive Urban Microfarming 2-5pm
Fairview
Getting the most out of a normal urban garden can take imagination. This class assists us to boost production through a deeper understanding of microclimating, and of lateral growing, food cycles, succession planting, "shoulder" cropping and much more.
All workshops are offered on a pay what you can basis. A one hour workshop usually costs $10 to $15; 1 1/2 hour workshops $15 to $20; 2 hour workshops $25 to $30, and three hour workshops around $40. Our contributions to these workshops make it possible for teachers like Robin to expand and to deepen the scope of the important educational and social change work that they are involved in, particularly in these uncertain times.
To register:
(or to find out more about hosting a future workshop), please contact Ross at rmoster@flash.net. (Enrolment is limited to 15 people per workshop.)
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Village Vancouver's food networking get togethers with Robin Wheeler and others are community based gatherings which help participants connect with others who share a desire to engage around food and sustainability on a neighbourhood level.
These workshops are part of an ongoing VV series designed to help individuals, neighbourhoods, and communties transition into living well using substantially less energy. In 2009, we offered approximately 40 workshops. In 2010, topics are expected to include gardening, seed saving, energy reduction, community building, beekeeping, composting, food preservation, neighbourhood food networks, and backyard chickens.
Village Vancouver is the official Transition Town hub for Vancouver and the Metropolitan area, and there are neighbourhood initiatives in almost all of the neighbourhoods where Robin's workshops are being held. Transition Towns are positive, grassroot responses to the problems posed (and opportunities offered) by climate change and natural resource depletion. TT's started in England less than five years ago and have quickly spread all over the world.
We're currently engaged in organizing another 2 day Transition in Vancouver: from fossil fuel dependence to resilience workshop - to be offered at Langara College in the Spring. Stay tuned for details.
For further information on VV: www.villagevancouver.ca or Welcome to Village Vancouver in Common Ground magazine www.commonground.ca. (June, July, and September) For more information on Transition Towns: www.transitiontowns.org.
There's also a Sustainable Living Arts School in Vancouver: www.slas.ca.
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