Pocket Markets in 2011

3rd Saturday of the month,

January 15

February 19

March 19

April 16
May 21

June 18

Last Pocket Market in 2010

  Sunday, December 5th

Produce for this Sunday's pocket market

LOCAL (BC)
Gala apples
Cabbage
Beets
White mushrooms
Yukon potatoes
Campari tomatoes
Butternut squash

 
ORGANIC 

Green leaf lettuce
Sweet Potatoes 

Mandarins oranges

 

Trout Lake Cedar Cottage Food Security Network newsletter for November 2010

A few people have asked how far their money can go at TLCC's monthly Pocket Market. In the photo you see what $10.40 in cash (or 8 Pocket Market Coupons) was able to purchase at the last Pocket Market held on Nov 14th. We think it's a great deal!

Local organic: Swiss chard

Non local, organic: Bananas

Local non-organic: Gala apples, russet potatoes, beets, peppers, tomatoes and carrots

Low income, Pocket Market Coupon participants buy 8 coupons for $8.00. TLCC then buys local and/or organic produce at a wholesaler and passes these savings on to coupon holders. Cash sales have a small mark-up over wholesale prices. Profits from these cash sales go to support the program.

In October, TLCC asked you what you'd like to see more of in 2011. Overwhelmingly, members chose workshops. Sometime between February and the end of March we will be hosting 2 workshops, 1. Growing mushrooms, 2. Drying fruit and vegetables. I am looking for workshop facilitators. If you or someone you know has the skills, knowledge and appetite to give a workshop on these topics, let me know!

Next TLCC Pocket Market:
Day: Sunday, December 5th
Time: 10am to 1pm
Place: 2290 E 25th Ave, just west of the Nanaimo SkyTrain Station
Link: Map to Pocket Market
Link: December winter food calendar "wallpaper" for your computer


Here's a summary of this month's newsletter:

1. Bella Coola Flood - Farm Fundraiser Film Event
2. Evergreen Foundation, a chance to give back to a really great organization
3. Community Kitchen Leadership Workshop
4. Permaculture Design and Community Resilience Workshop

Bella Coola Flood - Farm Fundraiser & Film Event
Day: Tues, Dec 7,
Time: 6pm
Place: Britannia Community Centre - Canuck's Family Education Centre (Upstairs Eastside Family Place)
Cost: $10, Silent Auction, food

Bella Coola farmers were recently hit by sever floods. Due to the realities of the agriculture industry the Bella Coola farmers work off the farm to make ends meet and are thus ineligible for Provincial Emergency Assistance. These farmers are key players in regenerating their local food system and in increasing the community's access to high quality local produce. The community lost over 270 tons of winter feed, livestock, fencing, equipment, tools, heritage seeds, heritage fruit trees, corrals and paddocks, barns, market gardens, pasture, and acreage washed down the river. We depend on our farmers for our food and they are appealing for our help.

Grandview Woodland Food Connection, FarmFolkCityFolk, Discovery Organics presents
Film: Mammalian, Canada, 2010
Day: Tues, Dec 7
Time: 6:30 - 7:30pm

Frank Wolf and Taku Hokoyama strike out on a 2,000 km Arctic canoe journey through the largest wilderness area in North America. With a sense of humour and purpose, they track down politicians, First Nation chiefs, elders and others living in the few communities that frame the wilderness in order to present a clear picture of the area and the issues that face the land and its people.

• Official Entry - Vancouver Film Festival, 2010

Film: Force of Nature, Canada, 2010
Day: Tues, Dec 7
Time: 8 - 9:30pm
(Please note: Film change. Wasteland cannot be screened at this time)

The film interweaves the Force of Nature lecture with scenes from Suzuki's life and lifetime – the major social, scientific, cultural and political events of the past 70 years.

In this biography of ideas, Suzuki articulates a core, urgent message: We have exhausted the limits of the biosphere and it is imperative that we rethink our relationship with the natural world. He looks unflinchingly at the strains on the interconnected web of life and offers up a blueprint for sustainability and survival.

Evergreen Foundation, a chance to give back to a great organization
You may have seen the amazing work being done by members and volunteers of the Cedar Cottage Garden. This was in part funded by the Evergreen Foundation through their Walmart Grant.

Evergreen has submitted a project called Nature Playground to the Aviva Community Fund and they need you to help them succeed. Nature Playground will provide the opportunity for children to connect with nature at Evergreen Brick Works in the best way possible: through food, play and hands-on learning. For more information about Evergreen Brick Works, please follow this link: http://ebw.evergreen.ca/

Help children connect with, play in and learn from nature by voting daily and telling your friends.
The way the fund works is that Nature Playground is competing with other projects through an online competition to make it to the final round of judging. Show your support for Evergreen and the Nature Playground by voting here: http://www.avivacommunityfund.org/ideas/acf9748


Community Kitchen Leadership Workshop
Day: Thurs, Dec 2, 2010
Time: 9:00 am - 2:30 pm
Location: Vancouver Food Bank, 1150 Raymur Ave.
Cost: $45.00 (lunch provided).
To register: Contact Darlene Tanaka, at 604-216-2325 or darlenet@foodbank.bc.ca
or complete and email the Community Kitchen Leadership Workshop Registration Form to Darlene.

For those of you who are interested in attending but must travel over 100km to get to Vancouver, travel and accommodation subsidies are available. For more information, see their subsidy application form.

During the leadership workshop you will have the opportunity to find out more about community kitchens, different ways a group can work and how you can lead or start a community kitchen. Learn the history of the community kitchen movement and the effect it has had around the province. Hear about the different kitchen models that run successfully in our communities. Experience a community kitchen first hand! Lunch will be provided. See their poster and share it in you community.

Please note: Payment required upon registration. Cancellations must be done at the latest, 72 hours before. No refunds for no-shows. The workshop may be rescheduled if registration numbers are not met.

Permaculture Design and Community Resilience
Saturday November 27th 9 - 5 and,
Sunday the November 28th 9 - noon
Cost: $100 / $50 students and seniors / scholarships available; no one turned away for lack of funds.
To register: Strathcona Community Centre 604.713.1838 (course no. 46500.401ST)
For scholarship or general information: Erin Innes erininnes@gmail.com or Ross Moster ross@villagevancouver.ca or visit www.villagevancouver.ca
Free public Post Carbon Visioning event to follow from 1-5

About the Workshop:
Learn how the fundamentals of Permaculture design can come out of the garden and into all aspects of our lives and community! This two-day workshop will show you the tools that Permaculture has to offer to redesign our social and cultural landscape for a localized, low-energy future. From our personal frustrations and fears to the global challenges we all share, this workshop is your chance to engage your head, heart, and hands in creating a more resilient and participatory response to peak oil, climate change, and energy descent.

What is Permaculture?
Permaculture is a system of tools, strategies, and methodologies for designing human systems that function like natural systems. Permaculture presents a way of understanding and taking action in the world that allows us to create a "permanent culture," from farming to economics to education, that is sustainable indefinitely and that becomes more abundant with time.

What is Resilience?
Resilience is the ability of a system -- an ecosystem, an economic system, a culture -- to withstand shocks, stresses, and upheavals, to evolve and adapt without losing its basic cohesion and form.

Eat well and eat local.

TLCC Food Security Network News October 2010

With October being the harvest time of year there are lots of activities and news items. Please share with friends and family!

The Trout Lake Cedar Cottage Food Security Network is now a registered society with the Province of BC. I’d like to introduce you to those who will be guiding TLCC over the next 12 months. Our 5 board members are:

• Charito Gailling, Community Developer – Seniors, Vancouver Coastal Health
• Darlene Richardson, Community Developer for BC Housing
• Marlene Bell, Program Manager, Reclaiming Our Spirit
• Sherri Maunsell, community member
• Tabitha Marie Geraghty, Operations Manager, Helping Spirit Lodge

If you’d like to get involved, have ideas for projects or want to put on a workshop please let me know. Send an email to tlccfoodsecurity(a)gmail.com.

In this edition of the newsletter:

• TLCC Survey
• TLCC Winter Food Calendar Project
• TLCC Pocket Market
• EYA’s Green Graffiti at the Lux
• October food events

TLCC Survey
Taking a page from the Talk Green to Us campaign from the City of Vancouver TLCC has created a survey to learn what you want to see and do in our neighbourhood. Front and backyard gardening parties? Neighbourhood chicken coops? Gardening and canning workshops? Tell us your ideas by Wednesday October 27th. Then, in a November survey you can vote for your favourite suggestion. The top ideas will guide TLCC grant applications in 2011 and I hope will draw like minded people together to work on projects.

Go to: TLCC Survey

TLCC Winter Food Calendar Project
We are heading into the cold season now. Some of you may be growing hardy greens or perhaps you’ve turned to canning and drying. We invite you to share your vision of local food in the winter and be part of the TLCC Winter Food Calendar Project. These monthly calendars will show a beautiful winter food photo with a calendar which you can use on your computer desktop at home or at work.

From October until April TLCC will include a calendar image for your computer desktop with the monthly newsletter. Send me a photograph (landscape format, jpeg high resolution, 1000 or more pixels wide) and a paragraph on how you have been winterizing your food supply, by the 20th of each month. Our new TLCC board will pick the best photo and story for the upcoming newsletter and calendar.

October’s calendar image is from my neighbour Tony and Lina’s greenhouse which is still full of big, beautiful, green (and blight free) tomatoes. They save their seed every year and plant a forest of tomato seedlings in the early spring which they then plant in their unheated greenhouse. Over the years I have been the grateful recipient of many tomato seedlings. The photo of their tomatoes is available at: flickr.

If you still have healthy green tomatoes on the vine, here is how you can store them and ripen them indoors, into late November:

“Pick from vigorous vines. Sort tomatoes for ripeness. Pack green tomatoes one or two layers deep in shallow boxes or trays for ripening. Separate with layers of paper or individually wrap each tomato. At 55˚F mature green tomatoes will ripen slowly in 25–28 days. At 65˚F–70˚F tomatoes will ripen faster-in about 14 days. Store in unheated room or airy cellar.”

Washington State University: EB1326 Storing Vegetables and Fruits at Home.

TLCC Pocket Market
The next Pocket Market will be on Sunday October 17th at 2290 East 25th just west of the Nanaimo SkyTrain Station. Come buy local and organic fruit and vegetables at reasonable prices right in our neighbourhood. This market goes indoors on rainy days and will continue throughout the winter. Have a cup of tea while you shop! Where else can you do that!

Here is a map showing the TLCC Pocket Market location.

Mark your calendar with the upcoming dates for the Pocket Market.

2010-2011 schedule, Sundays from 10am to 1pm:

• November 14
• December 5
• 2011 dates, to be announced
  

Green Graffiti at the Lux
On Sept. 16^th, 2010 The Environmental Youth Alliance joined with professionals to complete the installation of a living wall at The Lux at 65 East Hastings Street. The living wall is part of the EYA’s Green Graffiti Project, and the Lux - a transitional housing program- is one of four sites chosen for the project. A crew from EYA worked together with carpenter and long time EYA ally Sal, and Kevin from Streamline Enterprises who graciously volunteered his time. Green Graffiti is a project to engage local citizens in the green building movement through the creation of green or living wall gardens. The next step at the Lux is to teach residence there how to maintain the wall, and grow there own, fruits, veggies, and herbs from the wall.

EYA on the web: www.EYA.ca

October and November food events
Instead of re-listing events and activities here, take a look at the events calendar at SharedHarvest.ca where you can see everything at a glance in the convenient calendar view.

Here are a few event highlights to entice you:

Oct 16 Fermentation workshop
Oct 16 World Food Day Market
Oct 21 YWCA Farmers Market in downtown Vancouver

For the full list go to: www.SharedHarvest.ca/MetroVancouver

That's it for now. Please take the time to fill in the survey (it's short) and I hope to see you either at an event or at the Pocket Market.

Erin Nichols
Trout Lake Cedar Cottage Food Security Network
email: tlccfoodsecurity(a)gmail.com

TLCC Pocket Market Coupon Program

Well, after a 6-month hiatus TLCC is back, addressing food security in Trout Lake Cedar Cottage!

TLCC was one of five Neighbourhood Food Networks chosen to receive the Greenest Neighbourhood grant from the City of Vancouver as part of the City’s Greenest City 2020 initiative. TLCC received funding for the Pocket Market Coupon Program which will bring affordable, local and/or organic produce to our neighbourhood. The pocket market will be located near Vanness Ave and Nanaimo St at BC housing's Brant Villa, just east of the Cedar Cottage Garden.

A pocket market is like a small farmers’ market except that farmers don’t usually do the selling. Instead, produce is bought at wholesale prices, either directly from farmers or through a distributor, and sold in areas that don’t have convenient access to fresh fruits and vegetables. Brant Villa is situated in an area that Vancouver Coastal Health has identified as a food desert as there are no grocery stores within walking distance.

The TLCC Pocket Market is a great way for all neighbours to contribute to neighbourhood food security in TLCC.

There are two ways to shop at the TLCC Pocket Market:

1. With pre-paid Pocket Market Coupons (produce at cost for those on low income)
2. With cash (a better price than retail)

The Coupon portion of the Pocket Market Coupon Program helps those who are on low income. At the beginning of the month, Coupon Program participants pay $8.00 for 8 Pocket Market Coupons. They then redeem these coupons for produce at the pocket market near the end of the month. The $8.00 they pay is pooled to buy produce at wholesale prices and these savings are passed on to the participants. This means that they receive more produce than if they spent the same $8.00 at retail. Coupon sales will happen through agencies in the area. If you, or someone you know in the neighbourhood is on limited income, look at the coupon sale dates listed below.

To help fund the program for the long term, we will also have cash sales at the Pocket Market. Produce will be priced with a lower-than-retail markup and the profits will be put back into the program. The hope is that in time, the TLCC PMCP will be financially self sustaining.

There will be 10 pocket markets over 10 months at Brant Villa. Here are the dates for the first 5:

• Sunday, August 15th
• Sunday, September 12th
• Sunday, October 17th
• Sunday, November 14th
• Sunday, December 5th

TLCC Pocket Market
Brant Villa
2290 E. 25th Ave (just west of the Nanaimo SkyTrain station)
10:00 am - 1:00 pm

Coupons are available at Cedar Cottage Neighbourhood House, 4065 Victoria Dr.

How else can you participate?

1. Come to the Pocket Market and buy organic and/or local produce
2. If you are low income, purchase Pocket Market Coupons
3. Share this blog with friends and family in the area
4. Volunteer to help set-up the market

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