Good Food for All

Good Food for All Weekly Digest: Academy for Global Citizenship, Shared Kitchens, and Improving Farmers Market Access

The Good Food for All Weekly Digest is cross-posted this week on ChicagoREgen.com.

• Academy for Global Citizenship was awarded the HealthierUS School Challenge Gold of Distinction Award.  AGC is the first school in Chicago and the entire Midwest to win this award.

• USDA announced the Farmers Market Promotion Program grant recipients.  For Chicago, Experimental Station received a grant to support and expand low-income consumer access to fresh, local and healthy foods.

• Chicago Reader reports on the City of Chicago’s business licensing laws for shared kitchens, including an interview with Zina Murray, founder of Logan Square Kitchen.

• The most recent issue of NYTimes Magazine focuses on food and community.

 

Daily Digest: City Provisions Deli opens, African American farmers in the Chicago Region, and Community Food Project Grants

City Provisions recently opened a local and sustainable food deli on Chicago's North Side.  

Chicago Reader features an in-depth article profiling African American farmers in Hopkins Park and how they are trying to connect to markets on the South Side. 

USDA announced its Request for Applications (RFA) for the Community Food Projects (CFP) Competitive Grants Program.  Deadline is Nov. 17.  Free grant assistance resources are available on the CFSC website. 

Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food, an initiative of USDA to support local and regional food systems, posted updated slaughter maps in the U.S., to assist small ranchers and farmers. 

Heartland Local Food Network released its farmers market guide to accepting Illinois Link cards, based on its program at the Downtown Bloomington farmers market.  Download the guide here.  

Loyola University will offer a Sustainable Food Operations course in Jan. 2011, taught by Greg Christian of Greg Christian Catering and the Organic School Project. 

Daily Digest: FoodCorps Seeking Host Organizations, USDA Healthy Incentives Pilot and Shared-Use Kitchen Update

Kitchen Chicago has a useful overview of the City's shared-use kitchen draft ordinance. Read the key points here. 

FoodCorps, a new AmeriCorps program that will support school gardens and Farm to School programs, is seeking host sites for its program.  Deadline for LOIs is Sept. 17. 

A Northbrook resident started growing vegetables in his front yard, sparking a debate about the use of lawns. 

USDA launched its Healthy Incentives Pilot in Massachusetts and a Peoples Garden School Pilot Program nationwide. Applications for the school pilot program are due Nov. 8. 

NYTimes and LATimes weigh in on the impact of industrialized agriculture on public health, in light of the recent salmonella outbreak from egg farms in Iowa. 

A potential model for Illinois? CNN covers the "Veggie Rx" program in Massachusetts, a program of the Wholesome Wave Foundation. 

Daily Digest: Go for the Gold Campaign and LINK at Chicago Farmers Markets

Chicago Public Schools and Healthy Schools Campaign officially launched the Go for the Gold Campaign, in partnership with USDA Midwest, as part of the HealthierUS Schools initiative to promote healthier school environments.

Food & Water Watch has produced a blueprint for a healthy food system, in preparation for the reauthorization of the Farm Bill in 2012.

Walgreens is converting some of its Chicago stores into full-service grocery stores.

Fed Up with School Lunch, a blog written by a teacher in Illinois who is eating school lunch for a year, volunteered at Common Threads summer camp at Kennedy-King College in Englewood.  Read her post(s) here.

City governments are growing food for local food pantries from Madison to Des Moines.

Check out the updated Jobs and Opportunities page at Good Food for All.

LINK cards are currently accepted at five Chicago farmers markets.  Groundswell Films produced this short video below on the LINK program. Read more about The Experimental Station, which began the pilot program this year.