FOODSHARE NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE - February 2003
FoodShare AGM and Plant Sale
Become a FoodShare Member
Putting Good Food First
Why MacDonald's Should Stay Out of Schools
Letters
Foodnotes
- Seedy Saturday, New Online Learning Centre, Seeds of Our
City report
Upcoming events
- Cooking Out of the Box workshop series, "Homegrown"
Community Art + Food Festival
Putting Good Food First
June 8 and 9, 2003 events
oodShare promotes a variety of personal, community and policy
initiatives, which if implemented would ensure that everyone
in Canada had access to affordable healthy food. In 1998,
through the Food 2002 process we tabled 28 public policy and
28 personal and community actions towards this goal. After
years of cross sectoral consultation meetings, we have boiled
these 56 policies and actions down to the 10 we think are
most possible. In June of this year we will launch the campaign
at two public events.
The FoodShare Family Fair will be at the Grange Park on Sunday
June 8th. The FoodShare Feast will be at Nathan Philips Square
on Monday June 9th. Both days will promote FoodShare's programs,
raise funds for FoodShare's ongoing work, and showcase the
spectrum of local and organic farms and food producers and
community partners, as well as celebrating the range of multi-cultural
and ethnic food choices in Toronto. The events are modeled
after last summer's hugely successful GMO-free picnic and
family fair” A Festival of Alternatives: bioDiversity”
and the FoodShare City Hall BBQ's of the late 80's and early
90's. This year's events will focus on healthy, affordable,
delicious multi-cultural and organic food. The events will
also have entertainment and music with Sunday's focusing on
children's entertainment.
Over the next few months we will be seeking corporate and
community sponsors and donors, as well as restaurants and
food suppliers who want to showcase their foods. We are also
looking for celebrity chefs and volunteers for both days.
If you are interested in donating, sponsoring, getting involved
or volunteering please call Christie Young at 416 392-1669
or christie@foodshare.net
Why MacDonald's Should Stay Out of
Schools
As FoodShare Sees it - by Debbie Field, Executive Director
For weeks I watched the billboard and when it was gone, I
thought someone had come to their senses and cancelled it.
Then I saw it again on a bus shelter. A young boy is facing
a school chalkboard, diligently writing his alphabet. In the
middle of his list, the "M" is the McDonald's arches
logo. The caption reads, "There is a little McDonald's
in everyone."
Clever advertising? Perhaps, but not from my point of view
as a parent. And possibly not very smart for McDonald's in
the long run. After years of targeting children as an important
audience, McDonald's is now targeting children in school.
In doing so, they have crossed a dangerous line.
In September 2002, Breakfast for Learning, the Canadian Living
Foundation announced a partnership with McDonald's. Nutrition
programs would receive 10 cents for every coffee sold on Fridays
at McDonald's Ontario outlets. Modeled on a Quebec initiative,
the Foundation hoped funds would help hundreds of Ontario
breakfast, lunch and snack programs. Schools were encouraged
to invite their local McDonald's for a photo-op and to develop
that relationship.
Student nutrition fundraisers ask everyone for money. So
why not ask McDonald's since it is willing to ante up in exchange
for partnership? As the number of programs have increased,
government money has stayed the same, and so people who care
about children's nutrition feel compelled to make deals they
know they shouldn't.
Social marketing can be smart business when the fit is good
between a corporation and its cause, but it can turn against
a corporation that is seen to be manipulative. Many of us,
my family and I included, have enjoyed our share of Happy
Meals. There's a time and place for fast food, but it isn't
in our schools. McDonald's has set its marketing sights on
millions of hungry school kids. But it may find itself facing
determined resistance.
In September, the LA School Board, representing 748,000 students,
unanimously voted to phase out soft drinks sold in middle
and high schools. California Governor Davis banned drinks
and junk food in elementary schools statewide beginning in
2004. Other jurisdictions in the US and Europe are following
suit, as parents' concern over these issues will continue
to intensify in coming years.
There is an alternative. When this year's McDonald's-Breakfast
for Learning partnership ends, it should not be renegotiated.
Arms length corporate donations can be accepted, as long as
children and schools are not the target of marketing. Governments
need to provide adequate funding so that healthy food can
be served and nutrition programs are not forced to go begging.
The recent Federal surplus, on the heels of the Romonow Commission
recommendations, provides a unique opportunity for nationally
funded student nutrition programs, delivered in partnership
with the Provinces.
In the meantime, parents should tell school boards it is
time for policies to ensure that our children's health is
not for sale to the highest bidder. In Australia, McDonald's
sponsors cheeseburger days so that cash starved schools can
raise a little money. Across Canada, Pepsi and Coke are engaged
in a bidding war, offering cash donations if they receive
exclusive access. And when privatization and cuts have shut
down high school cafeterias, fast food outlets have been allowed
to set up stalls next to the pop and candy machines. It's
time for these disgraceful practices to end.
Are we that poor, that desperate for corporate sponsors,
that we are willing to sacrifice our kids' nutritional health?
At FoodShare we have been hearing from many student nutrition
advocates interested in developing policies that limit fast
food in the schools. Contact me at 416 392-1628 or debbie@foodshare.net
if you want to be involved.
Letters
Dear Laura, MaryLou and Lauren,
Thank you very much for the interview. We believe that we
can create a changes to better the world and people’s
lives through community gardening. Thank you for inspiring
us.
The Maloca Group
Dear Field to Table,
I am a grateful senior who receives the Reach for Five box
every other week. Special thanks to the volunteers who peel
and cut up and bag and otherwise make it easy for me to use
the delicious fruits and vegetables.
Vegetable Day is like Christmas, full of wonderful surprises.
- JS
Dear Delsie,
For well over a year now I have been receiving the "Reach
for 5 Basket" through FoodShare. I am very pleased with
it and would like to thank you and your staff/volunteers for
having blessed me "with the works of your hands."
Since getting the "Reach for 5" I have been eating
more healthy meals too.
Sincerely, with love MD
Foodnotes
Seedy Saturday
Seeds and gardeners - put either one with soil and the right
conditions and amazing things happen! The atmosphere at Seedy
Saturday is always charged with the excitement of new and
experienced gardeners clutching stacks of seed packages which
will fill their gardens with delight.
Seedy Saturdays have their roots in community seed exchange
tables where gardeners can swap seeds they have saved, gathered
or were left-over from the last growing season. Hundreds of
Seedy Saturdays are held from coast to coast. This year's
Toronto event on March 1st, at Scadding Court Community Centre,
707 Dundas St W. It's the third annual Seedy Saturday of the
Toronto Community Gardener's Network.
It’s the perfect time to start planning what you are
going to grow on your balcony, windowsill, backyard or community
garden plot - plus this year there is more to enjoy. There
will be workshops on Seed Starting Basics, an Introduction
to Biodynamics, and an Ask the Experts Panel. Plus, displays
from Toronto's environmental community, children's activities,
yummy food. Heirloom, open- pollinated and unusual seeds (that
have not been genetically modified) from local seed companies
will be for sale. For more info contact 416 392 1668 or cgnetwork@foodshare.net
New Online Learning Centre
This spring we will be launching our latest education project
- the online Learning Centre as part of the FoodShare website.
The Learning Centre will provide training and education resources
for everyone - across the province and the country - who want
to learn about the food system, and the "how-to's"
of getting community food projects started. The project funded
by the Government of Ontario's Volunteer Action Online program.
Go to the Learning Centre Home.
Seeds of Our City Report
How much food can be grown in the city? In what ways are
Toronto’s ethno-cultural communities participating in
the urban gardening and community food security movements?
Seeds of Our City was a research and community development
project funded by the Bronfman Foundation. The final
report, available from FoodShare for $15, presents case
studies of eight diverse gardens in Toronto: food people were
growing in their gardens, diversity of approaches, lessons
learned, and how these garden spaces are redefining the urban
landscape.
Upcoming
Cooking Out of the Box workshop series
"Homegrown" - Community Art + Food Event
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