Kings County Food Summit
On Saturday, June 10th, over thirty residents of Kings County joined together in conversation to take action on community food security.
The event’ was organized by Duncan Ebata, The Spot Community Food Hub and Barry Leslie, Mud Creek Rotary Club. The event was facilitated and graphic recorded by Anne Stieger and Corrie Melanson.
Catherine Hart (FoodARC) delivered a presentation to frame the day’s visions, discussions, and action planning – “Food action: Addressing the roots of household food insecurity & supporting seeds of action to build community food security.”
The activities and conversations of the day took participants through a process of discovering, dreaming, designing, and action planning for new and existing projects in Kings County. The day provided space for pitching projects and ideas, time to discuss them in small groups and mind-space to depart with clear action plans.
Storytelling Sessions
Four event participants also played the role of storyteller during this morning activity. Attendees were invited to listen to one of four separate stories.
Discover: Community Strengths and Opportunities
Participants paired up and had conversations that were guided by three questions.
Visioning / Innovating to Meet that Vision
Participants were asked to dream big and imagine their preferred food- related future in small groups. Participants shared the components of their visions for empowering food for all in Kings with the larger group. Their responses were sorted into themes shared between and across group.
Action Planning
This final and crucial chunk of time is what everyone had been working towards throughout the day. Individuals involved with an existing project or bringing a new idea to the table were invited to host a conversation and action planning session about their project. Seven projects were brought forward; the conversations and progress was captured on visual templates and presented briefly to the larger group at the end of the session.
- Slides– Food action: Addressing the roots of household food insecurity & supporting seeds of action to build community food security »
(June 10, 2017 | PDF, 3.4 MB) - Harvest Report – Kings County Food Summit: Empowering food for all »
(June 10, 2017 | PDF, 3.8 MB)
This regional gathering and conversation was hosted as part of the outreach project “Looking Back to Move Ahead,” which is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and is being led by FoodARC and some of its partners.