Community Roots: Growing local food from local hands for local people.

Click here to view and rate our National Geographic Idea entry. You will have to register (name and email address) to rate our entry. Ten years ago a group of moms dedicated to nurturing healthier, safer food for Spokane founded a nonprofit and started building relationships with local farmers, buying local organic/safe food, and selling this nutritious food to our community. This year we started a two-acre Permaculture farm where we teach farmers, gardeners, and youth how to grow safe food, save seeds, and build soil. By producing food locally we eliminate environmental impacts of long-haul trucking, and by Permaculture organic farming we respect the eco-system and build soil while growing the most nutritious, delicious food, without harmful chemicals. Our “Green Effect” includes three small steps of building a vibrant local food community by uniting a diversity of hands to increase production of local food for local consumption: Hire a facilitator to organize labor, direct farm hands, and create an interactive learning environment that nurtures meaningful relationships with our food, our community, and our environment. Bring a diversity of volunteer farm hands (teens/adults doing community service, folks on public assistance, service learning students, work release inmates, community volunteers) to the farm to experience planting and harvesting, learn valuable skills, and be inspired to grow food. Launch a local media campaign to show people how to grow food, and to show the importance of growing local food by creating an educational website; participating at 20 community events; creating six, ten minute videos for airing on local public access TV and website; and by outfitting farm hands with locally printed, organic T-shirts to promote the movement. comments brightspirit June 09, 2009, 02:33PM We love what we do to bring local food to our Spokane community e1 June 09, 2009, 08:25PM Great idea - local food grown by local people for local people. Everyone can do this and have fun growing all sorts of delicious food for everyone. Making the world a better place for everyone - yes!