Community Event: The People's Food Movement

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Shouldn't good food access match the needs of the people? 

Organizations from across Buffalo are working together to host The People’s Food Movement, a free, public event to ensure that community needs drive food access and policy.

The event will take place on Saturday, April 8, from 1:30pm to 4:30pm at the Delavan Grider Community Center, 877 East Delavan Ave, Buffalo. 

Help us bring Good Food to ALL Buffalo Communities!

Among food policy advocates, “good food” is generally recognized as being nutritious, grown sustainably, and produced with fair labor. Organizers of The People’s Food Movement insist that good food should also be equitably distributed.

At the start of the event, a light meal will be provided by the Buffalo Public Schools’ Food Service Department, showcasing their Farm to School menu items. This will be followed by an interactive education and advocacy session covering topics including:

• How to implement an urban growers policy in the City of Buffalo (Food Policy Council for Buffalo and Erie County)
• How to bring a Good Food Purchasing Program to Buffalo institutions (Crossroads Collective & WNY Environmental Alliance)
• How to support sustainable agriculture through an “organic action plan” (Northeast Organic Farming Association of NY)
• How to establish a regional network of black farmers (African Heritage Food Co-op & Crossroads Collective)

Families in attendance will also be invited to create art and share their stories related to issues accessing good food in Buffalo.

Volunteers: Hoop House Urban Farming

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Business Gets Green: February 18th

Thursday, February 18, 2010 5:30pm to 7:30pm

Frank E. Merriweather Jr. Branch Library

1324 Jefferson Ave, Corner of Jefferson and East Utica [ Map ]
This is a wonderful facility - intimate but spacious.
Lots of Free Parking - 20 spaces in the library lot - and ample on-street parking.

Agenda for the 15 minute featured presentations:

• Don Lewinski - National Grid's Small Business Energy Efficiency Program
• Zoë Holloman - Growing Green Works
• David Griggs - Buffalo Niagara Enterprise
• Bryce Bixby and Mike Conroe - Foit-Albert Associates - Rain Garden at Fletcher Hall
  

Descriptions of the businesses in the featured presentations, click here.

The Format for Business Gets Green includes 1/2 hour of 30 second Introductions by businesses, organizations and individuals.

The Introductions are followed by 4 - 15 minute feature presentations on businesses or issues that are of special interest, usually with Powerpoint slides.

If you would like to give one of the 15 minute presentations, please contact Bill Nowak with a 2-3 paragraph description of your presentation and dates (3rd Thursdays, even-numbered months) you can be available to present.

As usual, this session will be filmed for LCTV and YouTube. Thanks Jon Allen!
Videos of all of the past Business Gets Green sessions are HERE.

Save the Date: Senator Thompson wants you to know that we are holding the 2010 Green Expo on Saturday, April 17th, 10am-6pm. Please save this date! For more information, click here.

Restoring and Greening the Neighborhood

PUSH Buffalo, Homefront Inc., and the Massachusetts Avenue Project are restoring vacant and abandoned houses on Buffalo's West Side and re-energizing them using environmentally-friendly solar and geothermal heating systems. In addition to these green rehabilitation efforts, their strategy focuses on job creation and urban agriculture, and it is being looked at by NY State as a model for neighborhood redevelopment.

NY Gov. David Paterson recently proposed the Sustainable Neighborhoods Project to revitalize vacant homes across the state by using existing state resources to create long-term affordable city housing. He said that he would start with Buffalo’s 23,000 vacant houses, and that the Sustainable Neighborhood Project will invest in environmentally-responsible projects that develop blighted property, vacant land, community gardens and urban agriculture.


In The Buffalo News:
State looks at West Side as model for redevelopment
Developers using environmentally friendly strategies to curb vacant housing
PUSH Buffalo activists view Paterson's pledge and a subsequent visit by the governor's aide as an indication the state may be nearing a decision to help fund their multimillion-dollar neighborhood development.

I think they're assessing our work," said Aaron Bartley, executive director of PUSH, one of the groups spearheading the development. "The level of interest they've shown tells me they're interested in what we're doing."

What PUSH and its partners, Homefront and the Massachusetts Avenue Project, are doing is overseeing a redevelopment strategy that emphasizes more than just housing rehabilitation. It also focuses on job creation and the environment.

The plan targets a 25-block area directly south of West Ferry Street and west of Richmond Avenue, with an eye toward rehabilitating abandoned homes and revitalizing vacant lots and public spaces.

The primary focus is on housing, with plans for a green-designed rehabilitation of about 200 housing units, three-quarters of them vacant.

"If we really want to make a dent in the housing problem on the West Side," Bartley said, "we have to hit at least 100 vacant housing units."

If this development has an edge over others, it may be the proven track record of the three community groups leading the effort. Each of them has had success in redeveloping vacant properties.

Together, they have completed a green-designed rehabilitation of six vacant housing units and are working on 17 other units right now.

Read the report by Phil Fairbanks in The Buffalo News.