Author Archives: TamaraRitchie

“A Little Rain Never Hurt Noone”-Tom Waits

http://www.shutterstock.com/video/clip-6671882-stock-footage-garden-alley-on-a-rainy-day.html

Welcome back to our blog site! We have been working away on our project for the Little-Mountain Riley Park Food Hub and recently finished our proposal report. We have had a few “rainy days” on the project front but are starting to see a break in the clouds!

Weekly Objectives

As a recap, in the previous weeks we focused on meeting with our community partner and drafting our project proposal. In the following three weeks, our objectives are as follows

February 15th-19th: We will develop a set of criteria to choose the workshops that we incorporate into our workshop package. Thus far we are not sure of what criteria to focus on. We plan on meeting with our community partner to gain more insight on the criteria she believes would be most beneficial for the target population. Furthermore these criteria will be developed through

1) a review of workshops that are available throughout areas with similar climate to Vancouver

2) Focus on criteria that will include and engage the target audience of the Little-Mountain Riley Park Food Hub (newcomers, elderly and those with fixed incomes). Thus far cost, accessibility and language are assumed to be target criteria.

3) Criteria that have been found to be beneficial to successful community gardens through a literature review.

February 22nd-26th: Our plan for this week is to validate our criteria and begin choosing workshops using our criteria.

In order to validate our choices of criteria we plan on contacting key community members that are involved with the target populations. Our community contact, Joanne McKinnon, has provided us with a list of programs throughout the community that focus on these populations. We plan on contacting key members that run these organizations and interviewing them. We want their feedback to ensure these target populations are the focus of the workshops.

February 29th-March 4th: In this week, we will continue to search and choose workshops. We will also use this time to begin drafting a design for our package; while we could start this now, we believe that it is necessary to have some idea of the workshops we are selecting to make the layout and usability of the package as good as possible.

Achievements

Our main achievement thus far was the completion of the our project proposal draft. Working through the aim and objects have helped narrow the scope of this project. It helped our group members connect to one another as well. We now understand how to better incorporate each other’s’ strength in assignments and support our individual goals for the project. We reflected on the feedback from our proposal. This allows us to be more efficient, and it keeps the group morale up during difficult steps in the process.

Moment of Significance

What? The selection of workshops was initially going to be chosen by our group. However, after speaking with Will Valley and key stakeholders in the community it became clear that a set of criteria should be used to determine which workshops to select. This put a kink in our plans and required us to be more creative and to find a way to form the criteria,according to Tim Hardford this is just where we want to be (2016).  

So What? Workshops should not be chosen solely on the preferences of our group mates. We we do not have the experience, nor are we a representation of the Little-Mountain Riley Park community. In order to present the most viable education plan possible we must involve key stakeholders in both the design and evaluation of our criteria. Realizing this is how we will apply the Asset-Based Community Development method was profound because it means we have established the foundation. By doing so, it creates an opportunity for the goals of all to be understood and synthesized into one cohesive set of criteria. This method will allow for the diversity of participants and interests to be addressed in our education package (McCullum et al, 2010). 

Now What? As a group we have chosen to base our decisions on a set of criteria we develop based on workshops that have worked in areas, climates and with target audiences similar to the Food Hub. Hopefully this messy problem will help our group further our problem solving abilities and allow us to provide an even better project than originally planned (Hardford, 2016).  We will need to have criteria present in order for workshops to be chosen that are inclusive of the community as well as workshops that promote food literacy in the community.

Upcoming Objectives

• Communicate with community members to develop set of criteria to choose workshops.
• Contact other community gardens in Vancouver and ask what workshops they are using and offering and which are the most popular.
• Run workshop ideas by Joanne to ensure both parties are happy with where the project is heading

Upcoming strategies

• Email community members with set of questions to narrow criteria down and include section for any additional comments about the type of workshops that will be offered.
• Meet with Joanne again to become clear with the aim of the project. After sending the proposal to Joanne it became clear that there was a disconnect between what Joanne wanted and what we perceived that she wanted. We believe another meeting should clear up any confusion about the project aim we are having. During the meeting we will try to reiterate our understanding of the project back to Joanne to ensure that both parties are on the same page.
  • This failure of communication can be a learning experience for our group (Freakanomics, 2015). The Failure is your Friend podcast reiterated to our group that even though there was a failure (the disconnect between our community partner and our group) we can refocus the projects goals and ensure we are not putting work into a project that will not be valued by the community. Even though it may be frustrating and turn into a failure it opens the doors for a better dialogue and communication approach between us and our community partner, which can only strengthen the final project. 

References

• Freakanomics (Gretta Cohn). (2015, May 20). Failure is your Friend. Retrieved from http://freakonomics.com/podcast/failure-is-your-friend-a-freakonomics-radio-rebroadcast/
• Harford, T (2016,January). Tim Harford: How frustration can make us more creative. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_harford_how_messy_problems_can_inspire_creativity?language=en
• McCullum, C., Desjardins, E., Kraak, V. I., Ladipo, P., & Costello, H. (2005). Evidence-based strategies to build community food security. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 105(2), 278–283.

Welcome back to our blog site!

We have been working away on our project for the Little-Mountain Riley Park Food Hub and recently finished our proposal report.

Weekly Objectives

As a recap, in the previous weeks we focused on meeting with our community partner and drafting our project proposal. In the following three weeks, our objectives are as follows:

• February 15th-19th: We will develop a set of criteria to choose the workshops that we incorporate into our workshop package. These criteria will be developed through 1) a review of workshops that are available and climate appropriate; 2) engaging with our community partner regarding what workshops would be most viable and needed for the Food Hub; and 3) bringing our criteria to the community partner and inquiring if she believes them to be sufficient
• February 22nd-26th: Our plan for this week is to begin choosing workshops using our criteria.
• February 29th-March 4th: In this week, we will continue to search and choose workshops. We will also use this time to begin drafting a design for our package; while we could start this now, we believe that it is necessary to have some idea of the workshops we are selecting to make the layout and usability of the package as good as possible.

Achievements

Our main achievement thus far was the completion of the our project proposal draft. Working through the aim and objects have helped narrow the scope of this project. It helped our group members connect to one another as well. We now understand how to better incorporate each other’s’ strength in assignments and support our individual goals for the project. We reflected on the feedback from our proposal. This allows us to be more efficient, and it keeps the group morale up during difficult steps in the process.

Moment of Significance

What? The selection of workshops was initially going to be chosen by our group. However, after speaking with Will Valley and key stakeholders in the community it became clear that a set of criteria should be used to determine which workshops to select.

So What? Workshops should not be chosen solely on the preferences of our group mates. We we do not have the experience, nor are we a representation of the Little-Mountain Riley Park community. In order to present the most viable education plan possible we must involve key stakeholders in both the design and evaluation of our criteria. Realizing this is how we will apply the Asset-Based Community Development method was profound because it means we have established the foundation. By doing so, it creates an opportunity for the goals of all to be understood and synthesized into one cohesive set of criteria. This method will allow for the diversity of participants and interests to be addressed in our education package (McCullum et al, 2010).

Now What? As a group we have chosen to base our decisions on a set of criteria we develop based on workshops that have worked in areas and climates similar to Vancouver and workshops that the community key stakeholders identify as valuable. We will need to have criteria present in order for workshops to be chosen that are inclusive of the community as well as workshops that promote food literacy in the community.

Upcoming Objectives

• Communicate with community members to develop set of criteria to choose workshops.
• Contact other community gardens in Vancouver and ask what workshops they are using and offering.
• Run workshop ideas by Joanne to ensure both parties are happy with where the project is heading

Upcoming strategies

• Email community members with set of questions to narrow criteria down and include section for any additional comments about the type of workshops that will be offered.
• Meet with Joanne again to become clear with the aim of the project. After sending the proposal to Joanne it became clear that there was a disconnect between what Joanne wanted and what we perceived that she wanted. We believe another meeting should clear up any confusion about the project aim we are having. During the meeting we will try to reiterate our understanding of the project back to Joanne to ensure that both parties are on the same page.

References

• McCullum, C., Desjardins, E., Kraak, V. I., Ladipo, P., & Costello, H. (2005). Evidence-based strategies to build community food security. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 105(2), 278–283.

Group 2: Little-Mountain Riley Park Food Hub

Theme: Seedlings

Growing more than vegetables

(http://foodmatterschilliwack.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/seedling.jpg)

Welcome to our first team blog post! We are a group of like-minded yet diverse students sharing a mutual interest in food, cooking, and community engagement. This project is only starting, but we feel each individual has brought a unique perspective to the team that creates a synergistic value. 

Our Team

Jenny Qi: I am a 4th year Food Science student with a passion to bridge food and sustainability. I believe connection can be created through social sustainability by connecting people to their food and community. This project is a seeding ground for community engagement and I can’t wait to see how it grows.

Tamara Ritchie: I am in my final year of the Food and Nutrition double major. I love all science aspects of food and I think the growing conditions of the garden and the seasonal produce options will be exciting to work with. Having the knowledge of what you can grow throughout the year is a great skill to have. I am excited to gain experience in food production and processing based on produce produced by a community garden. 

Alexa Tucker: I am a third year student majoring in Food, Nutrition, and Health. Over the past couple years I have discovered my love of creating educational materials for people to engage them in topics relating to food, nutrition, and sustainability, so I am really excited about the workshop component of this project. I believe that positive approaches to food education – like the food hub – are critical components for developing a healthier population.

Madelaine Anderson: I am in my third year of Applied Biology Food and Environment major. I am very interested in sustainable methods of producing food, especially at the community scale. Having a strong sense of community is important for the social aspects of sustainability and a community garden is a great way to educate and bring the community together.

Yimeng Zheng: I am a third year student major in nutritional science. I am very interested in learning about food, nutrition, and community food sustainability. I’m enthusiastic about getting involved in this project to gain knowledge of community organization to offer educational programs, foods, and to engage with the community stakeholders.

The Little-Mountain Riley Park Food Hub project has brought us together and we hope we can provide some needed “nutrients” for the project to flourish. As a group we chose this project because we felt we had a diverse enough background to cover the variety of  aspects of a group garden. We have members that were interested in the gardening, others were interested in the food and cooking aspects, and sustainability as whole. Our goal as a team is to provide the community with a well rounded project that utilizes our knowledge in food science, nutrition and applied animal biology to nourish food sovereignty in the community.   By using the Asset-based community model we realize that everyone has strength and interests and by allowing members to work on areas of the project that they excel at will strengthen the project overall (Mathie and Cunningham, 2003).  Therefore, our varying interests will be an asset in helping the Little-Mountain Riley Park Food Hub reach their goals.

Alexa, Jenny, Tamara, Madelaine, Yimeng

Community Project

The goals of the project are to create a year-round growing plan that provides locally grown food for the community, and to prepare educational program documents that can be used by the food hub when educating community members.

Our Focus

In the 2015 winter term the previous LFS 350 group provided the Food Hub with operation procedures as they felt this is what could benefit the project most. Through meetings with Joanne (community partner) the idea of focusing on education and community engagement through the community garden sprouted, as both sides felt this is where our strengths could shine. The food hub already has strengths and personnel in the gardening aspect, and we as a team believe these strengths and knowledge should be respected. Our teams plans to survey community members from a varying demographics to gauge interest in the educational programs they would like to see. As this project was planted by the community, we would also like to see the community have a voice in how it grows and develops. This also ties in with the asset-based approach as we see the community members as the key stakeholders of the project, and not only the recipients of the food hub (Mathie and Cunningham, 2003). Their opinions need to be heard, listened and responded to, by the members that are making the decisions. It is through these community surveys and conversations we hope to build strong bridges between the decisions makers and the community.

Goals and Objectives

• To improve food sovereignty through community garden workshops
• To use food and gardening to bring together the community
• To provide workshops that allow a multicultural area to work and play together through food and cooking
• To provide workshops that allow all ages of the community to come together to enjoy and benefit from the community garden

Reflection

Although the project has just begun, the process has been exciting but challenging as it is easy to feel lost at times. At the beginning we were unsure of the focus of the project, this causes some anxiety within the group. In many other courses objectives are more clear and standardized while in this project the creativity and focus is left up to the students. This is both exciting and challenging as it is causing us to work out of our comfort zones. Once we met with the community partner the focus became more clear and our anxieties over the project started to subsided. The meeting sparked something within the team and we cannot wait to see how this project grows. Our next step is the project proposal and thus the anxiety will most likely return but we believe we have the skills as a team to provide the community with a great way to increase food sovereignty.  We are looking forward to engaging with the community in the upcoming weeks and getting to the roots of what educational programs can sprout from this community garden.

References

• Mathie, A., & Cunningham, G. (2003). From clients to citizens: Asset-based Community Development as a strategy for community-driven development. Development in Practice, 13(5), 474–486.