Our Findings

Posted on October 30, 2013 by yue199302

In the past week, our group continues looks into each of our own category: grocery stores, caterers, farmers, supermarkets, wholesalers and restaurants. Most of us now have a list of contact information on names and location of our potential donors and recipients. In addition, we made some clarification during our last meeting regarding the boundary of Greater Vancouver. Some of group members thought that Greater Vancouver includes Richmond, Burnaby, Delta and North Vancouver, so we make it clear Greater Vancouver only includes Vancouver; its the city of Vancouver. Most of us just use computer as our technique. Since its impossible to visit potential donors and recipients in person, most of us just did research online to come out with contact information and location. Here is some of our findings:

Donors: Grocery Stores Safeway 2733 W Broadway Whole Foods Market 1675 Robson St

Caterers
Savoury Chef 826 Renfrew St

Farms
UBC Farm 346 Ross Dr
Southlands Heritage Farm 1675 Robson St

Wholesalers Real Canadian Superstore 3185 Grandview Highway
Costco Warehouses 605 Expo Blvd

Restaurants
White Spot 1616 West Georgia Street

Coffee Shop JJ Bean 3010 Main Street

Caterers
Savory Chef 826 Renfrew St
Farmers UBC Farm 346 Ross Dr

Recipients: Non-profit Organization Quest Food Exchange 2020 Dundas Street & 611 East Hastings Sheway 533 East Hastings

In the upcoming week, we will start brainstorm how we going to present our project. We will continue communicate with our community partners to see if they have any preference or idea on how they want us to present our finding. Right now, we thought of either create something like Google Map with all name and location labeled and present in PDF format or we can map out our finding on a physical map of Greater Vancouver. Food processors are hard to find, so we will work together and get help from other groups. Hope by the end, we can present a useful map that complacent the expectation of our community partners.

Reflection

Posted on October 23, 2013 by yue199302

The most important step in our research process to get the ball rolling was to look at the big picture of our project and narrowing down the steps. So in the past week, my group has divided up the task of creating a list of names and locations of potential donors and recipients. This is our first step of the project and is mainly computer-based which allowed us to scope out the entire area of Vancouver efficiently. In terms of donors, some included: grocery stores, caterers, farmers, supermarkets, wholesalers and restaurants. For recipients, there was a range of food banks, non-for-profits, community kitchens and meals-on-wheels. Some of our group members’ reflections on their findings:

Stephanie: It starts out slow, but when you do a simple search on the map of Vancouver for a certain donor/recipient the number of companies, locations and possibilities are endless! I found it almost overwhelming at one point as to whether or not I covered enough names in one category. At the same time, I feel content with the fact that lists are exhaustive because then I know the future of decreasing food waste is at a reachable distance.

Amanda: I found it easy to find information on where potential and current recipients get their food, and I discovered there were more community food projects/organizations in Vancouver than I thought, (a good deal of which do not get 100% of their food supplies donated). It came as no surprise that there are ample coffee shops and cafes, which means that there should be lots of opportunity for these places to recover food. I have been focused on identifying donors and recipients as per our project action plan, so I have yet to look deep enough to find the details of current practices regarding food waste/recovery.

Jill: My part is focusing on Grocery-store donors in Vancouver. In the beginning, it was easy for me to find the donation from some grocery stores. However, when I tried to look for more information, especially in specific location, I was not able to access the information. Most of the main-chains markets or grocery stores claim that they participate in community events and help support local community by either food or financial donation. They state that they offer high quality of food donation and make a great contribution to the community. Yet, there was not much information about specific location participate at specific area, and not much description about food donation on their home website and most them emphasize on product flyer and costumer services. When searching grocery food recipients, most not-profit organizations or foundations do not display the donors on the site for privacy protection purpose. It is best for our team to conduct interviews via phone or in person to get the information in future progress.

Over the next week or so, we will continue to seek out a comprehensive list and then hopefully pool of findings together and create a master list which maybe has narrowed down and clarified the different categories. From there we can then generate our first mapping of the city.

Proposal presentation and Our ongoing progress

Posted on October 9, 2013 by eunicelu

We had our proposal presentation last week, which was a great opportunity for the groups to understand each other’s project in detail, especially because we have three groups working as the different sections under the same food recovery and redistribution project. At the very beginning of the course, we always got confused by these three projects, wondering if we are doing similar thing. As we listened to our peer groups demonstrating their proposal and methods, we figured out the linkage and difference between these three projects. The presentation, as we see, was a great motivation for us to get clear understanding of our goals and methods, and express our ideas in a passionate way. It also served as the platform for information and thoughts sharing. It was helpful to hear comments and suggestions from the groups regarding our potential obstacles and how we might overcome them. Besides, it is always inspiring to hear people talking about their own experience and opinions on our food systems. Knowing that we are actually concerned about the same issues, share the same feelings and will be working together to achieve the same goal is motivating. It makes us appreciate getting involved with CBEL projects.

Speaking of our project, we have confirmed our research scope with our community partner to develop a whole list of potential donors and recipients in Vancouver area. Also as suggested by our teaching team, we modified our research theme by combining several questions into a core one. Moreover, we got a lot of useful feedback from our peer groups in the presentation. We are hoping to get the chance to cooperate with group three to contact the food generators and see the barriers from the donor side. Our peer groups also pointed out the importance of research ethics such as informed consent when we are conducting our site investigation. With all these new approaches in mind, we came up with our final written proposal. Now we have distributed the work to individuals and started literature research. Following the work plan and procedure, we will keep going!

Our Progress

Posted on October 8, 2013 by yue199302

We must admit, when we first began to look at the details of our project we all felt overwhelmed by the sheer scope of it. It appeared to be asking us to cover an awful lot of ground in a very strict time period. Individually, we all freaked out a little bit and then got together and calmed each other down….slightly! Going into our first meeting with our community partner, we were still a little daunted and pretty confused.

However, our fear subsided during our meeting with Lena (from CityStudio) and Leslie (from the City of Vancouver) and we all left with a sense of relief. The two of them were able to break everything down and give us a clear understanding of what we are hoping to accomplish and gave us some helpful ideas as to how to go about it. We all worked together to come up with a solid strategy for our project. There was some debate over what our focus should be and which approach would be the most beneficial in the long run. Over the past week, we have gone back and forth, but we have now settled on what we feel is the most efficient approach.

We have begun to break down current and potential donors across Vancouver into big grocers, retail/restaurants, food processors and communities with active farming. We have also started grouping recipients into food banks, soup kitchens and miscellaneous non-profits.

Overall, we are feeling confident about our project. We realize there will be hurdles, but we are no longer living in fear! So far, our experience with community-based experiential learning has been positive and we are looking forward to discovering its level of effectiveness, as well as its limitations. We feel privileged to be working with CityStudio and the City of Vancouver. We very much admire and respect the work they have done so far and their combined vision for food recovery in Vancouver. It is clear that both Leslie and Lena are very invested and passionate about this project; we are inspired to work with them to make a difference.

The truth and reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada events on Sept. 18

Posted on October 8, 2013 by yue199302

Being a Canadian, it is important to involve in and be part of our own history. The decision to suspend classes on Sept. 18th for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission events makes us, UBC, and all Canadians aware that this legacy belongs not only to the history of Aboriginal people but also the history of all Canadians. This event mainly focuses on gathering the testimony from survivors of the Indian Residential School system and accurately portraying its impact to the community. The loss of self-identity and physical as well as psychological trauma among those Aboriginal generations and communities experienced can never be fully recovered. Although this happened in 1875-1996, it is still a serious matter for us now to look at for a fundamental change in our society so that we may prohibit racism in this multicultural society. We do not think the Commission should be expired in 2014. We all have responsibility to understand and face this tragedy, to keep reminding ourselves to avoid this from happening again and to promote the reconciliation between Aboriginal people and all Canadians. Participating the TRC event shows our respect and taking seriously on this lasting issue. Being Canadians and UBC students, we should help Aboriginal generations to reform their cultural and language continuity and work together as a whole Nation.

With the main theme being reconciliation and healing over time, I had the pleasure of listening to speech of Robert Waisman, who was a survivor of the Buchweld concentration camp during the Holocaust. His words were meaningful and and touching. He made our lives look way too easy as he led us through his days at the camp. His courage and strength from his experience showed throughout the presentation and it was truly inspiring. He was able to invoke tears in the audience without much a quiver in his own voice. You could tell they were scars on his heart, but it was the events like these that have helped him heal and continue to heal. Quote: ” we heal by sharing” was what he ended with. That day’s event made me realize how much impact and strength is in numbers, where even if we did not experience such events as residential school or the Holocaust, we should collectively support the ones who have.