Articulate your Weekly Objectives and Achievements

We had successfully met with our Community Partner on October the 26th, as planned. The president of Legion T.V, Peter Marola, was kind enough to sit down and have a meeting with us to explain the history of this particular Legion and its internal processes. As the meeting progressed, we explained to Peter Marola what the intentions of our research project was. Through our discussion with Mr. Marola, we were trying to gauge if any of the organizational goals of his Legion would coincide with the Vancouver Food Strategy, so that further collaboration may happen within a community food system framework, and if the Legion was open to asset based community development.

After our discussion, the President had made it clear to us that to his organization the notion of food security and food justice is important, however that his business is purely within the financial realm. The support for the community and their members reach beyond the local region. This is important, as listening to the community partner and their needs, and making sure they are not imposed on is much more essential. In terms of achieving our weekly goals, such meeting with the community partner, and establishing an understanding of what their organizational goals are, we have succeeded. We now know that their organizational goals at the moment do not match those of the Vancouver Food Strategy, nor are they open to Asset Based Community Development within their branch. However, we learned that this Legion does use the food made through their kitchen infrastructure and the food from restaurant donations to serve food to their community members during events. After the meeting, the President gave us a tour of the facilities, and we were also free to roam and observe. Our next objective is to analyze the Legion branch physically as a food asset, in terms of infrastructure and land-space utilized. Although the President made it clear that their goals do not align, however we can still process the data and give a report for future reference.

Describe and reflect on your group’s Moment of Significant Change workshop from tutorial session (include an image of the graphs your group created).

Since this project started, our group has been through a lot of ups and downs. We are thankful for the Moment of Significant Change workshop because it not only helped us reflect on our actions throughout the course but it also allowed us to collaboratively come up with ways to move forward.

At the beginning of the course, our knowledge on the background information and theories for our project were very minimal, as shown in our graph. We were familiar with terms such as food sovereignty and food security from our previous Land and Food Systems classes. However, we did not know what approaches to use in order to deal with issues such as these. This made it difficult for our group to understand what was expected of us in order to accomplish our community-based project. We overcame this block in knowledge when we learned about concepts such as Asset-Based Community Development through our class readings. Mathie mentioned in their paper about assest based community development (ABCD) that there are no clear guidelines to ABCD but one of the more important points is to “collect stories of community successes of the past and analyse the reasons for success” (Mathie & Cunningham, 2003).  With our new knowledge of Asset-Based Community Development, we feel confident that this approach will be able to make an impact in a community, especially in working towards solving issues such as food security.

Having inspiring guest speakers teach our class about important issues has enhanced our group members’ passion for helping our community. One of the speakers that stood out the most for our group was Julian Napolean. As a member of the Dane-zaa Nation, located in the Peace River region of British Columbia, Julian has witnessed and felt the impact of colonization that his community constantly faces.  For example, one of our group members, Sarah, has lived in BC her whole life and was shocked to hear about the problems that Indigenous people face, especially since the land that she lives on was once their land. Hearing about Julian’s person stories with these issues made Sarah realize the significance of trying to help protect their land and their culture.

Interviewing the President of the legion, Peter Marola, not only helped us learn a lot about the Legion but it also was a great learning experience for our group members in regards to the interview process. We were surprised by how much new information we acquired during the interview even though we had done research beforehand. Interviewing allowed us to get information that we would never have been able to find online, such as the specific organizations that the Legion has donated to. To prepare for the interview, we had printed out a list of questions to ask the Peter Marola, however during the interview we realized the importance of going over what the purpose of the interview with the interviewee. Since we did not prepare something to say to familiarize the interviewee with our project’s goals, we had to improvise. Dan Barber’s story on This American Life, on his failed attempts to replicate a way to make foie gras in a different environment made us feel a little better about adapting to changes (Glass, 2011). Things do not always go as planned, therefore we must be able to accept that and think quickly on how to move on. We were able to explain the project to Peter Marola, however we now know that if we ever have to interview someone in the future that it would be helpful to come with this prepared. We were very grateful to interview the President of the Legion since he was very knowledgeable about the Legion and we learned how talking to an expert is a great way to learn more about a topic.

Our group dynamic improved over time. When we started working on the project, we did not know each other very well and therefore could not assess each other’s strengths and weaknesses. After working with each other, we figured out how to collaborate effectively. For example, for our first blog post, we did not assign someone to be the editor nor did we set a timeslot to edit what we wrote – this gave us little time to edit and we felt rushed. Remembering a quote from our reading,  “Without a certain amount of anxiety and risk, there’s a limit to how much learning occurs” (Shulman, 2005, p. 18). We took this to heart and sought new ways to improve. We decided to finish our individual portions by a deadline and assigned one person to review leaving enough time for everyone to go back and fix their errors. We plan to keep learning from our mistakes and continue to communicate with each other so that we can not only achieve the best project outcome but also gain teamworking skills.

Describe your groups strategy for successful project completion (the Graceful Dismount).

In terms of the graceful dismount, our group’s strategies for successful project completion are to work together to clarify and analyze the notes that we got from our interview at the Legion and to ensure that each of group members understands the information collected. During the interview, we had two members asking questions, one person voice recorded the interviewee and everyone else took notes to ensure that no important information was missed. To gain further knowledge about the Legion, we will research and do an archived analysis. We will then summarize our data, which will help us under the concept and theories even more. We will also be meeting as a group more frequently in order to have a better communication between group members. This will enable us to make sure that our group members will contribute an equal amount to the project. Furthermore, we will continue to use Slack, which is a messaging app, in order to ensure everyone is on track with their tasks. Through increased amount of communication, members can help each other solve individual difficulties with the project and we will be able to make sure our everyone is aware of what needs to be done and when it needs to be done. Communication also allows us to use the diverse opinions and ideas that our group members can offer. We believe that better communication and equal work distribution will improve collaboration and will greatly contribute to making a successful project.

References

Glass, I. (2011). 452. Poultry Slam 2011. Retrieved 7 November 2016, from https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/452/poultry-slam-2011?act=3#play

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.

Shulman, L. S. (2005). Pedagogies of uncertainty. Liberal Education, 91(2), 18–25. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ697350.pdf

A little bit about us, 

(from left to right)

Tony Guang, Global Resource Systems Major, Food and Resource Economics Specialization

Sarah Walters, Food Nutrition and Health Major : Interested in helping others through nutrition and lifestyle changes.

Yi-Min Ng, Nutritional Sciences Major : Interested in human nutrition and preventive care. Occasionally, she loves to go on hikes around BC and explore interesting places.

Yueyue(Shelley) Shi, Food Nutrition and Health Major : I’m interested in nutrition of food, and the process of food, food engineering. I’d like to plan a healthy diet, and go for yoga sometimes.

Yang (Cherry) Yang,  Food Nutrition and Health Major : Interested in studying the impact of lacking a specific vitamin/mineral, nutritional values of different foods and different food productions.

Hou-Han (Peter) Tseng, Plant and Soil Science Major :  Interested in the impact of current biotechnology on food production and food safety, as well as the effect of soil environment on plant growth.

Interests, Goals and Experience

As a group made up of students from the Land and Food System Faculty, we all have a similar interest in how our community interacts with the food system. The Legion was many of our group member’s first choice as a project because we are interested in learning more about the food services a Legion provides and how it can have an impact on food security and public health. We hope that our experiences in this project will allow us to become more aware of the needs of our community and more skilled in finding out how those needs can be met. By participating in this community based research, we hope to gain a better understanding of an institutional food system through engaging with community stakeholders. We also hope to learn how to identify food assets and use this knowledge to develop the asset-based community. Our contributions will hopefully help improve the Legion’s stance on serving not only Canada’s veterans but also their local communities.

Project Objectives

Our objective for the project is to determine and expand community food assets provided by the Legion. We will provide resources to the Legion so they can lead in a community driven asset-based development and we will help build more relationships between the Legion and its community.

Community Organization

The Royal Canadian Legion supports veterans and the community by hosting events and community nights and providing financial assistance. The Legion’s demographic is mostly seniors, with a total of 300,000 members across Canada. The Legion that we will be working with is Legion Branch 044 in East Vancouver.

First Impressions

Most of our group members had never been to a Legion before our class visit at the West Point Grey Legion. We did not know what connections Legions have with their community until we listened to the manager of this branch talk about what they do for the community and who supports them. We were surprised by how much the Legion gives to help others and how they receive donations from places such as Safeway, who teams up with the Legion to provide vouchers for those with emergency and financial needs.

We learned about our particular Legion (044) by calling the branch to see what time they are open, in the hopes that we could go to the Legion and learn about it, just by participating as a member would. This phone call helped us learn about our particular Legion because we were told that it does not have a kitchen or a bar. This is similar to how Sirolli in the Ted Talk talked about taking part in the community in an informal setting. By gaining knowledge about the Legion before we meet with the staff on a formal setting, we are able to direct our questions to make our communication with them more relevant.

In the Ted Talk, Sirolli talks about going into the community and developing a relationship with the experts and professionals, who understand their community better than any foreigner. When we met the manager of the West Point Grey Legion, he mentioned the community events they host such as barbeques and meat draws for the public. Most of their profit from these events goes to charity. He talked about how the Legion is open to support any organization doing a good cause.

The community built around the legion is definitely an important asset to the development of change in the neighbourhood. These community connections are crucial in mobilizing and obtaining other assets in the community. Community development would not be possible without the help of other organizations to provide information and resources.

Following the principles of Asset-Based Community Development by Mathie and Cunningham, the legion is already contributing to community growth. It has a foundation in the community through sharing of achievements, having motivated individuals to better the community and building strong relationships with other organizations. With further analysis, our group would help out with mapping the community assets, building more relationships and leveraging more resources.