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Shaping a Movement over a Meal

Submitted by Kyle Schafer on Thu, 06/09/2011 - 16:11
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Students and Workers Eat-In for a Just and Sustainable Food Movement
by Hnin Hnin and Kyle Schafer

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It’s called the food movement, but what does that really mean? Last month, students and campus dining workers came together to show us that it’s about building community and making change.

When Slow Food on Campus and UNITE HERE’s Stir It Up Campaign celebrated National Food Month together with Eat-Ins across the country, it signaled a small but inspiring convergence of two worlds.  

Over 300 people participated in 6 Eat-Ins hosted by students and local union members at Northwestern, Wesleyan, and Harvard and Yale (jointly) and by SFOC chapters at Hamilton, Vassar, and Clemson.  An Eat-In is part potluck, part protest. While each Eat-In was unique, they all shared the goal of building community to create change for good food and food workers—including everyone from the farmers who produce the food to the campus dining workers who serve it up.

(Hit the "read more" link for the full story!)

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Join Slow Food and Stir It Up in a Month of Eat-Ins!

Submitted by Kyle Schafer on Wed, 03/23/2011 - 13:15
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April is National Food month, and there is surely no better way to celebrate than to spend a good meal talking about the connection between workers in the food chain and the food we eat every day. That’s why Slow Food on Campus and Stir It Up are working together to invite students to organize Eat-Ins, where students and workers can share food and their stories!
 
 

What is an Eat-In?

 
Eat-Ins are a powerful way to build community for social change. An Eat-In is a public gathering of people to share a meal they’ve cooked together, a declaration that food is our common language and a universal right, and a celebration of the people who work to feed and share food with others.
 
It is both a protest, in the spirit of the independence and civil rights movements of the last century, and a potluck, in the spirit of the good food movement. Eat-Ins have a long history, with various groups in the 1960s and 70s organizing protests where they occupied a space, ate something, and demanded change. The first Eat-In to celebrate and fight for good food took place on Labor day 2008 as part of Slow Food Nation, a gathering of over 80,000 people to celebrate and support the workers who make good, clean, and fair food possible.
 
Are you ready to take a stand for students and workers? Coordinate an Eat-In!

Steps to Making Your Eat-In a Success!

 
1. Support your local food community by purchasing good, clean, and fair food. Meet your farmers, grocers, and other food workers.
 
2. Invite your old and new friends into your kitchen to cook. Invite other friends to cook in other kitchens. Five or five hundred people can Eat-In.
 
3. Reach out to as many people as possible and invite them to share the meal. Don’t be afraid to start new friendships and alliances.
 
4. Set your table in a public space, such as a park or in front of a dining hall.
 
5. Eat together and invite everyone to consider the following questions:
  • What is worker justice, and what does it have to do with transforming the food system?
  • Is the food you’re eating good, clean, and fair? What kind of food does our current food and farming system support? 
  • How does our current food system impact the people who work to feed us? Are food workers compensated fairly and respected on the job?
  • What does student-worker solidarity mean to you?
6. Don’t forget to take videos or photos from your Eat-In and send us reports! We’ll make sure everyone in the Slow Food and Stir It Up networks share in the energy of your Eat-In.
 
Let us know if you’re up for holding an Eat-In at your school. Making them happen around the country will be a great way to kick-start an important dialogue between the slow food movement and the food workers movement!

 

"Unity. Community. Movement."

Submitted by Kyle Schafer on Mon, 02/28/2011 - 12:58
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On Friday night, the youth leading the Real Food Challenge’s Northeast Food and Justice summit stood up in front of hundreds of people and kicked off an incredible weekend with a simple theme. In between giant icebreakers, stretches, step lessons and poetry performances, the youth leaders had everyone in the room repeat the theme aloud over and over again. 

“Unity. Community. Movement.”
 
Days later those three words are still resonating. They are three words that describe the conference perfectly and simply, and what strikes me most is that the word “food” doesn’t count among them. 
 
Yes, over the three days we talked a whole lot about food. But anyone expecting a conference full of a new generation of snobby “foodies” who only want high-quality food for themselves would have been sorely out of place. This conference was about changing the world for everyone by creating a food system that works for everyone – from farmworkers and dining workers who deserve a fair wage to high school students who deserve a healthy meal. It was about food, sure, but at its core it was about a whole lot more than that. 
 
Honestly I felt honored just to be part of it. In the Stir It Up workshop, “Worker Leadership in the Fight for Sustainable Food,” worker leaders from UNITE HERE Local 35 at Yale talked about their own struggle to keep good food in their dining halls. Many years ago, to protest fresh baked goods being replaced with packaged ones, the Yale dining workers held a taste test in the middle of campus. They won. Much more recently, when Yale started an expansive sustainable food program, the workers figured out how to make it practical for them too. The program couldn’t work without their input. I could barely keep track of all the hands up from workshop participants wanting to understand the worker perspective and remarkably eager for advice on how to involve workers in sustainable food projects at their own school. In other workshops we attended that day, such as ones put on by Slow Food USA, the Student/Farmworker Alliance and the Food Chain Workers Alliance, the energy seemed just as high. 
 
On the third and final day, the conference closed by recognizing the love that went into the meals prepared for us over the weekend and by talking about youth in the Civil Rights movement who also changed our world. I think to most of the people in the room, those weren’t two different topics. I don’t know if the food movement is the next big movement that will radically change our society, but after this weekend, I feel like it could be.

 

CFSC Conference: An Executive Summary

Submitted by Ian Mikusko on Thu, 10/21/2010 - 08:43
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I had another great day at the Community Food Security Coalition conference in New Orleans.  My biggest regret: I didn't make it out of the French Quarter to the non-tourist neighborhoods.  Word is, that's where you get authentic New Orleans cuisine.  (Locals aren't caught dead eating the French Quarter...god I hate being a tourist).

Anyway, the conference was packed and was a tremendous success.  I'm not the only person who thought so.  Here are some links from the blogosphere/newsosphere with other takes on the event for those who wanted to go but couldn't make it for whatever reason:

The CFSC has another event in Portland this coming Spring, the National Conference on State and Municipal Food Policy.  Click here if you're interested in learning more.  Also, college students who are interested in these issues should check out the Real Food Challenge and Slow Food on Campus, two other great organizations fighting for positive change in university food service.

A Clean October: Slow Food USA Presents October 24th Day of Climate Action on Campus

Submitted by Ian Mikusko on Wed, 10/21/2009 - 20:41
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Though this blog has focused on labor activism in recent weeks, it has always been our philosophy here at Stir It Up that campus environmental activists and labor activists should be working together to create meaningful change in campus food service and, ultimately, a comprehensive model of campus sustainability. This weekend, there’s an important event taking place in the fight for progressive students to take control of their campus food service.    

This Saturday, October 24th, Slow Food USA, one of our allies in the fight for a more equitable and environmentally friendly food system, is participating in 350’s International Day of Action to help bring attention to the effect that the food industry has on global climate change. University food service, of course, is a big piece of that industry and students at universities all over the country will be taking action to reduce the human impact on climate change.

Slow Food on Campus, in partnership with Real Food Challenge, 350 and Small Planet Institute, has put together some great resources to help university students take action this coming Saturday.   Slow Food’s main advice for action: 
 
Focus on a target (i.e., politicians who have the power to get carbon down to 350); get new people involved in your work and build capacity for future actions; be creative, original and engaging; and make it fun, positive and memorable, and something that your supporters are excited to do.”  
 
Here are the resources from the above organizations, with more specific information and ideas for action, to help you get started on a Day of Action at your campus: 
 

Make sure to check the Slow Food USA Blog for regular updates on what else is going on in the on-going struggle to create a food system that is “Good, Clean and Fair.”  

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