Marpole Neighbourhood Food Network

Village Vancouver, of course, likes to connect neighbours with other neighbours and works with many different groups to do this. As a member of the worldwide Transition Town movement, and one of the most active community organizations in Vancouver, with over 250 activities a year and members in every neighbourhood of the city, many of our activities focus around food and building more resilient, sustainable, and equitable food communities - particularly in fun and celebratory ways! - making us one large network of food networks. Each of VV's organized neighbourhoods (called "villages') also function as individual NFN's, and VV has helped start and participates in a number of other NFN's in various neighbouhoods around Vancouver, so we have a lot of experience at this sort of thing.

Not surprisingly, Neighbourhood Food Networks focus on a broad variety of activities around food.  A number of Marpole Place food related activities are mentioned above, while Village is engaged in numerous activities related to growing food and urban agriculture (collaborative and community gardens, permaculture projects, bees and chickens, Permaculture, green spaces, urban farming, orchards, seed saving, canning and preserving, etc.), eating and celebrating together around food (through potlucks, dinner group gatherings, Neighbour Savour - a near zero waste annual potluck gathering for 300 with music, children's activities, and community info tables - "drop-in spaghetti nights, street and harvest festivals, and the like), helping neighbours increase their skills and knowledge around food (including workshops on how to grow your own food, how to preserve food, how to save seeds, Permaculture, an annual Transition School at Langara College's Sustainable Cities Summer School, "Demonstration Sustainable Villages" - featuring bees, chickens, bike repair, solar panels, etc. - at Car Free Day and elsewhere, and "big picture" stuff like work on FED-AP - a regional Community Food Resiliency Plan in partnership with the Vancouver Food Policy Council and the Museum of Vancouver. Neighbourhood Food Networks share a Right to Food philosophy, and increasing equitable access to healthy, nutritious, affordable, sustainable, and culturally appropriate food is reflected quite broadly  and prominently in the work of many NFN's.

In Marpole, we're starting with tabling at the Marpole Community Day Festival, and a free balcony gardening workshop on June 15 (details below), as well as highlighting some of the work already being done at the Neighbourhood House, by Village Vancouver, and by others in the neighbourhood - and then building from there. We want Marpole Neighbourhood Food Network to be broadly inclusive of community food activities in Marpole, and encourage individuals, organizations, and businesses with food related activities to consider getting involved - so please let us know what you're up to and how you can contribute!

To join Marpole Neighbourhood Food Network, 1st join the Village Vancouver website, and then join Marpole NFN at http://
www.villagevancouver.ca/group/marpole-neighbourhood-food-network .

For more info on Marpole NFN, please contact Cindy McMillan moacs@shaw.ca or Ross Moster ross@villagevancouver.ca.