Harvest Hill Community Garden

Announcing the Harvest Hill Community Garden at William Jewell College! Many folks here at Jewell along with some dedicated Liberty community partners have been working hard to organize the garden and applications are now being accepted. Find out more are http://harvesthill.ning.com/

Andy and I are planning our CJS plot - we hope you'll come to the Hill and join in the fun!

eat local for the holidays

Join the Greater Kansas City Food Policy Coalition and your neighbors in supporting our local food system.

Sign the online pledge to have at least one local food item in your holiday meal. It might be the sweet potatoes, the pecans for your pumpkin pie, or even the turkey itself. Whichever you choose, you can make a difference by supporting local farmers and vendors.

Find out what items are fresh now in Greater Kansas City, and check out recipes using some of those ingredients.

Not sure where to find local foods? Check out these vendors and stores and restaurants specializing in local foods.

You can find food items for your holiday meal right here at home. They're local, they're tasty and they're easier to find than you might think!

Organic recycling in Caf, Cage, Perch

Beginning tomorrow, Wed. Nov. 17, we will begin recycling all organic, compostable waste in Dining Services. To learn more about the program, and find out what is compostable or not, go here.

Within the cafeteria, Cage, and Perch, everyone who works or eats at Jewell will separate organic, compostable materials from non-compostable. The compostable waste will be diverted from the landfill and instead taken away by Missouri Organic to be composted at their facility. We already purchase all of the compost and mulch used on our grounds from Missouri Organic, so now we are completing the cycle!

This will have only a minor impact on our dining routine. Please follow these steps when busing your tables at Jewell:

• Deposit all organic, compostable waste into designated waste cans only. The majority of your waste should fall into this category.
  
• Deposit any non-organic, non-compostable waste into designated waste cans only.
  
• Place scraped off plates onto a tray and on the conveyor belt.

If you have any questions or concerns about this process, or to find out if an item is compostable or not, drop me an email at honset[at]william.jewell.edu and I will figure out the answer.

Support urban farming in KC

Support Urban Food Production in Kansas City!!

The Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture, one of our community partners from Rock Out Reach Out is getting the word out about urban farming in our city. Whether you grow local food or buy local food, this information is very important to you. Come to BADSEED, Tuesday, October 20, 6:00-7:30 pm, to discuss proposing City Code changes that will benefit Urban Agriculture.

BADSEED has gotten a lot of flack and legal pressure lately about farming in the city, and I want to invite Kansas City friends and allies to support Kansas City urban farming by coming to this initial meeting.

Katherine Kelly of KCCUA says, "In our meetings with the Urban Planning and Development staff, and with various city council people, they expressed a willingness to work with us to develop codes that more accurately fit the ways that urban food production is developing in Kansas City, MO. They are in a review period looking at the revised codes, so the timing is good for refinements.

The Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture, Bad Seed Farm, and the Food Policy Coalition for Greater Kansas City are organizing a meeting of any interested community members who would like to have input into this process. You are invited to attend, Tuesday, October 20, 6:00-7:30 pm, at the Bad Seed Market at 1909 McGee, Kansas City, MO."

The goals of the meeting are:

· To look at existing codes that impact urban agriculture,

· To brainstorm about changes that might be useful and supportive of the benefits of urban agriculture, and

· To put together a volunteer committee of Kansas City, MO residents to lead the codes revisions process. This committee would work with KCCUA, the Food Policy Coalition, and city staff to research possibilities, prioritize, draft, and build political support for more urban ag applicable codes.

· Start a process that other municipalities in the metro area can use as inspiration and as a model for creating more urban ag friendly cities.

At the meeting, we will have KCMO Councilwoman Beth Gottstein, Patty Knoll from the Planning and Development Department of the city, and possibly other city representatives.

PLEASE RSVP to Katherine Kelly! They want to have some idea of how many folks to expect. And, if you can, bring a folding chair, Bad Seed will have some on hand, but depending on the numbers, we may need more.

If you have any questions about this, you can contact:
Katherine Kelly, KC Center for Urban Agriculture, 913-831-2444, or katherine@kccua.org
Gretchen Kunkel, Food Policy Coalition of Greater Kansas City, ghkunkel@kc.rr.com
Dan Heryer & Brooke Salvaggio, badseedfarm@hotmail.com

Even if you can't make commitments to the long process ahead, I hope we can have lots of people show overwhelming support for this initial meeting. Hope to see you there!

Take out

We are always especially on the lookout here for things our students can do to lower their carbon footprint (since they don't have houses to weatherize or backyards to grow food). Here's a good article about the pros and cons about containers for the inevitable take out meal.

http://www.chow.com/stories/10870

The best advice NOT included in the article is: get out of the habit of eating take out in the first place! We all do it of course, but the more times you sit down to eat somewhere with reusable utensils the better it is all the way around. And honestly, no matter where or what you're eating, food tastes better with real silverware anyway!

Socially Conscious Shopping

Confident that you are buying good, socially conscious brands? Find out the real story behind all that marketing money and store visibility.

Burt's Bees, Tom's of Maine, Naked Juice: Your Favorite Brands? Take Another Look -- They May Not Be What They Seem
http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/131910

Campus Kitchens Project coming to Jewell

This year's Pryor Fellows are bringing Campus Kitchens to Jewell for their legacy project. Go here to find out more about this exciting project.