2011 Waterloo Region Food Summit

Get Connected

On Saturday, April 30th, 2011, about 55 Foodies gathered at the Lyle Hallman School of Social Work Auditorium in Kitchener to learn who's doing what for a healthy food system in Waterloo Region and how they could get involved. This page provides you with a summary of what happened that day, so even if you weren't there, you can still figure out how YOU can join the movement for a healthy food system in Waterloo Region.

Background/Context

In 2009, over 170 people participated in the Waterloo Region Food Summit. Participants heard speakers describe the reality of hunger and poverty in Waterloo Region, and also about farmers' struggles to make a living growing food, and of the unhealthy diets of most of our population as a result of our out-of-balance food system. View 2009 Food Summit page here.

Participants discussed the issues and came up with a Declaration identifying priority areas for action to bring about a healthy food system.

What's happened since then on those key priorities? What still needs to be done? How can you get involved?

This is what we discussed at the 2011 Waterloo Region Food Summit

Goals for the 2011 Food Summit:

Learn who is doing what and how to get involved
identify priority projects which have people ready to act

What We Did:

After a morning of presentations on what is happening locally on each of the six Food System Priorities, participants spent the afternoon talking in small groups about the key local people and organizations for each priority, and the key projects that need to happen to move the priorities forward. Participants volunteered to post profiles to the Roundtable's website for all of these. Watch for more Organization and Project profiles in the Foodie Finder in the near future.

8:45am	Registration
9am	Welcome & Introductions by Ellen Desjardins and Steffanie Scott View 5-minute video of 2009 Food Summit
9:15am	Demonstration of Roundtable website
9:30am	updates on Waterloo Region's Food System Priorities -Food Sovereignty - presentation; handout -Food Policy - presentation -Urban Agriculture
10:30am	BREAK
10:45am	updates on Waterloo Region's Food System Priorities (cont'd) -Farm Viability - handout -Local Food Infrastructure - Farm-Instutition program presentation notes -Access to Healthy Food - handout
11:45am	100-Mile Healthy Lunch - catered by Gusto Catering
12:45pm	Small group discussions on the Food System Priorities: -what more needs to be done, and how to involve new people -what key people and organizations need to have profiles on the Roundtable's website (participants filled in these forms) -here are the notes participants made on chart paper
1:45pm	Identify Key Projects for each Food System Priority
2:45pm	Large-group selection of most important projects which need to happen in the next year Results: 1. Advocacy to municipal governments re. farm viability and accessing healthy food in cities 2. Create neighbourhood food buying, growing, and preserving clubs 3. Create website for local producers to post available foods and prices 4. Advocate to get schools to have more food in the curriculum, including having school gardens 5. Advocate for public institutions to buy more local foods Look for descriptions of these projects and invitations to support them to appear in the Foodie Finder in the near future.
3pm	Wrap-up

What Participants Said:

16 participants filled out evaluation forms at the event (response rate: 29%).

13 out of 16 (81%) said they were inspired by the day;
14 out of 16 (88%) said they met at least one person they would connect with later; and
15 out of 16 (94%) said they learned something new.

Quotes:

Today has been a learning experience and it's been very exciting and helpful to be exposed to the vast amount of knowledge and people of this conference.

It's great to see everything that is happening in our community and this definitely encourages me to do more and to take an active part.

Bringing this group of people together was very good for networking and community building.

Thanks for the great event! It was inspirational and provided me with a great overview of what our community could look like if we advocate these values.

I found the summit very interesting and informative - looking forward to see what comes out of it!

Media Coverage

The Waterloo Region Record wrote a good story on the Food Summit on Monday, May 2, 2011:
see http://www.therecord.com/news/local/article/525439--forum-focuses-on-local-food-availability.

We also received coverage on the CTV News and CKWR's K-W Magazine.