"Imagine if food could talk. What would your rice tell you?"

This World Food Day, dedicate your dinner to the farmers who produced the food on your plate.  

Oxfam America is teaming up with a host of allies across the US and around the globe.  We have a simple yet compelling idea—to host a Sunday Dinner October 16 that fosters a conversation about where your food comes from, who cultivates it, and how we can make the food system more just and sustainable.  Order your free materials by October 12.  


Archbishop Desmond Tutu, food activist and author Frances Moore Lappé, and activist and organic farmer Ellen Walsh-Rosmann invite you to host your own Sunday Dinner:

How to host a Sunday Dinner:

• Decide what kind of gathering you want. How many people? What kind of food? Have a potluck and ask everyone to bring their favorite dish. You can also make a dish contributed by chefs such as Giada De Laurentiis, Mark Bittman, Eric Yost, José Andrés , and the Mennonite Central Committee, or these cheap recipes for Slow Food USA's $5 Challenge.
• Decide on the time and place and get the word out in order to get your guest count.
• Order Free Materials for your dinner by Oct. 12. We have World Food Day place mats to use at your table and sets of recipe cards to give out to your guests. For large events we have posters, stickers, and more.
• Use our Sunday Dinner Discussion Guide to facilitate the conversation during your dinner.
• Before your guests leave, ask them to join the Oxfam America Mobile Action Network. Text OXFAM to 30644 and we’ll send you critical updates about how you can help during global emergencies, take action when Congress is debating important legislation, and join us when there are Oxfam events in your area. Text STOP at any time to unsubscribe.

Seattle supporters get together for GROW campaign

On a beautiful Saturday afternoon in Seattle, Oxfam Action Corps hosted a training on the GROW campaign.  Oxfam supporters and friends from various organizations got together to discuss how best to address the root causes of global hunger, speaking and learing from a wealth of experience and perspectives.  Our group included students, retirees, doctors, researchers, musician-moms, and even newlyweds!   Thank to all for spending your sunny afternoon indoors with us.  Special thanks also to members of the Borgen Project and Global Washington for participating.

We’re looking forward to making an impact together. Anyone who wants to get started right away can click here to download materials to host a World Food Day Sunday Dinner in October, and to sign-up online for updates and invites from the Seattle Oxfam Action Corps.
 

"Memorable," "Powerful," Life-changing"

That's how people describe an Oxfam America Hunger Banquet event. 

Oxfam Action Corps members, along with hundreds of Oxfam supporters nationwide, will organize events like these in October and November.  Will you too?

Click here to host one in your community.

Reposted from Ode Magazine.
Written by Desiree Thayer of San Francisco bay Area Oxfam Action Corps.

Expanding the border of local food advocates

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Thousands of people, mostly women and children, have been walking for days. Not just a day or two, they've been walking for fifteen to twenty days, bound for Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya. Many of the women have lost children to hunger during the trek or taken unaccompanied minors (likely orphans) found along the way into their care. All of these people were in utter desperation to leave their homes and come to a camp in such a remote place for food and water. There are now 400,000 people in Dadaab. The influx of 9,000 people per week is taxing on the resources of the camp.

The ongoing food crisis in East Africa, including Kenya and Ethiopia and the famine in parts of Somalia, is affecting over 11 million people and the result of a series of circumstances. In Somalia, a two-year drought devastated harvests and depleted livestock. This in turn led to record food prices beyond the reach of many. There is also internal conflict in Somalia, tied to a lack of basic infrastructure and social services.

Of course emergency humanitarian relief is needed to save lives now. But equally important is the need to address underlying problems to achieve long-term solutions.

Overall this is an issue of food and power. There is enough food produced to feed everyone but still nearly 1 billion people go to bed hungry every night. The food system is broken, and we need to change the way we grow and share food so everyone has enough to eat.

Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, there are many great efforts to change our local food system and how we eat. We have support for eating local and organic food through farmers’ markets and community supported agriculture, more people taking part in urban gardening in community gardens or their own backyard, many chefs in our restaurants who prepare local and sustainable foods, and efforts to reform school lunches. And from travels to other cities and regions, I’ve witnessed the local food movement’s presence from coast to coast.

Much like the benefits we will reap locally and nationally by moving to more sustainable agriculture and supporting local farmers, these same advantages are desirable to the global food system. Most of the hungry in developing countries are actually small-scale food producers (farmers, pastoralists, fishers). So in order to help those who are vulnerable to hunger, there should be investment in small-scale food producers, protection of their rights to land and other natural resources, and support to maintain resilience through climate change and food price increases.

When it comes to the food movement here, a common saying is “Think globally, act locally.” It’s time for local food advocates to embrace the global food system and to push for changes by focusing on local efforts here and abroad. “Think globally, act locally and support global reform.”

Oxfam’s GROW campaign aims to build a better food system: one that sustainably feeds a growing population (estimated to reach nine billion by 2050) and empowers poor people to earn a living, feed their families, and thrive. Learn more and take the GROW pledge on Oxfam America’s website. Take action today at www.oxfamamerica.org/grow

Photo: Neil Palmer (CIAT)

posted by THAYERD on 8/17/2011 11:59 am | COMMENTS (54)

Spreading GROW Message with Ra Ra Riot!

by Brittany Collins, Oxfam America Community Engagement Intern

                Chilling with rock stars while saving the world—aka, just another day at my internship.  On Friday August 12, I had my first Oxfam America concert volunteering opportunity.  Ra Ra Riot, Jack's Mannequin, and Guster partnered with Reverb, a non-profit based in Portland, Maine that strives to make concert tours as environmentally friendly as possible, for their summer tour.  In turn, Reverb invited Oxfam America to table at their shows.  My favorite part of the Reverb concert experience?  Two words: free water.  Not being forced to pay five bucks for a bottle of water when you already have your own reusable, eco-friendly water bottle is, to borrow from Maine’s state motto, the way life should be.  I was also very encouraged to hear that a good number of the concert-goers had participated in the ride-share program to arrive to the show. 

                We tabled alongside Climate Counts, a non-profit that assigns scores to companies across the globe on their climate impact in an effort to encourage consumers to be conscious and make informed purchases as well as to urge the companies themselves to be environmentally responsible.  With such environmentally-friendly people surrounding us, Oxfam America was excited to bring an international perspective to the table (pun intended). 

                Oxfam America’s Senior Advisor of Music Outreach, Bob Ferguson, held down our table while my friend, Oxfam America volunteer Delia Harrington, and I canvassed the crowd informing concert-goers about global food injustice and specifically the Herger-Crowley Ethanol Subsidy Repeal Act (HR 2307) that Oxfam America supports.  We collected 120 petition signatures in support of HR 2307 (show your support by signing the online petition!).  We were thrilled to see that most people were very receptive to the GROW campaign as a whole and supportive of ending tax credits and subsidies to the corn ethanol industry.  Many were unaware that diverting cropland to ethanol production is one major cause of rising food prices that are putting basic food staples out of reach for the world’s poorest people.

Volunteer Delia Harrington and Community Engagement Intern Brittany Collins 
with Ra Ra Riot at the Oxfam America booth

                The highlight of the night (barely edging out our giving a pair of Guster Meet and Greet passes to two incredibly appreciative diehard Guster fans/Oxfam supporters) was hosting dedicated Oxfam supporters Ra Ra Riot at our table for an autograph signing.  Fans lined up and inquired about Oxfam while waiting for their chance to chat with Ra Ra.  It’s great to have an awesome band like them on board with us-- we immensely appreciate their support and are excited to continue working with them in the future! 

                Ra Ra Riot, Jack’s Mannequin, and Guster all put on excellent shows, and the night was capped off with a hilarious surprise appearance by “Saturday Night Live” star Will Forte, who performed a unique rendition of Foreigner’s “I Want To Know What Love Is” with Guster.  All in all, an amazing evening of spreading Oxfam’s message and experiencing great performances!  

Inspiring Action at the Core of CHANGE

by Caitlin DiMaina, Oxfam America Community Engagement Intern

     I stood behind a table covered in Oxfam Action Corps and GROW materials, munching on some sweet barbeque at dusk on a Sunday in July at Eastern Nazarene College, just south of Boston in Quincy, MA. Sprawled over picnic tables, benches, and the grass were over 60 people, including a group of 50 college students; Oxfam America staff and interns, and facilitators for the CHANGE Initiative 2011. This is the highly competitive national student leadership program that trains college students to become actively engaged with Oxfam America’s work. Its goals: to broaden perspectives, inspire action, and shape a new generation of global citizens.

Tabling for new 2011 CHANGE leaders at the barbecue. 

     From my vantage point behind the table about Action Corps grassroots organizing, it was a fantastic view. I saw passionate college students engaging in stimulating conversation about world issues such as extractive industries and food justice, the grassroots growing before my eyes. Dreams to create change were bubbling up and over, flooding into solid ideas for action on college campuses across the U.S.

     The Oxfam Action Corps together with CHANGE Leaders make the perfect combination to build our constituency and reach out to youth and adults alike. From taking political action by advocating for Oxfam’s campaigns to members of Congress, to organizing tabling at concerts and holding awareness events on campus, these two groups help Oxfam cast a wide net to not only garner support, but also encourage others to ACT FAST and live Oxfam’s mission.

     This week our goal is to get these two groups of activists connected and talking. We’re making some introductions via email and can’t wait to see the new additions to our ‘Oxfamily’ begin to work together to end poverty and injustice.  

For your reference, below is the list of the colleges and universities of the 2011CHANGE Leaders; for the Oxfam Action Corps cities, please see the left sidebar on this blog for a list linked to each city's own blog or Facebook.

                                                                                         

University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Loyola University Maryland

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Macalester College

Elon University

University of Vermont

St. Michael's College

University of South Florida

Buena Vista University

University of Iowa

University of Idaho

DePaul University

Northwestern University

Indiana University

Washburn University

Berea College

Union College

Tulane University

Loyola Marymount University

University of California Santa Cruz

University of Southern California

Wesleyan University

Boston University

Northeastern University

Smith College

SUNY Stoney Brook

The New School

Samford University

University of Alabama at Birmingham

Arizona State University

American University

Georgetown University

North Dakota State University

University of New Hampshire

The College of William and Mary

Virginia Tech

West Virginia Wesleyan College

University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Rider University

Bucknell University

Delaware Valley College

Villanova University

University of Tennessee-Knoxville

University of Texas, Austin

University of Wyoming

University of New Mexico

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

John Carroll University

Ohio University

Ohio State University

Des Moines Volunteers for the Community and Small Farmers

     It wasn't even half way through July and Des Moines Oxfam Action Corps had volunteered at two events and tabled at the Drake Farmers Market in support of the GROW Campaign. This is the momentum and enthusiasm we love to see coming from our Action Corps cities as the GROW Campaign takes root across the US and worldwide. Oxfam officially launched the GROW Campaign in June 2011.

Action Corps Organizers Cathy Vrentas and Stephen Lauer
collecting donations for the DMARC Red Barrel Program.

     The first event was volunteering in the Des Moines suburb, Ankeny, with Des Moines Area Religious Council (DMARC) and their Red Barrel Program. These red barrels are in local grocery stores to collect food items to stock the DMARC Emergency Food Pantries, along with accepting cash contributions toward the program. The Action Corps volunteered at a 'Sack Saturday,' which encourages not only monetary and  food donations, but also the more valuable donation of  'hunger sacks,' $5.00 grocery bags containing the most needed items. Stephen and Amy, Oxfam Action Corps Organizers wrote: "We got the results from our efforts on Saturday...drum roll....717 food items collected and $155.68 in cash." The DMARC representative told the Des Moines Oxfam Action Corps: "That is an exceptionally high food collection, even for that store, so you should be very pleased with the results. We are!" The Des Moines Oxfam Action Corps wants to thank all of the volunteers that came out to help! And a BIG thank you to the generous folks in Ankeny for donating items/money.

100 pounds of green beans picked by the Des Moines Action Corps.

     A couple days later, the Action Corps headed to St. Timothy's Faith and Grace church garden in West Des Moines for their second event to harvest vegetables. Last year St. Timothy's donated 4,000 pounds of fresh, organic, local vegetables to feed local hungry people. Their goal this year is to donate 10,000 pounds of these vegetables. What a perfect fit with the GROW Campaign's five-point plan for the United States to immediately take action to reduce food insecurity. Point one states: invest in small-scale food producers. What if the people who grew the world's food actually had enough to feed themselves and earn a living? We need to make sure the US Government supports programs related to this point and ensures the Feed the Future initiative will live up to its principles. 
    Results from the harvest: 100 pounds of green beans and 84 ears of sweet corn picked in 2 hours by 5 Oxfam Action Corps volunteers. Way to go! Many thanks to all who came out.
    
    Tonight, July 26, Oxfam America Agriculture Advocacy Lead, Jim French, will be in Des Moines at Smokey Row Coffee shop on Cottage Grove Avenue at 7:00 PM CDT, sharing information and discussing food and agricultural policy within the US and globally. All are welcome to attend!

From left to right, five Des Moines Oxfam Action Corps volunteers with their yield:
Amy Luebbert, Lance Massey, Stephen Lauer, Lucas McMillan, and Joanna Winston.