Shuswap Food Action Society

Great things happening tomorrow! Our First Toque Pick Up is at Salmon Arm Home Building Centre, out front, from 10-11am. If you have successfully raised the minimum -$150 for adults and $75 for youth - we encourage you to come tomorrow, meet us and receive your thank you toque! If you are a Team Captain, you can come and pick up for the team too! To allow for less people on other days, we do encourage you to come if you can. For other Toque Pick up dates, see our location pag...e cnoy.org/salmonarm under Event Day Info. At 9am, Tune in to 93.7FM Voice of the Shuswap Community Radio for More Food For Thought with Steve Corrie. His two guests are Patti Thurston, Executive Director of Shuswap Family Resource Centre and Ebony Vardal, prior director for their Sustainable Food Programs & instrumental to the initiation of the Shuswap Community Teaching Garden. They'll discuss ...What is it; How it differs from a regular Community Garden; How it got started; & Why it is more important than ever! We continue to ask for our supporters to Show their Love for Armstrong Regional Cooperative and Fuel Up February! Co-op have been very generous in sponsoring the Coldest Night of the Year Salmon Arm and aiding Food With Friends, a free, hot meal shared with those who are without a home or are feeling isolated within theirs. To give back, we ask that you choose Co-op to fuel up and use the SFAS membership number, 101001! Still plenty of time to sign up to walk in the Coldest Night of the Year Shuswap 2021, with a team, with your family or walk with our team on February 20th at 3pm starting at Downtown SASCU. Register here cnoy.org/register. Grow Your Awareness Downtown Salmon Arm and stroll around, finding the colourful signs within business windows to learn more about WHY we are doing all of this! Why Eat Local? What are some Shuswap Solutions! And join in the conversation with #growyourawarenessshuswap and #eatlocalshuswap. #cnoy21shuswap #cnoy21 #selfsufficientshuswap #eatlocal #supportshuswapfarmers #supportlocalbusiness #salmonarm #downtownsalmonarm #shuswapfoodconversations

9 days to go until National Coldest Night of the Year Walk on February 20th! We are at 87% of our $40,000 goal today with 165 walkers and 39 Teams. We are so thankful to you all for choosing to get yourselves out there and raise awareness and funds! Today we're highlighting Team Light in the Darkness, with Captain Tyson Beerstra. We called him to thank him for participating and learned that he is 9 years old! Speaking with his mother, Samantha, she said this is his 3rd year. ... From an article from 2018: "Every year Tyson saves money from his birthday and Christmas and stuff, and donates it. A while ago we drove past the (homeless) camp at the end of town, and he said he thought it would be cool to live in a tent like that, and that he wanted to live there. But when I explained that the people who lived in the tents do because they don’t have a house, he said he wanted to help, Beerstra explained. https://www.vernonmorningstar.com//vernon-walkers-brave-t/ We had just posted about having more Youth involved and so this was very heartwarming! His Team has raised $718 which is amazing! They are choosing to walk in Armstrong, where they live, but will be keeping us up-to-date with photos. Should you want to encourage this inspiring young boy, here is his team link. When we find young people like this, it's so important to support them as he will be a future leader one day! He already is! https://secure.e2rm.com/registrant/TeamFundraisingPage.aspx #cnoy21shuswap #cnoy21 #bettertogethershuswap #growyourawarenessshuswap

We are so close to our own fundraising goal so we're going to do a !!!Pop Up Prize!!! to entice our supporters to help us reach our goal of $5500! The the next person who donates to our Shuswap Food Action team (and say that you would like this prize in a comment), will receive a copy of "Food Sovereignty in Canada"! It "is essential reading for anyone interested in holistic, healthy and sustainable food production and consumption." https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/bo/f...ood-sovereignty-in-canada You can do this here https://secure.e2rm.com/registrant/TeamFundraisingPage.aspx Former President John McLeod is a passionate advocate for food sovereignty in Canada and our own region. He wants us to READ THIS BOOK! and has donated a copy of it as a special prize! John wrote: We’ve got to change our mentality. It’s not just about ‘me’ all the time We can learn from our First Nations’ neighbours. We’ve let greed rule for too long. I hear people saying kids today are all entitled. I think it was our generation that was entitled. Hair straight back and do what we want. He stresses Canada must have the ability to feed its own people. If you have to rely on foreign corporations and other countries to feed you. when they control your stomach, they’ve got your brain. It’s up to us to protect and maintain all viable land. And by viable, I mean all land. We have to get away from soil classifications; poor dirt is better than no dirt. You can’t grow vegetables out of concrete and asphalt. Read the full article here, written in 2018. https://www.saobserver.net//salmon-arm-farmer-makes-empas/ Here's another article regarding some of the ideas that have been on the SFAS agenda a while and perhaps time to re-examine. Jim Kimmerly https://www.bclocalnews.com/news/promoting-homegrown-food/ #eatlocalshuswap #shuswapgrown #growyourawarenessshuswap #cnoy21shuswap #supportshuswapfarmers #selfsufficientshuswap

Here we are... 10 days go! It's very exciting to be here, at this point - 82% of our goal! Are we going to reach $40,000??? Can we surpass it? We BELIEVE!! We FEEL the momentum and we ask for all of our supporters, participants and Teams to channel your energies into making this event your own, connecting with others, empowering people with knowledge and sharing posts, videos and ideas! Continue inviting people to walk, with you or solo. cnoy.org/register. This photo was from... Coldest Night of the Year Salmon Arm 2019, taken by photographer Selina Metcalfe of Ihana Images of the SASCU Team. This year they joined with us as well, not only as a Co-Lead Event Sponsor but now as Team SASCU Community Group. We are really grateful for their support, not only of this event but their support of the Downtown Salmon Arm Farmers Market and of our community at large! On February 20th, National Walk Day, Shuswap Food Action Team will be walking at 3pm on our curated downtown route starting and ending at Downtown SASCU. There will be a Toque Pick Up there from 2-3pm for those who have fundraised their minimum (adults $150 / Youth $75). For other Toque Dates, see our event day info on our location page cnoy.org/salmonarm. We'd love to hear from you and see your pictures. Tag us @shuswapfoodaction and use #cnoy21shuswap or #cnoy21. Thank you again for all your efforts to bring us to this point and we are so excited for all the plans and collaborations and projects that we are in discussion about. #eatlocalshuswap #eatlocal #growyourawarenessshuswap #bettertogethershuswap #sasculovescommunity

Challenge for Us ALL... quite literally ... and we could really use some advice here. How do we engage the youth?? Food Security is a part of their future and we want them involved! Here is the average age of people walking in this year's Coldest Night of the Year Salmon Arm. 50.2. So let's challenge our teams and adults to invite a youth or your children into your walk. Let's get some young leaders involved and have their voices in this topic. We want them just as empowered,... hopeful & excited about growing food, eating well, supporting local and being a part of a community. These are really valuable lessons to teach young children and so valuable to encourage youth and teens and young adults. Life may be a bit unpredictable right now and perhaps even a little scary for youth. So much of what we're doing is for next generations and they can play such an important role in all of this. To keep youth engaged, to keep their focus on positive goals and purposeful actions is much of the work we, as parents, grandparents, educators, professionals and leaders, must also focus on. Good luck! And they can take the videos and post them! Win win! #cnoy21 #cnoy21shuswap #growyourawarenessshuswap #bettertogethershuswap

Grow Your Awareness Shuswap! Why Eat Local? Local Food Builds relationships, community and our local economy! This cold snap is harsh but, thankfully, temporary! SPRING is on its way and local farmers will begin to ready their land for the growing season. We are incredibly fortunate to have a wide variety of farm businesses in our region which has the potential to provide us with everything that we need! From grains, to fruit, to veggies, to nuts, to meat, herbs and spices, w...e CAN have an AMAZING local diet! Perhaps we need someone to figure out how to grow coffee, olives and avocados here but otherwise... We can roast chicory and dandelion root for a nice coffee substitute; maybe Walnut oil instead of olive oil; and make a nice hummus with local beans instead of creamy avocados. Anything is possible. It's about celebrating what we DO HAVE instead of missing what we don't. We don't NEED to import sugar... we have honey, maple syrup and stevia (Yes, you can grow stevia yourself in your garden)! We don't NEED Oranges... Strawberries have way more Vitamin C when picked ripe. We don't NEED Lemons... Sorrel from the garden produces a lovely lemon flavour in food. https://huntergathercook.typepad.com//sorrel_the_lemo-1.ht What are your favourite replacements for imported food? #eatlocalshuswap #eatlocal #growyourawarenessshuswap #growfoodnotlawns #supportshuswapfarmers #supportlocalfarmers #selfsufficientshuswap