Last weekend, 8 Sustainers went to the Real Food Convergence in Santa Cruz! The convergence, a 2-day event to “strengthen our roots,” was the product of the CA Student Sustainability Coalition and the Real Food Challenge campaign. We went to several workshops on Saturday, along with about 150 other food activists from up and down California (and a few from Oregon), that were all about food, agriculture, food justice, and activism on campus!
I definitely left inspired. For one thing, I went to a workshop on campaign planning that made me feel confident in the Stanford Farm Project, the student campaign for an on-campus Stanford farm! For another thing, I think there’s a great opportunity to create a student-lead course in gardening on campus– this will help Stanford students fit gardening into their busy schedules, bolster the Campus Garden Initiative (which supports Row House gardens), and get people digging. It’s also a great chance for me to learn way, way more about gardening, and a way to lessen the pressure on ES180B (the sustainable ag class, extremely popular.)
I also went to a workshop about transforming how we think of protest. The woman leading the workshop had built community support for reclaiming some abandoned space in San Francisco, using creative messaging like projecting questions onto the wall of an abandoned building and asking students to text answers. Later, she also created a poster where passersby could fill in their vision for the abandoned city space.
Apparently, you do not have to get a permit to project things on walls. Clearly this is a great opportunity to project the SSS message around campus…
All told, there’s a large movement around the country around food and agriculture, especially encouraging better dining hall practices, getting farms installed on campuses, incorporating sustainable ag into the school curriculum, and much more. If you want more information, check out the Real Food Challenge website, or come to a Food group meeting!
Other people who went to the conference, feel free to pitch in with comments!
