Jake Maxmin

Currently my food pantry project and partnership with Morning Dew has emerged to become a highly successful and rewarding project. An independent system has emerged between Morning Dew and the local food pantry, by way of a helpful and kind hearted volunteer. Every Tuesday morning at 8 o’clock, before the food pantry opens, Mary Ann will be collecting the donated fresh veggies to bring down to the soup kitchen. I want to give a special thanks to Brady and Brendan at Morning Dew farm. They have been more then generous and helpful in their efforts to make this connection happen. I myself have also become a volunteer at the kitchen. I have been working there for the past two weeks and plan on continuing for as long as possible. I will be leaving for Spain on the 27th of June, and will be working with The Experiment in International Living for a month. I am very much looking forward to taking this trip abroad and working on my Spanish skills. I am very happy that the system with Morning Dew and the food pantry will be continuing while I am abroad. The people at the food pantry are kind, sociable, and grateful for the work that I am doing. The work that I am doing is extremely rewarding and I am so glad that I have taken the time to make this project work.

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I would like to set up an action plan that I will able to update on posterous and it will help people keep up to date with what I am doing.

Food Justice and Veggies For All

I addition to most of the research I am doing, I will also be reading and writing a review of Food Justice to help broaden my scope on this project. I will also be attempting to contact Tim Libby from Veggies For All, and explain to him my goals and what I am doing. Veggies For All is an organization that farms fresh foods and provide it to those at risk of food insecurity. His goals are much larger but still very close to what I am doing.

The Food Pantry

On the 14th of this month I will be taking a trip to the Food Pantry. I think it is important that I visit before I start to work there. I do not want to seem out of place and not understand the setting and situation of the Pantry, so I feel that an initial visit is a crucial part to successfully improving the Pantry.

David Trahan

Within the next ten days I am also scheduled to call David Trahan, who has been very busy in the past weeks with legislative meetings. Hopefully he and I will be able to discuss our ideas and hopefully make some headway on the collaboration with the Spear’s and Brown’s family farms.

Morning Dew Farm

In addition to these plans, I am also scheduling a day to work with Brady and Brendan and learn more about their farm. My goal is to understand what they grow and what foods might be available later on in the summer. My assumption is that Brady and Brendan from Morning Dew Farm will be able to start giving out some excess food in the coming months, and we will be able to start supplying the Pantry with fresh foods! Thank you all for tuning in, and I look forward to your comments!

 

Currently, many aspects of the plan are laid out and ready to fall into place. I have contacted David Trahan about working with local farms and within the cmmunity, and am awaiting a response from him. When Morning Dew begins to pick up their harvest the Pantry will hopefully begin to see some of the excess food that the project is based around. Hopefully things will begin to start to move along soon, I think that a trip the pantry before the food starts coming in will be very useful. Hopefully connections will be made in my town and community to help my outreach program and truly change the lives of people who need help.

I have continued to gather information and work on my new capstone project. The developments on my research can be found on the Delicious section of my Updates Netvibes page. My research has been narrowed down to try and generate ideas for what my project could look like and how I can help others. I have found multiple great ideas on the web of possible drives or initiatives that would help to spark off community wide awareness. Please feel free to check it out and comment with questions. Thank you all for viewing!

I am currently working on switching over my Capstone project dramatically. I have been very interested in the work with Rising Tide, but I do not feel it is grounded enough or far enough along for me to get a substantial amount of work out of the project. I do not feel that the project is mature enough for me to get my required amount of learning in all subject areas from this project. The project which I am currently woking on is a very special opportunity for me. My new project focuses on taking my Morning Dew service learning project to new depths and enhancing its academic qualities. I am not only going to be able to help people by bringing in food from Morning Dew and hopefully other places, but I will truly be integrating myself into the soup kitchen experience, and many other aspects of the food collecting initiative. We are currently working to set up relationships with local farmers so soup kitchen attendees might be able to come and pick their own food after the initial pick has been performed on the fields this summer. Our state representative David Trahan to help with this project, since the idea originated with him. We are working to set up relationships with local restaurants where the chefs might be interested in helping us to chop and prepare fresh produce for soup kitchen members. I am going to join the soup kitchen as an observer, helper, and an academic to help and hopefully make  difference. This is a very special project because I can tie it in with my passion for good foods, eating local, helping others, and my knowledge of what I have learned this year.

Making some good headway on my community food projects. I am working on getting out the excess food of local organic farms out into my community. Currently we are still involved with the community foodshed project, and progress has been made by the co-op with their acquisition of the new land. Hopefully everything works out and they will be able to succesfully aqcuire it! More on that soon; I am still working on getting this excess food from organic farms in my area to local food pantries where they can be cooked into meals or given away to people who cannot afford local organic produce. I already have a farm standing by and ready to try this out, so I am working on the connection with the pantry/kitchen. I have spoken with several volunteers at the pantry which the farm has requested to work with, and have a meeting scheduled with the head of the board of directors of this pantry. Hopefully we make some headway in our conversation and get this project out of the ideas stage and into the implimentation. Onward fellow foodies.

Had a great day attending the summit! Met many interesting people doing community projects and learned a mass new information concerning food justice facts. I attended workshops giving by students at Yale, Tufts, and interns with the The Food Project which is located right here in Boston. I learned a lot of information dealing with educating the public on healthy foods and the positive effect food has on communities. I was looking forward to learning more about applying theories to foodsheds and how they shape out in communities. Overall I learned a lot of useful information that can be taken back to the details and facts in the project, but not a lot concerning the managing and structure of such a project as I am looking to take on. A very fun time and a job well done to all the people at the Real Food Challenge! 

Came across a very cool site for local maine foods today! Eat Maine Food, is a very cool community site that can put people in touch with local food activists, events, and organizations near them. This would be a wonderful resource if we could develop a system where every state could have their own food page linked into different cities, towns, and the nation.  

Tomorrow I am headed down to Boston to attend the Real Foods Conference at Northeastern University. Hopefully I can meet some people who are trying to accomplish the same thing in their town, and learn about difference approaches I can take to reach out to my community. 

More Soon!

Can't wait to attend the Northeast Youth Food and Justice Summit, Boston, MA Feb. 25th - 27th! I hope to make new connections with youth and adult food activists. I am also looking forward to learning new ways to branch out to my community and share my work with them. Pictures and video will be up during and after the conference, stay tuned! 

My goal is to start a community supported kitchen. One of the ways I would like to raise awareness about local and organic foods in my community would be to start a community supported soup kitchen. This would be a great way to get community members involved in my work and to spread the word about healthy food. This kitchen would also help people in my community who do not have access to healthy foods or cannot afford to buy organic.