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Join us at the Foothills Performing Arts Center in Oneonta, NY on Thursday, August 31st for a workshop with Wholesome Wave! Fruit & Vegetable Prescription programs enable innovative partnerships between healthcare, retail, and community-based organizations to increase access to healthy and affordable food. Patients are empowered to prevent/manage diet related health conditions, retailers and local farms receive direct economic benefits, and patient-provider relationships are deepened. Join us to explore the impacts of fruit and vegetable prescription programs and local opportunities! Lunch will be provided.
Agenda Preview:
10:00 am - Registration
10:30 am - Welcome
10:45am - Keynote: Skye Cornell, Chief Programs Officer, Wholesome Wave
12:00 pm - Lunch & Networking
12:45 pm - Panel Discussion on Local Opportunities
2:00pm - Conclusion
Registration is required, register today!
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August Spotlight: Farm to School Team Travels to Shelburne, Vermont
The 2017-2018 Northeast Farm to School Institute kicked off with a retreat at the beautiful Shelburne Farms in Shelburne, Vermont during the last week of June. The institute is a unique year-long professional learning opportunity for twelve school teams from New England and New York. Two of our staff at the Food & Health Network, Erin Summerlee, Director and Christian Dirado-Owens, Program Coordinator had the opportunity to attend the retreat as part of a Johnson City School District Team. They were joined by their fellow team members Adam Frys and Jane Halladay from Johnson City School District, Bryan McCoy of Broome Tioga BOCES Food Service, and Kelly White from Cornell Cooperative Extension of Broome County.
Can you give a brief overview of your experience?
Christian: Shelburne Farms is a very beautiful place, it provided us with a space for our team to come together and also gave us many resources and questions to bring back to our farm to school work. It took us away from our daily work responsibilities and gave us a space where we could be free to focus on exactly what we wanted to achieve. Overall, it was really helpful for us to connect and talk with each other about farm to school and made us feel comfortable moving forward with programming and asking team members to work toward a vision. It was a really good communication builder for the team, and left us with a sense that there are a lot of things happening in other places that gave us an optimism of what’s possible.
Erin: It was really a space away from our work responsibilities to come together as a team, not just those of us who always work together on the school foodservice and nutrition education side of things but different key people within the schools. It was a mix of group time where we could dig into developing our own action plan for the following school year and then learning opportunities and workshops where we could hear from farm to school programs across the northeast and the country. We also had time to plenty of free to time to meet new people and informally learn from the different school teams. In the end we came up with an action plan and a vision statement for the Johnson City Farm to School Program and are excited to put it into motion throughout the year.
Read the full interview by clicking here to visit our Food for Thought Blog
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Food & Health Policy
From the Food Bank of the Southern Tier: The House Budget Committee passed their FY 2018 budget resolution two weeks ago along a party line vote. This budget resolution includes severe cuts to many important social programs, including SNAP, while providing a huge tax cut that is heavily tilted toward the rich. It includes “reconciliation” instructions to committees with jurisdiction over SNAP, school meals, TANF (cash assistance), SSI, low-income tax credits, and other crucial supports. The proposal also includes large cuts in domestic discretionary programs and nearly $2 trillion dollars of cuts in Medicare and Medicaid.
Among the harsh cuts proposed to essential anti-hunger programs are:
- Instructions to the House Agriculture Committee to make $10 billion in cuts over 10 years to programs in its jurisdiction — a reduction clearly pointed at SNAP given the language in the Budget Committee’s explanatory documents.
- Another $150 billion in SNAP cuts through block grant-type structural changes in the latter years of the 10-year budget window.
- A $1.6 billion cut in the Community Eligibility Provision for school lunch and breakfast in high-poverty schools, targeting an estimated 8,284 currently participating schools with over 3.8 million students, and precluding another 12,843 schools with over 6.2 million students from choosing this option.
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Research, Data & Resources
The Food Research & Action Center's annual report on Summer Nutrition Programs is now available. The June 2017 update titled "Hunger Doesn't Take a Vacation: Summer Nutrition Status Report" showed that on an average day in July 2016 over three million children in the United States were served lunch through the summer meals program.
New York state statistics:
- New York ranked fourth among states in the ratio of students receiving free and reduced price lunch who also participated in the summer meals program (29.9 to 100)
- Average daily participation in New York decreased by 2.8 percent between July of 2015 and July of 2016
- Site sponsors in New York increased from 338 in the summer of 2015 to 348 in the summer of 2016.
The United Way of New York's ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) report was released late last year and is a useful tool for understanding the full depth of financial hardship in New York state. The report provides information on the amount of people living in the state who are above the federal poverty limit but still lack the resources to provide for a full household budget that includes housing, child care, food, transportation, and health care. Their research shows that 44% of families in New York state are either living below the federal poverty line or under the ALICE threshold. You can access the full report by clicking here.
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August 9, 2017
Wednesday, 12:00 pm - 9:00 pm
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Farm to Fork, A Taste of Chenango
Chenango County Agricultural Development Council, Chenango County Fairgrounds Norwich, NY. Learn more.
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August 10, 2017
Thursday, 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm
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Kitchen Garden Tour - Ithaca Children's Garden
Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County, Ithaca Children's Garden, Ithaca, NY.
Learn more.
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August 21, 2017
Monday, 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
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Farmer & Buyer Networking Event
Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County, Ithaca Farmers' Market, Groundswell Center for Local Food & Farming, Pavilion of the Ithaca Farmers' Market, Ithaca, NY.
RSVP by August 17th to Matt Le Roux, mnl28@cornell.edu
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August 23, 2017
Wednesday, 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm
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Cider Making 101
Cornell Cooperative Extension of Chemung County and Cornell Cooperative Extension of Schuyler, Human Services Complex, Montour Falls, NY. Register here.
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August 24, 2017
Thursday, 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm
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Baskets or Pallets: Vegetable Grading and Packaging
Catskill Cattle Company, Cornell Cooperative Extension of Broome County, Deposit, NY. Register here.
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Closing the Hunger Gap 2017: From Charity to Solidarity
September 11-13, 2017
Hosted by Northwest Harvest & CTHG National Network, Greater Tacoma Convention and Trade Center, Tacoma Washington. Learn more.
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Chef Ann Foundation
Project Produce: Fruit and Veggie Grants for Schools: Applications ongoing and based on available funding. Learn more here.
Whole Kids Foundation
Multiple Grants: Rolling deadlines. Learn more here.
Community Foundation for South Central New York
Community Fund Grants: Inquiries must be made before August 25, 2017 and full Applications are due by September 6, 2017. Learn more here.
Small grants: Application deadline September 15, 2017. Learn more here.
Gannett Foundation
Community Action Grant: Application deadline August 29, 2017. Learn more here.
The A. Lindsay & Olive B. O'Connor Foundation
Full Board Committee Grant: Application deadline September 1, 2017. Learn more here.
Anthem Foundation
Applications due no later than September 1, 2017. Learn more here.
Decker Foundation
Application deadline September 1, 2017. Learn more here.
Ag Industry Enhancement Grant- Southern Tier:
Period 4: July 10, 2017 - September 18, 2017. Learn more here.
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