THUNDER BAY – Healthbeat – A wide variety of stakeholders from food producers to health care providers have gathered at the Paterson Family Food Centre to set the groundwork for developing and implementing a regional food strategy. Jointly presented by the City of Thunder Bay, the Food Action Network and the Food Security Research Network under the banner “Cultivating our Future”, the Regional Food Strategy Summit will build on growing public interest in food security since the adoption of the Thunder Bay Food Charter in 2008.

The event, facilitated by Joan Brady of Grand Bend, Ontario, a food systems consultant with HC Link and the Acting Coordinator of FoodNet Ontario explained that there is widespread interest throughout the nation in creating food strategies. “Communities across the province and country are focusing energy and attention towards their food futures. A food strategy considers both the current status of the food system and community needs as well as projecting towards the future and the resources required to provide safe, nutritious and culturally acceptable food for all citizens,” Brady said.

“The organizers and participants are intentional about celebrating the great food initiatives in the Thunder Bay area, both past and present. The Thunder Bay food charter creates a vision for a food secure community within a healthy, just, and environmentally and economically sound food system. A food strategy takes that vision and mobilizes it with policy and collaboration across various sectors and government departments,” added Brady.

Organizing committee chair Catherine Schwartz-Mendez said “That the Summit builds on the range of activities that are already underway to enhance the way people access food in a sustainable way”. Schwartz-Mendez added that “The goals of the Thunder Bay food strategy could include improving access to nutritious, local and affordable food, integrating food policies into city-wide plans, managing food waste, creating more opportunities to grow food in the city, reducing distances between food production and consumption, supporting food infrastructure and supporting local food celebrations”.

Local food was featured in the meals that were offered to the delegates.

and then i woke up.  so now what?

(and then, various ramblings about events since waking up, and asking: what now)

Big name designers are coming out with more and more collections targeting kids -- complete with big-ticket prices. Though the designer clothes for kids are undoubtedly adorable, is paying hundreds for a sweater your daughter will soon outgrow -- or splatter with mud! -- really a good idea?

Im not in the best if form, its 6.34am woke up cant sleep, i heard my mum get up open her door go to the loo. My dad died at home on 25th june this year at home.

I wonder if Ambien has stopped working for me.

Do you already consider yourself complete as an individual, or in the U.S. do you seek completion by extending yourself to society and the work force? While on one hand, work does amount to a sense of security and helps us feel more confident at what we do---I personally feel that we should already be complete within ourselves before we start working and continue to feel complete, without work making us who we are. This conversation I had with my father made me realize how in a consumerist society, one is prey to the role we play within the system...one we cannot easily avoid. Shouldn't everyone deserve fundamental things: food, homes, opportunities? If we are born with the God-given right to be free, shouldn't our government uphold this principle and not let us be poor or go hungry in America?

'Childhood schizophrenia'.

Pinned to me in 1964, at age six. The drugs soon followed - as did the 'special-ed' classes, outpatient 'treatment' at several different hospitals and finally at age sixteen, admission to a 'group home'.