Westside Food Security Collaborative Meeting Minutes

Tuesday November 17th, 2009

Present: Lisa Ross, Diane LaFontaine, Charlotte Roth, Sally Speers, Ellen Wickberg,
Nicole Mireau, Catherine Leach, Chelsea Calder, Ross Moster, Diana Ash, Daryl
Armstrong, Spring Gillard, Dellie Lidyard, Karen Dar Woon, Lisa McCune

Guest: Mary Clare Zak, Director of Social Planning with City of Vancouver

Updates:
• Lisa Ross, Jewish Family Service Agency: The JCC Bagel club has started a
social enterprise catering program. Contact Anat Toledano
bagelclub@jccgv.bc.ca
• Diane LaFontaine, Broccoli Promenade/gardens: Moving forward with the
market gardens in the city, with geothermal district heating systems adding
another revenue stream.
• Sally Speers, Fruit a& Veggie Deal: No volunteers scheduled to pack the
boxes yet for Thursday. There are 20 orders and only 16 boxes. 10am this
Thursday. It was suggested that Sally put out a call for volunteers on the
listserv.
• Lisa McCune, VCH: There has been an evaluation of the VCH lists of food
resources and discovered that the “low cost/free meals” list was the most
widely used so they will only be updating and improving this list in Spring
2010.
• Catherine Leach, Kits House: Potluck at Kits House first Wednesday of every
month. Next one is Dec 3rd: Building Welcoming and Inclusive
neighbourhoods. Kits House applied to United Way for a food security grant
to start a community food program that will include an emergency food bag,
community kitchen and a community garden. It is a 1 yr grant and will hire a
12hr/week staff person. The 8th & Vine site has been approved: 30 units (20
affordable housing units, 10 disability housing units), a senior’s resource
center and construction will begin in March. There will be a public hearing in
April for the 7th&Vine site. Kits House will be hosting an Environmental Cafe
to bring people together to discuss ideas around the design for sustainability
and environmental consciousness. Contact catherine@kitshouse.org if you
would like more information about attending the Environmental Cafe.
• Chelsea Calder, Kits House, youth programs: Developing a youth program
that will educate youth on the Westside about food security issues and
encourage them to get involved with current projects. Starts in January.
• Ross Moster: Dec 3rd Food Policy Forum. Village Vancouver has done over 30
workshops in the fall across all neighbourhoods in Vancouver. Transition
Towns: Transition in Vancouver, two day course, Dec 4-5th at Langara College,
a workshop for community members called Transition: in response to climate
change, peak oil and economical instability.
• Karen: she needs to find a solution for transportation of close to expiry date
dairy products that she won’t use in her community kitchen but that are still
good to be used in other programs. The products can only go to locations
that don’t sell products. Suggestions: Food Runner program – Will Shields.
 She said that if your own program could use some products, she can put
different programs on the food bank call list but you have to be able to pick it
up yourself. Transportation is an issue
• Daryl: Developing a composting research proposal and would like to use
Spring’s expertise. Would like to add that we had the wrong email for Daryl
Armstrong on our listserve and we apologize for the rude email that was sent
out to the group. The email has been updated and we hope this doesn’t
happen again.
• Spring: Teaching a course at VCC: Politics of Food. Waiting to hear back from
Kits Community Center about the potential compost and community garden
project. She is working with Doug Taylor. She talked to Doug about
transforming the street/parking area between KCC and Kits Secondary into a
Broccoli Promenade. She has been hired by the City of Richmond as the
Waste Management consultant for the Ozone, Richmond’s Olympic
celebration site. An update on the Pocket Markets: we have been working
with the UBC Social Planning students to develop a work plan. They will
complete 1. Backgrounder/Executive Summary, 2. List of locations and do
presentations to potential sites, 3. Help with a comparative pricing list
(grocery stores/farmers markets), 4. Evaluation and surveys. She is also
talking with Paula Luther about the nutrition and coupon program for the
Vancouver Farmer’s market to gather details about how to implement a
voucher program at the pocket markets. Need input from social service
agencies to develop criteria.

Mary Clare Zak

• Interested in knowing more about what is going on throughout Vancouver in
terms of Urban Agriculture, food distribution and what the opportunities are
for the future.
• The Vancouver Food Policy Council set out strategic priorities to address food
distribution and urban agriculture needs and work with the city.
• One of her projects is to change policy to get more food carts on the
sidewalks instead of only hotdog stands. This will allow for more healthy
options and will include free food distribution.
• She is promoting community gardens on city land. This needs to be
coordinated with all departments of the city.
• The Greener City Action Team is working to develop a food hub with food
precincts, food wastes and organic pickups, and the team is making funding
available in January for community organizations to develop projects that
promote energy reduction/better use of food. These projects will aim to
improve coordination of current projects or will be pilot projects. She will
keep Catherine up to date with information about the funds
• Food hub – HB Lanarc will be conducting focus groups for community
members who are interested in providing input. Email:
Emory.Davidge@hblanarc.ca. There is no commitment from the city to go
forward with this project. They are seeking more detailed information about
the project
• Check out www.newcitymarket.org for more details about the proposed Food
Hub.
• She acknowledges that transportation is always an issue when it comes to
food distribution and accessibility – she suggests that instead of trying to fix
the whole system, build and work on smaller initiatives
• She is also focusing on the Winter Response Initiative: shifting focus from
shelters to encouraging the development of places that people living on the
street can come to during the day to get food. Priority is that the food is
gathered for a central location. This response will include all neighbourhoods
in Vancouver, recognizing there are vulnerable populations throughout the
city.

Next Meeting:
January 19, 2010