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Illinois Stewardship Alliance brings priorities listening tour to Chicago
Photo by Bob Benenson
I appreciate the working relationship that Local Food Forum has with Illinois Stewardship Alliance, the state's leading policy advocate for the local farm and food communities. The Alliance is based in the state capital of Springfield, so most of our interactions are via phone or Zoom.
The non-profit organization, however, is marking its 50th anniversary year with a statewide tour of events under the banner of "Setting the Table for a Better Food & Farm Future." While the Alliance annually pursues a lineup of initiatives for which it campaigns at the state legislature, this listening tour is aimed at harvesting ideas and priorities from members of the local food community in order to create the organization's first formal policy platform.
Photo by Bob Benenson
I attended the session that was held Thursday (June 6) at Plant Chicago, a non-profit that works out of a former firehouse on Chicago's South Side. According to its mission statement, "We’re working to make our cities healthier and more efficient by developing and sharing the most innovative methods for sustainable food production, energy conservation and material reuse."
The meeting was intended not to tell attendees what is on the Alliance's mind but rather to learn what attendees believe should be the organization's priorities going into its next 50 years.
Photo by Bob Benenson
The attendees were divided into two groups, one led by Alliance Executive Director Liz Stelk (photo above) on the ground floor, and the other by Deputy Director Molly Pickering on the upper level.
Audience members participated in an online poll about issues in the local food sphere. They then were asked to talk among themselves — one on one or in groups, preferably people they had not previously met — to discuss opportunities and challenges in addressing an array of issues.
This was not a meeting aimed with setting an agenda, but to get thoughts from dedicated community members about what issues matter most to them and to provoke further thought beyond the meeting's confines.
Thursday's event was the third of nine planned through August 19. Click the button below to learn more about each upcoming session.
It would be great if Local Food Forum readers could contribute to the process by sharing their ideas for policy priorities to advance us to our shared goal of a better food system. Please email your thoughts to me at bob@localfoodforum.com.
One Other Work-in-Progress on the New Website
This new Local Food Forum website was officially launched on Thursday. The feedback has been very positive. I would greatly appreciate any or all thoughts, particularly on things you believe can be made better.
Just a quick update... In my launch message, I mentioned that the events calendar is one website item that is still under development. I neglected to mention the other: Transferring the archives of back issues of the Local Food Forum Substack-based newsletter is a manual process, alas, and it will take some time and effort to move over all 800+ issues (no lie) published since April 2021.
So far, we have content on the website back to the beginning of May 2024. We intend to make quick progress on this. In the meantime, all back issues are safe and sound on Substack.
Photo by Bob Benenson
Get the details about our next free webinar — which I am confident you’ll find both informative and inspiring — and register by clicking the button below.
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