Community

Monday, 10 June 2013 01:08

Every night in Ithaca, many of your neighbors go to bed hungry, not knowing where their next meal will coming from. Meanwhile, our community is on the verge of creating a vital and living food system that will serve all of our residents equally, ensuring that none suffers from food insecurity.

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We have the resources.
We have the will.

It is just a matter of organizing and directing our energies. We can create a successful community of healthy people and thriving businesses with equal access for all our neighbors. That is where GreenStar Community Projects comes in. GreenStar Community Projects, Inc. (GSCP) is the non-proﬁt affiliate of GreenStar Cooperative Market, initiated by GreenStar members in 2004 to help create a system of regional food sustainability that promotes health, equity, and community control of essential resources.

This work has been many years in the making, and with your help, GSCP is ready to further Food Justice in the region, ensuring equitable access to healthy food which has previously been a limited privilege. We will initiate and support community projects that promote cooperatives, healthful living, local self-reliance, ecological stewardship and social justice. We will act to honor and enhance the socio-economic diversity of the projects and those intended to beneﬁt from them.

To do this work we need the support of our community.

Contribute today!

Here is some of what GSCP has done so far:

• Right from the start we partnered with the New York Coalition for Healthy School Food and the Village at Ithaca to set up the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Snack Program and Ithaca Community Harvest.

• In 2011 and 2012, GSCP organized Ithaca’s ﬁrst two Food Justice Summits. We intend to continue organizing this annual Summit in the fall. The Food Justice Summit is our way to gather the entire community around food as a human right. This year’s Summit will be September 21st, and will feature a community-wide WORKathon, giving families and individuals the chance to experience, and learn from hands-on food production, as well as get to know the people who distribute the food they eat daily.

• Beginning in November of 2012, GSCP hosted a series of 4-hour sessions (on November 29th and December 13th), to lay the foundation for a stronger and more just locally/regionally-based food system. About 75 people representing more than 60 organizations, farms and other food-related businesses attended each session, convening a broad diversity of food system stakeholders for the purpose of building and strengthening a coordinated local food network. These meetings have grown and will be held bi-monthly throughout the year until our food justice network is fully developed!

Race and GreenStar

Friday, 31 May 2013 17:06

By Joe Romano,
 Marketing Manager

race-power-illusion Racism does not have a good track record. It's been tried out for a long time and you'd think by now we'd want to put an end to it instead of putting it under new management.

— Thomas Sowell

Ateenager and grandparent are sitting in a restaurant. The elder asks the youth, "What's going on these days?" The youth explains that biology homework is tough and that the current topic, genetic divergence, is particularly difficult. "Really?" comes the response, "What does that mean?" "Well," says the student, "it is when living beings branch apart genetically and begin to become different." This causes a pause for thought and then the reply: "Oh... like black people and white people?"

A long pause ensues. Others in the restaurant who had not been listening previously begin to look over to see who said that last phrase. They know any comparison of "black people" and "white people" is likely to be problematic, or, at least for some listeners, entertaining. The room is noticeably quieter as a result.

A true definition of genetic divergence aside, there have been many moments since life began on Earth at which "living beings" have "branched apart." The split between plants and animals would have been, perhaps, a more obvious choice, or guessing when mammals and reptiles took different paths. The grandparent's choice is about race -- it seems to be front of mind when biological "difference" arises.

GreenStar Community Projects  Promotes Food Justice in Ithaca

Friday, 31 May 2013 14:58

By Luke Jones,  
GSCP Program Director

gscp-kid-chef-sm In 2011, GreenStar Community Projects, Inc. (GSCP) and our partners organized our first successful Food Justice Summit with speaker Malik Yahini. In 2012, we made the Summit an annual event, with enormous success. In 2013, GSCP is finally ready to step out into the community as a force for food justice in the region, working to ensure equitable access to healthy food, which has previously been a limited privilege.

What is food justice? Food justice seeks to ensure that the benefits and risks of where, what, and how food is grown, produced, transported, distributed, accessed, and eaten are shared fairly. Food justice represents a transformation of the current food system, and is focused on cohesive networks of local food distribution, care for the community and the environment and, above all else, eliminating disparities and inequities.

In action, food justice means communities actively exercising their right to grow, sell, and eat healthy food. Healthy food is fresh, nutritious, affordable, culturally appropriate, and grown locally with care for the well-being of the land, workers, and animals. People practicing food justice leads to a strong local food system, self-reliant communities, and a healthy environment.