Event Calendar

The Wild Salmon Caravan invites you to come out in colourful and creative expressions of love for wild salmon during the parade kick off. Banners, posters, music, storytelling, regalia, and more will send the caravan off on the journey of the Wild Salmon.

For thousands of years, the wild salmon have been our most important Indigenous food, and cultural and ecological keystone species in BC. They are an indicator of the health and integrity of the Indigenous land and food system on which the health and functioning of the entire agri-food system is based. They feed the entire Pacific Temperate Rainforest as well as many species including the bears, the wolves, the eagles, and our families and communities.

Parade begins at Vancouver Art Gallery and will head toward Roundhouse Community Centre via. W. Georgia, Granville, and Davie.

Join us for a traditional blessing from a community elder and dance performance from Butterflies in Spirit who honour lost women through dance. Enjoy a taste of traditional teas afterwards.

These Indigenous-led workshops are about learning and understanding our true community history. Today’s youth will share their ancestry cultural roots through traditional foods and crafts. These sessions are led by RISE (Responsible Indigenous Strategy for Empowerment) leaders Jessica Savoy from the Squamish Nation and Shaniece Angus from Nisga’a & Tsimshian Nations.

These workshops will take place in the lobby of the Mount Pleasant Community Centre.

The Mount Pleasant Community Centre is located on unceded Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Səl̓ílwətaɬ(Tsleil- Waututh), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) territories.

Seed saving is the practice of saving seeds or other reproductive material from vegetables, herbs, and flowers for garden use from year to year.

Would you like to save your own seeds? Rhiannon Johnson will provide you with the knowledge needed to understand the basic principles behind seed saving and the skills necessary to do it yourself.

We’ll have the community seed library present – pick up some free seeds for your garden, swap or donate seeds.

Limited space and advance registration required. This workshop is offered by the West End Urban Garden Club with Village Vancouver-West End Neighbourhood Food Network.

An Evening of Design for life, livelihood, community and culture with Looby Macnamara, Delvin Solkinson and Kym Chi

World famous teacher, designer and published Author of People and Permaculture Looby Macnamara makes her historic first appearance in Canada.

An evening of design for everyday people, educators, organizations, businesses, consultants, permaculturalists, government, creatives, leaders, social workers, aid workers, healers and more.

Join a group of extraordinary people from all walks of life to explore the cutting edge of design and apply it to something that you are already doing.

Identifying your key strengths and supports as well as weak links, you will learn how to be a more successful designer in creating a more practical and abundant life. Do more of what you love and support your project, garden, business, organization and life to grow.

Create a more integrated life with nature, self and community.

For more details, contact delvin@cosm.org

Speakers
Looby Macnamara is author, teacher and pioneer. Her books People and Permaculture and 7 Ways to Think Differently have been instrumental in opening up the fertile edge of Social Permaculture. She is creator of the Design Web and co-founder of Cultural Emergence. She runs a 20 acre smallholding and training centre in the UK – Applewood Permaculture Centre. www.loobymacnamara.com
www.applewoodcourses.com

Delvin Solkinson is a graduate student of permaculture education with a Masters Degree from Bill Mollison, has taken over 20 Advanced Courses worldwide and is a registered teacher through the Permaculture Institute, Permaculture Association and Permaculture Research Institute.
www.dewpermaculture.com

Kym Chi is a dedicated advocate of Earth stewardship, people care and regenerative action for resilience. She is a student and teacher of Permaculture, runs her own healing practice and is Executive Director of One Straw Society on the Sunshine Coast.
www.gigglingchitree.com

This cooking class will highlight the richness, complexity, and regionalism of Syrian food. Learn about Syrian culinary hubs including Aleppo, Damascus, Latakia, and Homs.

This workshop will be led by chefs from Tayybeh, a local Vancouver-based business that supports newcomer Syrian women chefs. This class will focus on what Tayybeh does best: homestyle food to feed your body and soul.

Participants will:

• Learn about the history of Syrian food, specialty ingredients, and the city of focus for the day
• Hear stories from the chefs about their cooking experiences back home and now in Canada
• Take part in preparing 3 Syrian dishes
• Enjoy a small Syrian feast!

Registration required – max 15 participants.

Join us for a triple book launch to explore the topics of civil society, public policies and the right to food with Andy Fisher (Big Hunger), Annette Aurélie Desmarais (Public Policies for Food Sovereignty) and Graham Riches (Food Bank Nations).

Light refreshments with be provided, please RSVP.

Speakers include:

• Andy Fisher, a founding director of the Community Food Security Coalition in the USA and author of Big Hunger: The Unholy Alliance between Corporate America and Anti Hunger Groups (MIT Press, 2017).
• Annette Aurélie Desmarais, CRC in Human Rights, Social Justice and Food Sovereignty, University of Manitoba and co-editor of Public Policies for Food Sovereignty: Social Movements and the State (Routledge, 2017).
• Graham Riches, emeritus professor of social work, UBC and author of Food Bank Nations: Poverty, Corporate Charity and the Right to Food (Routledge, 2018).

Moderated by Laura Castrejon Violante, ISGP PhD student, Land Use and Global Environment (LUGE) lab, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs and Liu Scholar.

Copies of books will be available to purchase.

Co-hosted by: UBC School of Social Work, UBC School of Public Policy & Global Affairs, the Liu Institute for Global Issues, the Food Systems Network (a Liu Scholars and CSFS group), and the Centre for Sustainable Food Systems (CSFS) at the UBC Farm.

Please join us for an evening of conversation with Graham Riches and Andy Fisher. Both of their recently published books critically explore the root cause of food insecurity in the Global North. Their work puts the adequacy of food banks on trial as a primary solution to this nation-wide issue.

Andy Fisher is a leading national expert on community food security in the USA. He is a co-founder of the Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC) which has successfully brought together food security advocates across the country and influenced federal nutritional legislation. More recently he served as the Executive Director at Portland Fruit Tree Program (2015-2017). He currently consults on various food system organizations and speaks throughout North America about his vision for addressing hunger. Fisher recently published Big Hunger: The Unholy Alliance Between Corporate America and Anti-Hunger Groups (MIT Press, 2017).

Graham Riches is a former Director of UBC’s School of Social Work (1998 – 2008). He is a co-founder of Vancouver Food Policy Council. He has written extensively about food poverty in Canada and first world hunger in wealthy nation states from a right to food perspective. Riches book Food Bank Nations: Poverty, Corporate Charity and the Right to Food (Routledge, 2018) has just been released.

The Future of Food Global Dialogue Series presents Annette Desmarais from the University of Manitoba.

By analyzing how food sovereignty is conceptualized and practiced in the Basque Country, this presentation will explore what kind of global political project food sovereignty seeks to build and mobilize. This case highlights the significance of building solidarities from below and across space in struggles for transformative social change.

Located at Macmillan Building – Room 350, University of British Columbia

This event is brought to you by the Centre for Sustainable Food Systems at the UBC Farm.

This is the first event of the WESTSIDE SEED SERIES hosted at Kits House in partnership with the Westside Food Collaborative, Westside Neighbourhood Food Network, and Village Vancouver.

Want to learn how to save your own seeds? Pick up some free seeds for your garden? Help sustain the new community seed Library at Kitsilano Neighbourhood House and also support local food efforts? Then come to one or more of the Fall Westside Seed Series activities. Presented to you by Kits House, the Westside Food Collaborative, the Westside Neighbourhood Food Network, and Village Vancouver.

At this Fall seed saving workshop, instructor Rhiannon Johnson will provide you with the knowledge needed to understand the basic principles of seed saving and the skills necessary to begin saving seeds on your own. The community seed library will be available at this workshop! You will have an opportunity to swap or donate seeds as well as pick up some free seeds for your home garden.

Tickets – cash at the door. Subsidies available – please inquire.

Please register by phone or email: 604 736 3588 ext. 133 or zoel@kitshouse.org

Interested in learning how to make those famous “Indian” tacos? While enjoying some traditional food, learn about medicine wheels and what it means to Indigenous cultures. Take home a medicine wheel magnet of your own and leave with a full belly and a recipe on how to make fry bread at home.

These Indigenous-led workshops are about learning and understanding our true community history. Today’s youth will share their ancestry cultural roots through traditional foods and crafts. These sessions are led by RISE (Responsible Indigenous Strategy for Empowerment) leaders Jessica Savoy from the Squamish Nation and Shaniece Angus from Nisga’a & Tsimshian Nations.

These workshops will take place in the lobby of the Mount Pleasant Community Centre.

The Mount Pleasant Community Centre is located on unceded Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Səl̓ílwətaɬ(Tsleil- Waututh), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) territories.

Join us this Fall for Saturday afternoon Seniors’ Social – a brand new program! Registered Dietitian Joyce Chow will work with you to prepare four servings of a delicious and healthy 3-course meal. Three servings can be packed up and taken home, while one can be enjoyed together as a group at the end of our session. Please come prepared with take-home containers!

Register for Saturday sessions throughout the month of October:

• October 6: Mandarin Orange Salad with Almonds, Chili with Corn Bread, Coconut Tapioca Pudding
• October 13: Seaweed Salad, Pork and Vegetable Dumplings, Sweet Potato Dessert Soup
• October 20: Pumpkin Soup, Homemade Quiche, Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies
• October 27: Beef, Vegetable and Bean Soup, Curry Chicken with Rice, Winter Fruit Crisp

This cooking class will highlight the richness, complexity, and regionalism of Syrian food. Learn about Syrian culinary hubs including Aleppo, Damascus, Latakia, and Homs.

This workshop will be led by chefs from Tayybeh, a local Vancouver-based business that supports newcomer Syrian women chefs. This class will focus on what Tayybeh does best: homestyle food to feed your body and soul.

Participants will:

• Learn about the history of Syrian food, specialty ingredients, and the city of focus for the day
• Hear stories from the chefs about their cooking experiences back home and now in Canada
• Take part in preparing 3 Syrian dishes
• Enjoy a small Syrian feast!

Registration required – max 15 participants.

Join us for a Community Garden Harvest! Work as a team to harvest some of what’s in season, and then head into the kitchen to clean it up and prep it for home. At the end of the session you’ll have a delicious collection of fresh produce ready to be enjoyed.

All Community Harvests begin at 11am.

Please meet by the garden gate. Come dressed for the weather and bring reusable containers and bags to take your goodies home in.

A minimum donation of $2 (with all proceeds returning directly to garden maintenance and programming) is recommended & welcomed, but not required.

Join Still Moon Arts for local herbal teas and blackberry jam, served with sourdough bread. Enjoy tea while listening to Cease Wyss share Coast Salish stories of the land.

Join us this Fall for Saturday afternoon Seniors’ Social – a brand new program! Registered Dietitian Joyce Chow will work with you to prepare four servings of a delicious and healthy 3-course meal. Three servings can be packed up and taken home, while one can be enjoyed together as a group at the end of our session. Please come prepared with take-home containers!

Register for Saturday sessions throughout the month of October:

• October 6: Mandarin Orange Salad with Almonds, Chili with Corn Bread, Coconut Tapioca Pudding
• October 13: Seaweed Salad, Pork and Vegetable Dumplings, Sweet Potato Dessert Soup
• October 20: Pumpkin Soup, Homemade Quiche, Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies
• October 27: Beef, Vegetable and Bean Soup, Curry Chicken with Rice, Winter Fruit Crisp

The Beautiful Table is an image, a symbol, an artistic pilgrimage into the possibility of creating a table for all. This collection emerges from, and offers one community’s perspective on what it might take to create a city for all.

The Beautiful Table evokes the ongoing and ever-evolving practice of sharing the table as an expression of justice, peace, hope, and abundance. In a city marked by loneliness, isolation, and growing economic inequality, this work is important now more than ever.

These featured creators have all come to know each other through the Maundy Café, where they share food together five days per week in Christ Church Cathedral’s picturesque Park Room. They represent a diverse group of people, most of whom don’t call themselves artists.

Over the course of four weeks, guests, volunteers, and staff participants in the Café gathered to create art exploring themes of love, belonging, and hope. This exhibition provides snapshots of individual journeys, while also speaking to the broader challenges at play within Vancouver’s charitable food sector.

Facilitated by Steve Frost from Whitebox Creative Consulting, each piece in the show was created during a weekly, contemplative whole-community practice that engaged participants in questions of meaning and beauty. Together, they took a journey exploring the possibility of human flourishing in the face of forces that would seek to divide us.

Join us at the Kits House Monthly Community Potluck for the launch of the new community seed library!

Ross Moster from Village Vancouver will explain how the library works, how you can help, and how you can go home with free seeds for your garden.

The community potluck is a great place to meet your neighbours and connect, collaborate, build community, and have fun while enjoying good food. Bring your friends and family! All ages welcome.

Please bring a dish to share if you can (vegetarian preferred but not obligated). There will be a kitchen to heat up your dish. Plates and cutlery will be provided.

Join us for a Community Garden Harvest! Work as a team to harvest some of what’s in season, and then head into the kitchen to clean it up and prep it for home. At the end of the session you’ll have a delicious collection of fresh produce ready to be enjoyed.

All Community Harvests begin at 11am.

Please meet by the garden gate. Come dressed for the weather and bring reusable containers and bags to take your goodies home in.

A minimum donation of $2 (with all proceeds returning directly to garden maintenance and programming) is recommended & welcomed, but not required.

We have a huge challenge ahead of us. In a world where the climate is rapidly changing, water is depleting, and governments are disagreeing on immediate actions to take, many people around the world are doing positive change for the planet. Come and watch the documentary film Tomorrow. Find inspiration from a growing movement of people who start small to grow big in their own communities all around the world.

TODAY, we sometimes feel powerless in front of the various crises of our times.
TODAY, we know that answers lie in a wide mobilization of the human race. Over the course of a century, our dream of progress commonly called “the American Dream”, fundamentally changed the way we live and continues to inspire many developing countries. We are now aware of the setbacks and limits of such development policies. We urgently need to focus our efforts on changing our dreams before something irreversible happens to our planet.
TODAY, we need a new direction, objective… A new dream! The documentary Tomorrow sets out to showcase alternative and creative ways of viewing agriculture, economics, energy and education. It offers constructive solutions to act on a local level to make a difference on a global level. So far, no other documentary has gone down such an optimistic road…
TOMORROW is not just a film, it is the beginning of a movement seeking to encourage local communities around the world to change the way they live for the sake of our planet.

Celebrate the launch of brand new book Our Edible Roots: The Japanese Canadian Kitchen Garden. This book is part gardening, part recipes, and full of cultural history. Featuring research, interviews, and gardening tips from members of Tonari Gumi, the Japanese Community Volunteers Association.

This book showcases growing and foraging tips and stories from seasoned gardeners. 40 delicious recipes (with vegan options) highlight these wonderful vegetables. Guides to using Japanese ingredients and methods for traditional culinary techniques are also included. Perhaps most important highlight is the telling of the Japanese Canadian experience through stories and interviews with community elders.

Celebrate the work of the contributors and pick up a copy of this book. All proceeds of book sales will support seniors services at Tonari Gumi Japanese Community Volunteers Association.

Please email tg.gardeners@gmail.com to reserve a spot.

Join us this Fall for Saturday afternoon Seniors’ Social – a brand new program! Registered Dietitian Joyce Chow will work with you to prepare four servings of a delicious and healthy 3-course meal. Three servings can be packed up and taken home, while one can be enjoyed together as a group at the end of our session. Please come prepared with take-home containers!

Register for Saturday sessions throughout the month of October:

• October 6: Mandarin Orange Salad with Almonds, Chili with Corn Bread, Coconut Tapioca Pudding
• October 13: Seaweed Salad, Pork and Vegetable Dumplings, Sweet Potato Dessert Soup
• October 20: Pumpkin Soup, Homemade Quiche, Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies
• October 27: Beef, Vegetable and Bean Soup, Curry Chicken with Rice, Winter Fruit Crisp

Come learn more about the history of traditional indigenous beading and experience different beading methods and designs. Then learn how to make your own “Indian” ice cream made of soap berries and fruit.

These Indigenous-led workshops are about learning and understanding our true community history. Today’s youth will share their ancestry cultural roots through traditional foods and crafts. These sessions are led by RISE (Responsible Indigenous Strategy for Empowerment) leaders Jessica Savoy from the Squamish Nation and Shaniece Angus from Nisga’a & Tsimshian Nations.

These workshops will take place in the lobby of the Mount Pleasant Community Centre.

The Mount Pleasant Community Centre is located on unceded Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Səl̓ílwətaɬ(Tsleil- Waututh), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) territories.

Join us this Fall for Saturday afternoon Seniors’ Social – a brand new program! Registered Dietitian Joyce Chow will work with you to prepare four servings of a delicious and healthy 3-course meal. Three servings can be packed up and taken home, while one can be enjoyed together as a group at the end of our session. Please come prepared with take-home containers!

Register for Saturday sessions throughout the month of October:

• October 6: Mandarin Orange Salad with Almonds, Chili with Corn Bread, Coconut Tapioca Pudding
• October 13: Seaweed Salad, Pork and Vegetable Dumplings, Sweet Potato Dessert Soup
• October 20: Pumpkin Soup, Homemade Quiche, Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies
• October 27: Beef, Vegetable and Bean Soup, Curry Chicken with Rice, Winter Fruit Crisp

Come and taste Oolichans! Learn the history behind Oolichans and the cultural history from the Nass Valley, the traditional territories of the Nisga’a Peoples. Learn how these small rich and nutritious fish are harvested, cooked and enjoyed.

These Indigenous-led workshops are about learning and understanding our true community history. Today’s youth will share their ancestry cultural roots through traditional foods and crafts. These sessions are led by RISE (Responsible Indigenous Strategy for Empowerment) leaders Jessica Savoy from the Squamish Nation and Shaniece Angus from Nisga’a & Tsimshian Nations.

These workshops will take place in the lobby of the Mount Pleasant Community Centre.

The Mount Pleasant Community Centre is located on unceded Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Səl̓ílwətaɬ(Tsleil- Waututh), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) territories.

The Future of Food Global Dialogue Series presents Stephanie Godrich.

In this presentation, Dr. Stephanie Godrich will discuss determinants of food insecurity and showcase an Australian-first project that is examining the issue using a systems thinking approach. The presentation will also highlight the value of social mobilisation, co-design and cross-sector collaboration to address complex problems.

Dr. Stephanie Godrich is a Registered Public Health Nutritionist with both the Nutrition Society of Australia and the World Public Health Nutrition Association. Over the past 12 years, she has developed, delivered and evaluated numerous community-based food literacy programs with multiple population groups. Stephanie has also worked in the university sector in statewide project coordination, research and lecturing positions, and independently as a public health consultant to government and non-government organisations. Stephanie’s PhD focused on food security in rural and remote Western Australia. Her current research focuses on supporting communities to create healthy, resilient and sustainable food environments. She is currently leading an Australian-first project which includes working with cross-sector stakeholders such as food producers, social workers, educators, town planners and health workers to build communities’ capacity to achieve healthy food for all.

This event brought to you by the Centre for Sustainable Food Systems at the UBC Farm.

Resurfacing History: Land & Lives in Mount Pleasant will share land engagement practices and the teachings of their recently completed project at Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House. In Spring 2018, this project trained community members as Community Cultural Facilitators through land-based learning led by elders and cultural teachers.

This project focussed on developing a community process for promoting understanding between cultural value systems. It worked towards building capacity for Indigenous people to be part of a mechanism that preserves culture, explores knowledge and integrates actionable steps that can make social ecosystems and infrastructure work better for urban Indigenous families and community members.

Listen, learn, and participate in a dialogue about community processes to develop effective sharing of Indigenous traditional knowledge and plant use.

Email jandrew@mpnh.org or call 604-879-8208 to register.

Westside Food Collaborative and Kits House is starting a new Seed Savers Club! You’re invited to join the inaugural meeting of the Kits House Seed Saver Club.

Join the Kits House Seed Saver Club to meet other gardeners, seed savers, food enthusiasts and help support community food efforts in the Kitsilano neighbourhood.

Ross Moster from Village Vancouver will lead the group through a short presentation on seed saving that will explore seed libraries, seed saving initiatives around the city, advantages of being a club member, and how you can help sustain the new community seed library.

The community seed library will be available at the meeting! You will have an opportunity to swap or donate seeds as well as pick up some free seeds for your home garden!

No prior knowledge is required to attend these meetings. All ages are welcome at the meeting, however; all minors must be accompanied by a responsible adult.

*** Westside Community and School Gardens please inquire about seed donation with Ross Moster at ross@villagevancouver.ca

Registration appreciated. Please contact Zoë at 604 736 3588 ext. 133 or zoel@kitshouse.org

The Storytelling Feast and Exhibit is a highlight of this year’s Sustenance Festival. This evening of storytelling will feature guest storytellers, a specially curated exhibit, and a shared meal to showcase the rich and diverse food traditions across our city.

The journeys and flavours of our most beloved dishes tell the story of a city and its people. This event celebrates the power, creativity and resilience of our neighbours. In a time of fragmentation, it is through the sharing of food and stories that we find connections across and within our communities.

Doors at 5pm. Limited space – Registration is required.

Registration will open in October 2018.

In this Village Vancouver workshop with Lori Snyder, you’ll discover how to make beeswax salves with infused plant oils. It’s quick and easy, and beeswax salves have many different applications, including lip balms, natural skin care, hand salves and salves for wounds and sprains.

Gardeners, you can make salves from your garden from a variety of plant infused olive oils blended into beeswax.

We’ll have a community seed library present – pick up some free seeds for your garden, swap or donate seeds.

Register in-person, by phone, or online