Community Food Security in Angoon: Garden Assistance Program

Community Food Security in Angoon: Garden Assistance Program

Community Watershed Stewardship
  [su_frame][/su_frame]The only permanent settlement on Admiralty Island, 55 miles Southwest of Juneau and 41 miles North of Sitka, Angoon is a small community of about 570 residents. Because of the community’s remote location, produce available in town is very expensive and has often traveled hundreds if not thousands of miles before reaching the consumer. Angoon’s climate is much drier than that of other Southeast communities, providing residents with an excellent opportunity to grow produce that will offset the expensive and reduced-quality produced currently barged in.   Meredith Pochardt, Takshanuk Watershed Council’s Food Security Coordinator is working with the community of Angoon to initiate the Angoon School/Community Garden Project. The goal of the projects is to establish a garden that will be utilized by teachers, students, and the community as…
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Assessing Food Security in Kake

Assessing Food Security in Kake

Community Watershed Stewardship
  Post written by Lia Heifetz   [caption id="attachment_4233" align="aligncenter" width="611"] Kake youth learn fish processing techniques at this summer’s Culture Camp[/caption] This fall, residents of Kake participated in a focus group to understand where opportunities exist to improve local wild food gathering and harvesting. The goal of this focus group was to determine which future cooperative efforts and direct investments in resources may improve the ease and efficiency of local gathering and harvesting. Constructive and instructive feedback was heard from seven Kake residents who participated in gathering wild foods. The dominant topic of discussion was the subsistence harvest of sockeye salmon. Due to high prices of fuel, the cost of harvesting sockeye salmon under current procedures may not make sense financially and environmentally. Changes to make the process more…
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Community Snapshot: Sitka

Community Snapshot: Sitka

Community Watershed Stewardship
[caption id="attachment_1439" align="alignleft" width="711"] Sitka, Alaska. Image from City & Borough of Sitka website[/caption]   Last month, the Coalition teamed up with Bob Christensen, coordinator for the People Place Program and Mike Skinner, a sustainable economic development specialist from Bainbridge Graduate Institute in Seattle to spend a week in Sitka checking out the happenings at Southeast Conference's Annual Meeting and meeting with members of the community working firsthand on informed resource management and sustainable development issues.   We first met with Lisa Sadleir-Hart, Board President of the Sitka Local Foods Network. She gave us a brief history of the organization, born of a community need for access to more nutritious, locally produced foods. Sitka Local Foods Network promotes and encourages the use of locally grown, harvested, and produced foods in Sitka…
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Food Security in Sitka: The Sitka Local Foods Network

Food Security in Sitka: The Sitka Local Foods Network

Community Watershed Stewardship
  Food Security in Sitka: The Sitka Local Foods Network   Born of a need and desire voiced by the Sitka community to have more access to healthy, locally produced foods, The Sitka Local Foods Network is a non-profit organization working to support a thriving local food system in their community.   During the 2008 Annual Sitka Health Summit, community members identified a need for better access to healthy, locally produced food as a community health priority. The Sitka Local Foods Network was created to support the development of a community market, community greenhouse, and community garden program to promote a local food system.   The Local Foods Network currently focuses on the following five priorities: 1. Creating and operating the Sitka Farmers Market 2. Expanding local community and family…
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GROW STRONG: Takshanuk Watershed Council Growing a Healthy Community

GROW STRONG: Takshanuk Watershed Council Growing a Healthy Community

Community Watershed Stewardship
  Food security and self-reliance are critical components to building sustainable communities in Southeast Alaska. Southeast communities’ characteristic remoteness and isolation make transport and delivery of important resources such as food or fuel more difficult. Recognizing the importance of working toward community self-reliance and increasing community food security, the residents of Haines voiced a desire for access to more locally produced foods. The Takshanuk Watershed Council listened to this request and responded with the development of their Grow Strong food security program.   The World Food Summit of 1996 defined food security as existing “when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life”. Food prices in Southeast communities carry a shipping cost that can be seen in the higher price…
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