Notes from Green Neighborhood Council Food Committee Meeting February 14, 2008 Within the next 6 months accomplish:

• Local food directory (Buy Fresh Buy Local)
• Networking/education for neighborhoods that are unaware
• Identify locations/growers (local outlets to sell the produce i.e. gas stations)
• Start local growing as potential micro businesses
• Demonstration: monthly workshops on local food
• Land Survey of sights for local gardens

Discussion of GRANTS:
Mutual of Omaha is currently offering neighborhood grants.
· As we are concerned with neighborhood gardens, we should apply. Opportunity for up to $5000.
· Concrete project ideas within $1000 are needed.
Omaha Unity Foundation is offering grants for neighborhood innovation projects.
· Up to $10,000 for a 2-3 year project
· Looking for sustainability within project SARE offers grants for programs for education in agriculture, creating connections between rural farmers and towns (direct marketing)

Green Homes Tour

• Planning on including a piece on local gardens
• Educational outreach opportunity

Food Directory
BENEFITS:
· As a resource to find locally grown goods in and around Omaha
· Builds demand for the product · Use the Lincoln Local Magazine as a guide
· Linking restaurants to community suppliers OBJECTIONS: · Upkeep · Distribution · Research
· The coming and going of projects (although we discussed how the directory would also spread awareness, helping to make projects more sustainable and longer lasting)

As the Green Neighborhood Council on Food, it is our job to work with Buy Fresh Buy Local (a national umbrella organization under which are individual state organizations) Billy Nemmett runs Nebraska Buy Fresh Buy Local.
Andy will contact him

There was encouragement from the group to host a meeting with existing community gardens/local farmers around Omaha. If we could host such a meeting, we could potentially set up a community gardens organization. BENEFITS:
· Bring the groups together · Begin the collaborative process, creative thinking, networking etc.
· Work as a springboard for us
· Find new neighborhoods/new potential neighborhood gardeners

Through these things, we discovered the foundation of our mission: to promote a local food and community gardens through network, support, education, and with the help of a registration and directory.

Identifying existing resources (i.e. Buy Fresh Buy Local and the community gardeners we know) can be our first support mechanism. Contacting these people will allow us to bring them into our dialogue. From this, we can garner new ideas/perspectives from which we can re-discuss and re-evaluate our needs/purposes.

There is a need for education and outreach within the Omaha community to spread the idea of the Locavore. Support, promote, organize local food supply and then demonstrate uses of the produce (cooking and preparation of foods).

What will we offer to bring these existing resources in? LUNCH! A lunch will plant the seeds of networking and conversation, allowing them the opportunity to join us in looking at the incorporation of local food systems into Omaha holistically.
Invite list ideas (pardon incorrect spelling):
Douglas County Extension Cindy Brison
Stephanie Chris Foster
Yolanda Jennings Billy Nemmett
Kara (Great Plains Environmental Law)

We hope to locate places where local food producers will intersect with consumers, creating a space to bring people together into community. Public events could work as beneficial tools in this aspect, such as the “Taste of Nebraska” (although it will have a different name). This pilot event can act as a mobile unit, a local market that can set up in neighborhoods and give the public local food source options.

[Objective]: to organize this group into an organization, the local gardeners of Omaha, who can offer cooking classes, direct marketing techniques, approaches to sell produce to local restaurants… “First you talk to one person, then you talk to two.”

Andy offered to write a Green Homes Article (400-500 words) which we can edit through collectively. The articles purpose is to educate about local food in Omaha in the ways people think and act, teaching the public practical things they can do. It is an educational/marketing piece (ending the article with an invitation for readers to “join us on the 4th Saturday of June…). Must be submitted by May 1, 2008.

Annette offered to contact the gardeners to our next meeting, so all info should be sent to her at aartherton@omahaeconomic.com.

Next Meeting Agenda:

• Open forum with producers
• What their goals are, what they are trying to reach
• Forming a connection/community with them

Budget discussion: $500 for food $250 for printing and distribution of directory $250 Buy Local Buy Fresh Also, education ideas: Permaculture Introduction Presentation: $350 for three hours, plus the gas it costs to get the lecturers here. Possibility of funding this with the SARE