by jboullion | Apr 12, 2010 | Uncategorized
From an article in the LaCrosse Tribune:
What do you do after a professional basketball career?
If you’re Will Allen, you found Growing Power Inc., a nonprofit urban farm and food system training center in Milwaukee.
The La Crosse Earth Week Coalition is bringing Allen to La Crosse for a free presentation at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the Graff Main Hall auditorium at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. Earlier in the day, Allen will visit the Franklin Elementary School Garden with the after-school program.
He will have dinner at 5 p.m. at the Hillview Greenhouse Life Center.
After a short professional basketball career and a number of years in corporate marketing, Allen returned to his roots as a farmer to found Growing Power, a nonprofit that helps provide equal access to healthy, high-quality, safe and affordable food for people in all communities. . . .
The La Crosse Earth Week Coalition is a group of public, private and nonprofit organizations working together to improve the quality of the environment in the Upper Mississippi River Valley. For more information, go to www.greenlacrosse. com.
by jboullion | Mar 5, 2010 | Uncategorized
From the newsletter of the People’s Food Co-op:
People’s Food Co-op and its partners, the Bluff Country Co-op in Winona, MN, and the Viroqua Food Co-op, are pleased to announce the 4th annual request for proposals for the Coulee Region Cooperative Community Fund Grant. This grant fund was established in 2003 by the People’s Food Co-op with a mission to provide supplemental or project-specific funding to local nonprofit organizations that have missions consistent with the goals of our co-ops.
Priority is given to grant requests for educational projects, development projects and events that have a focus on, but are not necessarily limited to, food and food systems, nutrition, health and well-being, sustainable agriculture, cooperative education and social change.
Applications should be received by Thursday, April 15, 2010, at 5 p.m.
Applications can be submitted electronically to liz@bluff.coop
or mailed to: CRCCF Grant Committee, c/o Bluff Country Co-op
121 W 2nd Street
Winona, MN, 55987
The grant committee will complete its review by the end of May and awardees will be contacted. Application forms, directions and more information about the CRCCF can be found at the web site (www.bluff.coop). Questions can be directed to Liz Haywood, General Manager, at 507.452.1815, or liz@bluff.coop.
Past recipients of the CRCCF awards have included Coulee Children’s Center, the Cornucopia Institute, Pleasant Ridge Waldorf School, La Crescent-Hokah Community Gardens, the Women’s Resource Center of Winona, Riverway Learning Community and Houston Community Gardens.
by jboullion | Feb 17, 2010 | Uncategorized
From a news release issued by UW-Stout:
The University of Wisconsin-Stout, in partnership with Veolia Environmental Services in Eau Claire, is composting all food waste from its two dining halls.
Since Jan. 25, kitchen food waste not served to customers as well as post-consumer food waste in Price Commons and Jeter-Tainter-Callahan dining facilities has been picked up twice a week and transported to Veolia’s composting site at Seven Mile Creek Landfill, east of Eau Claire. Also included is kitchen food waste from the Memorial Student Center.
At the landfill, food waste is dumped and layered with yard waste in long piles, or windrows, and turned periodically so that air and moisture can circulate. As the piles heat up, food and yard waste break down and become nutrient-rich soil.
Veolia will provide UW-Stout with a record of food waste collected. The amount is expected to reach 2 to 2½ tons a week.
“This is just the first step in the university’s composting efforts,” said Ann Thies, director of University Dining. “We have plans for more of the post-consumer food waste to be included in the future. Other post-consumer items are carry-out items and customer waste in our retail dining areas.”
Last fall, the university switched most carry-out containers to compostable packaging and began working on a plan to compost food waste.
by jboullion | Feb 10, 2010 | Uncategorized
From a description of the MOSES Organic Farming Conference:
The MOSES Organic Farming Conference is the largest organic farming conference in the U.S. Organized by the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES), and held annually in La Crosse, WI, the OFC is an extraordinary, farmer-centered event.
With over 60 informative workshops, 140+ exhibitors, locally-sourced organic food, live entertainment and inspirational keynote speakers, the OFC is celebrated as the foremost educational and networking event in the organic farming community.
From its humble beginning with 90 attendees twenty years ago, our most recent conference in February attracted over 2,600 farmers, advocates, educators, and community members!
CONFERENCE REGISTRATION DEADLINES
Mail-in Registration Deadline: This Friday, February 12, 2010
Download a REGISTRATION FORM to mail in. (Mailed registrations must be post-marked by Feb. 12th to be accepted)
Online Registration Deadline: Wednesday, February 17, 2010 – Midnight. Go to ONLINE REGISTRATION now!
by jboullion | Feb 8, 2010 | Uncategorized
From an article by KJ Lang in the La Crosse Tribune:
People don’t often think of food as recyclable, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse student Jessica Kotnour noted.
“It’s really easy to recycle the nutrients in our foods, but oftentimes food waste just gets discarded,” she said.
Food waste makes up about 10 percent of material in landfills in Wisconsin, according to a Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources-commissioned study in 2002.
But UW-L students no longer contribute to that waste. Student this semester now dump fruit and vegetable scraps into compost buckets to later be used for landscaping on university grounds.
Students started the program in the university’s dining hall with a $3,000 grant from the UW System’s Solid Waste Research Program, which is funded by a state tipping fee on landfilled waste. These grants funded nine other student solid waste research projects in 2009-10, including another at UW-L to cut down plastic water bottle usage, said Eileen Norby, UW System Solid Waste Research Program manager. . . .
UW-L started a program about a year ago to have cooks compost scraps from food preparation. Combined with the food waste collected after meals, UW-L generates nearly 1,000 pounds of food waste a week for composting.
