Exploring the Concept of Eating Locally

The ebb and flow of trends in society has become familiar throughout fashion, film music and a number of other cultural facets. I often wonder if that same cycle will permeate things like our buying habits and the retailers we patronize. Are the big-box stores here to stay or will we eventually crave the mom and pop experience again . . . or is that happening even now? Some mark the market domination of stores like Wal-Mart as a declension in society, but others see it as affordable access to products for those living on a tight budget.

I’ve also recently been contemplating this circular flowing concept in terms of food. We have so much nutritional information readily available to us, but eat a ton of processed food and probably don’t think locally. What does it mean to think in terms of food locally or in an old-fashioned manner? I mean, I’m not talking about harkening back to an agrarian age, and while some of those tenants could certainly be seamlessly integrated into our lives (a little gardening anyone?), it’s more of an approach, a sensibility to the things we decide to put on our table.

In Jacksonville, the local farm and food co-op options are continuing to grow. You can go to the Riverside Arts Market on any Saturday and purchase locally grown produce, locally raised beef and things like homemade jams and jelly. And you can find a number of restaurants that use local products, with an emphasis on eating fresh. The benefits are numerous and range from bolstering locally-owned-and-operated businesses to the many health factors. I often think about how old the produce is in my grocery store by the time it gets shipped, often from South America, and put out for consumption. How much of it’s nutritional value is lost by the time you get it home and eat it?

I thought about State of the Re:Union Guest Contributor Alina Kodatt’s article about Crabtree Farms in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and their answer to her question, “How does Crabtree Farms impact the Chattanooga community at large?” They answered:

“Crabtree Farms educates and inspires the Chattanooga community to grow their own food sustainably. Throughout the years, we have cultivated a variety of partnerships from community-based organizations to government agencies in order to spread the message of sustainability and “growing your own.” We teach over 400 volunteers on our farm each year about the hard work and rewards of growing food sustainably. This year, our work with an inner-city kids camp and at-risk teens has impacted the lives of children in our most disadvantaged communities, teaching them life-sustaining skills.

Our urban farm offers gardening resources and classes, and grows region-specific plant starts to enable more food gardening in our community. Many former Crabtree employees and volunteers have gone on to start farms or work on unique local food ventures!”

Additionally, Crabtree produces TasteBuds Local Food Guide which inspires residents to connect with local food sources and celebrate our region’s rich culinary bounty.

It’s hard. We all have major time and financial constraints, but can you imagine if we implemented local, fresh food into our diets little by little? Geography also plays a key role. It’s probably far more difficult in some regions to achieve this than others.

We Want to Know:

• Do you try to eat locally?
• What type of fresh food options do you have in your community?
• How important do you think it is to make this type of shift?

You can read Alina’s article about Crabtree Farms and also watch our video about the work of Will Allen in Milwaukee, one of those places where food deserts exist and the options aren’t really there to eat local or fresh . . . until now.

Above Photo by Infrogmation: New Orleans: Crescent City Farmers Market, Magazine & Girod Streets, Saturday morning.

Can’t you picture it? Jobs and Renewable Energy walking into the sunset hand in hand. Maybe The Beach Boys “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” playing.

Well, you can’t simply create jobs out of the ether. And how long can we afford to put off the vital environmental work that needs to be done? Hold the phone (does anybody say that anymore?), there are organizations meeting both needs?

“Renewable Energy Development in Central Appalachia” is the tagline of The JOBS Project, Inc., an organization that is creating awareness, ownership and employment in the renewable energy field. It’s no great mystery that if there is going to be any type of real energy sustainability in the United States, we have to welcome renewable energy alternatives. In particular, the people that live in coal producing states know the first-hand effects of practices like mountain-top removal mining, but also know better than anybody that something has to give.

Framing this concern along the lines of political pugilism has only stifled progress and caused unnecessary division. But with the current state of the economy and soaring gas prices, how can we deny that organizations like The JOBS Project are creating real, pragmatic solutions that treat landowners with the respect they deserve, the environment with the care it needs, all while creating good paying jobs?

Solar, wind, biopower and energy efficiency–not a single one of these is a silver bullet on its own, but you smartly implement them all . . . sha-zam! And no one solution is perfect, but nobody can deny that your can harness the power of wind and the sun to create power. Just think, both are there for free, a virtual buffet of renewable energy resources.

Visit The JOBS Project, Inc. to learn more about who they are, what they do and how they do it. I’m sure you will find their work substantive and completely applicable to the needs of the real word, not just empty platitudes and grandiose, improbable concepts.

We Want to Know:

• Do you know about organizations that are making efforts to solve multiple issues with pragmatic solutions?
• What do you think of The JOBS Project, Inc.?

While officials from The JOBS Project, Inc. were not featured in our Appalachia episode, “Appalachia Rising,” you can hear about the renewable energy efforts that they have inspired in the area.

State of the Re:Union’s creator, host and co-executive producer, Al Letson, is currently performing his one-man show, Summer in Sanctuary off-Broadway at the Abingdon Theatre. We are extremely excited to share some of the early reviews of the production.

You can buy tickets and find out more about the show at the official SIS website and keep up with news and updates at the official SIS Facebook page.

Show Business Weekly Review:

In addition to being the host of the innovative NPR program “State of the Re:Union,” Al Letson is a gifted performance poet with a resume that boasts performances on national and local stages as well as on HBO. Now New York City gets a chance to see Letson’s many talents in action through Summer in Sanctuary, an autobiographical piece told through monologue, poetry, song and multimedia.

Photo: Kim T. Sharp

The show chronicles Letson’s experiences working at a summer camp in an economically challenged area of Florida. Don’t worry — Letson doesn’t imagine himself a hero a la Freedom Writers or Dangerous Minds. Instead, he is incredibly honest and vulnerable, freely recounting his challenges and failures for a brutally accurate description of how difficult the job really is. What is most touching, however, is his love for the campground kids, emanating through his monologues, accounts of experiences, and funny yet charming impersonations.

Letson is an exceptional performer, and he succeeds in making the show nuanced and diverse despite the fact that he is alone on stage. At times, his monologues are airy and natural, as if he were talking with a few friends, but he is equally capable of delivering a pointed and downright tear-jerking monologue. He is also extremely adept at impersonations, creating characters with specific voices and physicalities, and then effortlessly transitioning between them. It is no surprise, however, that the strongest points of the show are his performance poetry pieces. His body morphs into whatever he needs to be while his energy rockets through the roof. The show features multiple pieces of poetry intertwined throughout, including his well-known “The Ball the Rim and Him” and another about the word “Nigga” — “it is the sound of our teeth / pressing against this / fleshy fruit that names us.”

…..Summer in Sanctuary is laugh-out-loud funny at times, intriguing and intellectual at others, but it ultimately communicates the profound truth that a little bit of love goes a long way. It doesn’t take a superhero to make a difference, and Letson proves that sometimes the experiences we consider personal failures are those that have affected others in ways we could never imagine.

BACKSTAGE Review:

“Biggie, Biggie, Biggie, can’t you see?/Sometimes your words just hypnotize me,” croons Pamela Long on the hook of Notorious B.I.G.’s 1997 single “Hypnotize,” which plays at the end of Al Letson’s one-man show “Summer in Sanctuary.” A self-admitted fan of the hip-hop pioneer, Letson also has something in common with him: the ability to make words spellbinding. In the late ’90s, Letson made a name for himself by competing on the poetry-slam circuit. More recently, he has employed his prodigious skills as a wordsmith in his playwriting and as host of the public radio show “State of the Re:Union.”

“Summer in Sanctuary” refers to the months Letson spent in Jacksonville, Fla., nominally working as a creative writing teacher at a summer camp for inner-city youth. But when the kids firmly displayed their resistance to writing during summer vacation, Letson’s roles at the camp expanded to include mentor, coach, storyteller, videographer, chauffeur, and therapist. The performer is the son of a Southern Baptist preacher, and his family background is evident in his ability to bring out the music in his words: playing with their tempo, building to a crescendo, driving a point home in an explosive cadence.

He adopts the rhythms and jives of the different students, moving between personalities with the ease of a great character actor. Although he spends most of the play with the boys of the camp, his brief forays into the girls’ territory are both enlightening and hilarious; the back-and-forth between Letson and the queen bee, Danita, is particularly remarkable….

Photo By: Marlith

Education in America is a multifaceted and passionate debate. But it often feels like the voices that are the loudest don’t have a stake in the fight beyond the political implications of it all. We all know that we are a country in massive amounts of debt and that everyone’s reflex is to throw more money at a problem. It’s true, a lot of these things need more money, but at their very heart, need fundamental fixes. Talk though, is indeed cheap and the problem is full of countless layers and nuances. But if there is any issue worth untangling, it’s education. It’s one of those aspects of society that permeates nearly everything, with ever-growing roots that reach the most important parts of society.

There are some incredible public school alternatives and even other options within the public system. From charter and magnet schools to home school networks, many students have a number of choices that weren’t always available. However, there is still a huge segment of students that for a multitude of reasons, don’t have those options readily available to them. I’m a public school product, and like anything else, some schools were great and some, well, were not so great. But is there any reason that this issue couldn’t be solved with a number of solutions?

I certainly don’t claim to have the answers, but am rather suspicious of the people who offer only one answer and are so willing to dismiss all others.

How do you strike the right balance to reach substantive solutions? Is it possible to empower teachers to use their talents and education to get the most out of crucial curriculum instead of teaching to a test and having to be classroom managers? Is it possible to offer students the high-level math and English they need and still be able to offer programs like music and art or even more focused curriculum targeted towards a specific discipline? Is it possible to have the kind of accountability that tax payers seek without stifling the scholastic process and taking creative choices out of a teacher’s hands?

I’m on the precipice of really seeing the importance of all these things as my daughter is a mere year away from kindergarten. And the only thing that I really know is that it’s imperative to get involved and ask a lot of questions. I want to be involved. I want to know who my daughter’s teachers and principals are and work to get to know the other parents. It feels like a good start, but the true crux of the matter feels enormous and demands wide-scale involvement.

We Want to Know:

• Are schools in your community facing budget cuts and challenges?
• Does your city have a successful public school district? Why or why not?
• What are some things that you’ve seen schools do to counter budget challenges?

This post was inspired by the NPR story “Detroit Public Schools Face ‘Draconian’ Cuts,” a piece that discusses how Detroit’s public school district is facing a $327 million budget deficit and a proposal that could put up to 60 children in a classroom.

It took weeks of planning and comprehensive participation from all sectors of the local town government in Burgeville, Illinois. From the mayor and the police chief to the teachers and even the agricultural commissioner–everyone was in on it. As planned, Mayor Moore stepped up to the podium and delivered the following address early this morning:

“Good morning residents of Burgeville. It has recently come to our attention that their are safety concerns and issues of exclusion permeating through our otherwise happy town. High-fives have long been a show of respect, a celebratory symbol a coming together for young and old alike as to say ‘Way to go! Or go team!.’ Sadly, it only takes one or two to ruin it for everyone. It came to my attention that local resident and everyone’s favorite accountant, Debra Montgomery, took a high-five in the eye. Needless to say, she was left without the full functionality of her left eye for nearly and hour and a half. And furthermore, I’ve heard from educators that tell me that during recess, high-fives are a sign of acceptance, the creating of a social hierarchy that doesn’t look kindly on outsiders, on those, not receiving high-fives. It is never preferable to create more regulation, but this can’t go on any longer. On this day, we enact Provision 348190AHF, otherwise known as ‘The Removal of High-Fives from an Otherwise Decent Town.’ You will no longer have to worry about being caught off guard by an incoming high-five, your children feeling dejected by peers or roving gangs of high-five givers. Thank you. God bless you and God bless Burgeville.”

Needless to say, the joke was lost on the locals and they were outraged. “I’m no Constitutional scholar, but I’m pretty sure the founding fathers would have wanted us to be able to high-five whenever we please,” said local electrician Juan Andjuar, and continued, “I mean, what’s next, no more thumbs up? This is un-American.” Linda Gould, President of Burgeville First Savings and Bank, stated “High-fiving is one of my six-year old’s favorite activities. We do it when he cleans his room, helps around the house, has a good game, he’s going to be devastated. I just don’t understand this.”

These sentiments were shared by a near majority of the town who quickly grew exasperated and even decided to share their feelings publicly with Mayor Moore. A crowd gathered around local favorite Dunkers, warming up with coffee and donuts, made their signs, synchronized their message and took to the streets. “I suggested give me five or give me death as a play on the New Hampshire state motto, but people thought that may be a bit much. But I don’t think it can ever be a bit much when it comes to freedom,” said “between-jobs” resident Ben Davis.

The town’s six-man police force, still committed to the prank, showed up with warnings for the protestors, “We want this to be a peaceful, high-five free demonstration,” from the chief himself, Jeff Burge, who is also part of the town’s founding family.

Statistics show that nearly 87.3% of all high-fives are unnecessary, but that nearly 95% of Americans believe they should have the opportunity to give and receive them. Showing that while most believe the act is antiquated, they should be able to engage in it whenever and wherever they please.

“I’ve high-fived at football games, weddings, out on the street after a good joke. And now they want to take that from me?” lamented Juan Andujar. So the protest proceeded with chants of “Give me five” and “Free our hand gestures,” which received giggles from some.

We spoke to Mayor Moore about the protests who has committed to sticking with the prank for the entire day. “Really, they are fighting for high-fives? I mean, we had to close a library recently and you didn’t hear a peep. I think they are just looking for a reason to get out of work.”

It is reported that only three fake fines have been given out and there was one near arrest as Linda Gould, in a sign of shared humanity, tried to high-five Chief Burge. “I thought this was America, not, well, Canthighfivelandville,” Ben Davis told us, “I only hope that future generations of Burgeville citizens will be able to give each other some skin.”

We Want to Know:

• How important are high-fives to you?
• What would you do if your town outlawed high-fives, even as a prank?
• How do you feel about reading our completely fabricated post?

Start the conversation below!