Welcome Valley’s Local Food Works receives $1,500 grant

by Brita Adkinson
DEMING – Local Food Works, a food production organization based in Welcome Valley, recently received a $1,500 grant from the Bellingham-based Community Food Co-op Farm Fund to assist their efforts in providing fresh fruit and vegetables to local families and individuals in need.
Local Food Works started in 2009 as a kitchen table organization, said Coordinator Margie Bell, who lives on her family’s farm in Welcome Valley, which includes an apple orchard, vegetable garden, large greenhouse, two bee hives and chickens.
“We were a small group of women who loved gardening,” Bell said, adding the women would gather around the kitchen table and talk about food issues, sharing knowledge about growing, harvesting and preserving produce, while their kids played together. They also discussed how their passion for fresh food might be an inspiration for others. “After several years of talking about what our energy and experience could accomplish, we got organized in 2009,” she said.
Local Food Works has a mission to promote food equity, self-sufficiency and sustainable living practices through the cultivation and sharing of knowledge, skills and resources within the community. The team wants to increase “food equity” by giving members of the local communities access to clean, fresh, nutritious food, and encourages self-sufficiency by sharing knowledge, skills and resources so that those who wish to grow their own food have opportunities to learn how to do it and space for their gardening.
Bell and other team members started their project as a response to uncertain economic times. “So many of the environmental, social and health issues we face are related to food, and if more people  grew at least some of their own food we could make the whole world a better place,” Bell said.
The $1,500 grant awarded to the group will help them bring fresh produce to area food banks, including  Foothills Food Bank at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Deming; Lord’s Table Food Bank at River of Life Church in Van Zandt, and the Nooksack Tribal Food Bank in Deming.
In early 2009, Local Food Works initiated two volunteer-based projects – Liberty Garden and Share Your Bounty.
The Liberty Garden group purchases, assembles and distributes free kits for growing food, to local families and individuals. These kits – each containing seeds, starter peat pots, potting soil, and instructions – are available at food banks through the grant funding. The aim is to encourage people to do their own gardening, thereby being able to enjoy the benefits of fresh, locally grown produce.
In 2009, 75 seed kits were handed out to people visiting food banks in the foothills. At the Deming Library Plant Sale, the group distributed 8 Liberty Garden seed kits, 200 seed packets, 20 pounds of seed potatoes, and 30 gardening brochures. Through the grant, the Liberty Garden project will expand to distribute 150 kits, complete with 3-4 inch peat pots and half a gallon of potting mix to distribute via food banks, and an additional 100 kits to hand out at community meetings and presentations.
The Share Your Bounty Campaign engages local gardeners and farmers to donate some of their harvest to the food banks. Share Your Bounty volunteers organize pick-up and delivery. The group began in 2009 with five participating farmers/gardeners donating a total of 395 pounds of fruit and vegetables. With the grant, the group plans to expand their work by recruiting more neighborhood coordinators to carry out surplus garden produce deliveries in local neighborhoods. The goal is to coordinate the donation of at least 2,000 pounds of produce to local food banks in 2010. The grant will also enable the team to offer a mileage stipend for coordinators who pick up and deliver the produce each week. The grant will also enable the team to distribute a brochure with information about the projects.
Bell explained that Local Food Works encourages practices including permaculture, organic gardening principles, animal husbandry, plant and animal diversity, alternative energy systems, herbal healing practices and economic viability of local farms and businesses. Their work includes a system to track how much food is distributed, to effectively monitor their progress.
“Our hope is to encourage a measure of self-sufficiency – to teach someone to fish,” Bell said. “We intend to increase awareness of local hunger issues, mobilize community members to share what they are able, and encourage all community members to liberate themselves from industrial food by growing what they can.”
Bell works as a grant coordinator at Skagit Prevention Council in Sedro-Woolley, a non-profit group involving community coalitions, tribal organizations and healthcare services that works to reduce substance abuse and violence.
Local Food Works is also working with the South Fork Valley Community Association to plant a community orchard in the park behind the Van Zandt Hall and are seeking funding to purchase blueberry bushes, apple trees and supplies.
Local Food Works seeks to engage more volunteer growers and neighborhood bounty coordinators. For more information, call Margie Bell at 592-0950 or e-mail, localfoodworks@aol.com.

Seed kits available at food banks

Foothills Food Bank: St. Peter’s Catholic Church, 6206 Mt. Baker Highway, Deming. Open: Tuesdays 9 – 11.30 a.m.

Lord’s Table Food Bank: River of Life Church, 4037 Valley Highway, Van Zandt. Open: 2nd and 4th Saturdays, 11 a.m.-1 p.m.

Nooksack Tribal Food Bank: 4971 Deming Road, Deming. Open: 3rd Friday of most months, 12 noon – 3 p.m.

Published March 1, 2010