{"id":21457,"date":"2018-08-29T19:27:35","date_gmt":"2018-08-29T23:27:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=21457"},"modified":"2018-08-29T19:27:35","modified_gmt":"2018-08-29T23:27:35","slug":"york-region-food-council-food-network-aim-to-dig-deep-into-vital-issue-this-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/york-region-food-council-food-network-aim-to-dig-deep-into-vital-issue-this-fall\/","title":{"rendered":"York Region Food Council, Food Network aim to dig deep into vital issue this fall"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Food advocates in York Region have spent the last 35 years looking for \u201cquick wins\u201d when it comes to food insecurity, and now they are looking to \u201cdig deeper.\u201d
\nSo says Joan Stonehocker, Executive Director of the York Region Food Network.
\nOn Thursday, the York Region Food Network (YRFN) invited the community to its Industrial Parkway South facility, a complex which includes a teaching kitchen and a community garden, to have fun while learning the ins and outs of where their food comes from.
\nAs they got their fingertips red mixing soil and seeds with modelling clay to make \u201cgarden bombs\u201d or getting down and dirty with handfuls of worms in a lesson about vermiculture, there was a more serious message just under the surface.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re trying to let kids know that healthy food is fun and delicious,\u201d said Ms. Stonehocker. \u201cIt\u2019s the whole story around food, how good it is for you and how good it is when you grow it well in the environment. It is also good for our local economy.\u201d
\nWhile the summer is often a downtime for many community organizations, that is not the case for the YRFN. People have spent the summer fanned out into their various community gardens in Aurora, Newmarket and Vaughan, taking part in cooking and other varieties of food programs, and this momentum is set to continue through the fall.
\n\u201cThe fall ramps up even more because it is harvest season,\u201d says Ms. Stonehocker. \u201cWe have continuous workshops and later on this fall we have our annual Food for Change event. This year, it is called \u2018Finding Common Ground\u2019 and we\u2019re looking at the things around food that brings us all together. Food connects us all anyway, but what are those other common pieces and how do we build the community interest in ensuring we have healthy and sustainable food for everyone.\u201d
\nFor the YRFN, this is an age-old question, and it is a question they have tried to tackle in myriad ways.
\nIn the first half of September, they aim to form the York Region Food Council, which Ms. Stonehocker says is an \u201copportunity to bring interested organizations, individuals and governments all together to talk about the varies aspects of food.\u201d
\nThese can range from nutrition programs and what they need to do to get these out there into the wider community; to agriculture and highlighting the importance of local farms and ensuring farmers are able to make a good living; to the broader issue of food security within York Region.
\n\u201cWe have been in touch with people like the new food section at the Mall and we\u2019re going to get in touch with Niagara College at the Armoury, we\u2019ll be working with the York Federation of Agriculture and we\u2019ll have lots of organizations come together to talk about food insecurity because we know they are finding more and more need for food in our communities,\u201d she says. \u201cThat is not the way we want to be moving.
\n\u201cWe have spent 35 years on our quick wins and we need to dig a little deeper and talk about the cause of food insecurity, which is poverty. It is not getting better and I think the inequality in our society is making it even more dire for people who aren\u2019t able to work full time or for various reasons can\u2019t get a job. There are lots of people who are on social assistance who are still getting amounts of money to ensure they still stay in deep poverty. We need to look after those immediate needs, but we need to take the next step on that.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Food advocates in York Region have spent the last 35 years looking for \u201cquick wins\u201d when it comes to food insecurity, and now they are looking to \u201cdig deeper.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/2018-08-30-07.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5A5","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-29 19:39:09","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}