Say Yes! to Healthy Food in Schools – Webinar, Oct. 7th
Posted: September 29, 2014
Categories: Edible Education Network / Events / GoodFoodBites / News from Sustain Ontario / Schools / Webinars
This October is Canada’s first national Farm to School Month and we’re excited to share some new tools and resources with you!
Join us for a free webinar on Tuesday October 7th at 3:30p.m.-4:45p.m. to discuss the new Say Yes! To Good Healthy Food in Schools tools and resources from the Ontario Edible Education Network and learn about working effectively with school boards to bring healthy food, food literacy curriculum and a Universal Student Nutrition Programs into schools. Register now!
Who’s coming?
Join Soni Craik of Ecosource (Region of Peel), Brent Mansfield of Think&EatGreen@School (Vancouver) and webinar moderator Erin Beagle of Roots to Harvest (Thunder Bay) as they share success stories and discuss your questions. We encourage school food advocates, school board trustees, school administrators, local government, farmers, distributors, educators, parents, and community food and farming champions to come and participate. All are welcome.
Can you tell me more about the Say Yes! toolkit?
We can do more than just tell you – let us show you! The Say Yes! toolkit is now online on the new Ontario Edible Education Network Website. It includes useful definitions and research papers, Student Nutrition Program case studies, a presentation template, opportunity briefs for various decision-makers and school food advocates and more.
Register online. There’s no cost to attend!
Speaker Bios
Brent Mansfield – Community Liaison and Food Policy Research Lead, Think&EatGreen@School
Brent has broad interests and experience in food systems policy and education. He works as the Community Liaison and Food Policy Research Lead for the Think&EatGreen@School Project, a SSHRCC-funded Community-University Research Alliance project working with the Vancouver School Board and numerous other community and institutional partners to support the development of more healthy and sustainable school food systems. He is involved coordinating teacher professional development, including an annual Summer Institute. He is also engaged in encouraging the development of enabling school food policies, including supporting the development and implementation of a School Food Garden Policy and providing leadership in a Learning Lab working with the Vancouver School Board to increase the procurement of healthy, local and sustainable food.
He is also currently the Co-Chair of the Board of the BC Food Systems Network, a provincial network focused on developing more sustainable food systems in urban, rural and remote communities across British Columbia. He served as the Co-Chair of the Vancouver Food Policy Council from 2010-2013.
Soni Craik – Food Program Manager, Ecosource
Soni has a passion for innovative education programming. She has worked internationally in South Africa, and Ethiopia on programs that connect health and the environment, and that set her path in developing cross sectoral and curricular programming in the environmental education field in Ontario.
As Food Program Manager at Ecosource, Soni is developing collaborative partnerships between school boards, food service providers, farmers, students and non-profit representatives to increase the local food items available to students in their schools. The success of these projects is based on the experience that it takes a committed group of individuals across an institutional sector to create real and progressive change in a food system.
Soni holds a B.A. in Biology, a graduate degree in Environmental Science, and a certificate in International Development and Resource Management.
Erin Beagle – Executive Director, Roots to Harvest
Erin comes to the school food equation with a community capacity building and youth engagement lens. As an experiential educator and facilitator of 15 years, Erin brings a keen understanding of how to negotiate relationships between sectors, working towards healthy collaborations and successful partnerships.
As Executive Director with Roots to Harvest, Erin has been involved with developing and advocating for School Food Garden Policies with all three school boards in Thunder Bay, working collaboratively with school boards, parents groups, health units and other organizations to draft and implement school garden policies.
With Roots to Harvest, Erin is pioneering the Farm to Caf movement in Thunder Bay, bringing locally grown produce through procurement and distribution channels to cafeterias, prepared by cafeterias in partnership with Foods and Nutrition classes. She sees Farm to Caf and school food gardens as unique opportunities for young people to engage with sustainable food systems.
In any one day, Erin can be found working in the garden with youth, fixing a cider press, writing a grant application or meeting with school board administrators – often all in the same day.
Share the flyer image below to invite more people to the conversation!
Have a question but can’t make it to the event? Post it in the comment section below and we’ll ask it for you!