Transition Town prep: Here’s What Happened on Food Security nite!

News

Transition Town prep: Here’s What Happened on Food Security nite!

By jimw ⋅ May 9, 2009 ⋅

Email this post ⋅

Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

Tags: Cheltenham, food, gardening, Quiet Riot, transition town

Dear Community:

The Transition Town model has been described as “more like a party than a protest march”. Transition Towns answer the Perfect Storm of Economic Instability, Peak Oil and Climate Change by inviting the creativity, resources and skills of the town’s citizens to rebirth local community: local food, local energy, local building materials, bikes… even local currency. This makes the town more resilient in the face of oil crises and more self-reliant because of its gradual and festive “energy descent”.

I was amazed to discover that most of my oil dependence rests with the food I choose and eat. A typical American consumes 26 barrels of oil per year: 7 barrels for the house, 9 for the car and 10 for food. Our nation’s food growing, processing, and transporting takes 9 calories of energy for every calorie of food that reaches our tables.

So I thought one of the best Awareness Raising events in preparation for Cheltenham Township’s Transition would be about food. A Family Gardening/Food Security initiative would make several visible and practical projects in and around the township. And besides, April 30, the chosen date, is seed planting time.

In the process of laying the foundations for the event, I discovered there were several highly competent groups and individuals that were already promoting community & family gardens. These experienced resources in the area include: LaMott’s 30-plot garden that has been going for 60 years and The PA Horticultural Society’s Garden Tenders program. To my great fortune, both had representatives that joined us and spoke at the event. It gave us a chance to honor the elders—the master gardeners from LaMott.

One of the objectives of the Family Gardening/Food Security event was to make sure that everyone who needed a garden space could get one nearby in the community. It was necessary to build a bridge to local government in order to explore the possibility of finding gardening spaces in parks and public lands. John Hoover, the Director of Parks and Recreation is helping us with that now.

Having sent out a couple of thousand invitations, I was very curious who would show up.

…if you are curious about what happened at our Family Gardening/Food Security event, I’ve attached a one-page “Report from the Underground: Cheltenham’s New Food Roots.”

One of the 12 ingredients to build a Transition Town is do your best work and then let it go where it wants to go this honors everyone’s contribution—there are five more of the 12 ingredients in bold italics in the paragraphs above.

The Quiet Riot has the great honor of performing “An Introduction to Transition Towns” at the Academy of Natural Sciences’ Town Square series/Sustainability Forum, Thursday evening, July 9, 2009. 6 PM Networking 6:30 PM performance—you’re invited!

Coming Soon!! Transition Training for 50 Philadelphia area citizen leaders and activists Quiet Riot will use performance, Transition Training materials and exercises—join us!!

Respectfully,
Bill Mettler Cheltenham Twp. EAC www.quietriot.org

Bookmark It