Food Justice Week and Beyond, 2019

October 12, 2019
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The Zilkha Center’s Food Justice Week is a series of events intended to increase campus engagement with sustainable food and food justice issues, and help the Williams community define its food values. We’ve partnered with many different student groups, offices, and departments across campus to present a wide variety of events — check out our calendar for the details!

Throughout this week we are also gathering input on what is most important to the Williams community when it comes to our food purchasing and dining sustainability.

 

CALENDAR

SAT 10.12.

  • Soul Fire Farm Community Farm Day, 9:30 AM – 2:30 PM. Join the Zilkha Center for a volunteer trip to Soul Fire Farm’s Community Farm Day. Soul Fire, located in nearby Grafton, NY, is an incredible BIPOC-centered community farm committed to ending racism and injustice in the food system. Volunteers at this event will help out around the farm, followed by a delicious potluck lunch.

WED 10.16.

  • Davis Center Social Change Film Series: “Food Chains” at Paresky Auditorium, 7 PM. In this exposé, an intrepid group of Florida farmworkers battle to defeat the $4 trillion global supermarket industry through their ingenious Fair Food program, which partners with growers and retailers to improve working conditions for farm laborers in the United States.

SAT 10.19

  • Secret Garden Party at ’66 Environmental Center Kitchen at 4 PM. Come explore the Zilkha Center’s secret garden before winter arrives! We’ll create weed bouquets, bake apple muffins, and drink tea made from dried garden herbs.

SUN 10.20. 

  • Activist Afternoon with WEC at ’66 Envi Center Classroom, 4 PM.The Williams Environmental Council (WEC) will be hosting an hour-long workshop focused on food justice activism. We will be discussing the Wendy’s boycott and actions that can be taken to stand in solidarity with farmworkers.
  • Food Super Storytime at Dodd Living Room, 9 PM. Is there a particular food or memory surrounding food that means a lot to you? WEC and Storytime are hosting Food Super Storytime to kick off the Zilkha Center’s Food Justice Week. We’re looking for 3-5 students to tell stories about anything related to food, and they definitely don’t have to be explicitly connected to sustainability or food justice in any way.

MON 10.21.

  • “Rice Rice Baby”: Sustainable Cooking with WEC and Moo-mami at Dodd Kitchen, 6 PM. Let Moo-mami and WEC teach you how to cook a delicious meal using real food that’s been sourced from local businesses using ecologically sound, humane, and fair farming practices! Learn how to support and nourish the food system as well as fill your stomach with a tasty dinner and dessert.

TUE 10.22.

  • Lunch & Learn: Reflecting on Sustainable Food at Williams at Paresky 220, 12 PM. What does sustainable food mean to you? How can Williams Dining change to better reflect your personal food values? We’ll reflect on and discuss these questions and more during this lunchtime conversation about sustainable food on our campus. Bring your own lunch!
  • Mesa! Serving Food Justice with Vista at Hardy House, 6 PM. Mesa! is an event meant to educate and bring about conversations about food inequalities and injustices that impact the Latinx community. Join us for a teach-in and presentation on these issues, as well as a delicious locally-sourced meal. Bring an open mind and belly!

WED 10.23.

  • Lunch & Learn: Organizing with the Student Farmworker Alliance in upstairs Driscoll, 12 PM. Do you care about the people harvesting your food? Come to this workshop to discuss the history and future of the fight for farmworker justice. We will talk about the role of students in supporting dignity in the fields, and learn about how to get involved in this powerful movement! Bring your own lunch!
  • Sustainable Stressbusters with WEC at Goodrich, 8 PM. It’s Food Justice week, so the Williams Environmental Council (WEC) is teaming up with ACE to bring you Sustainable Stressbusters. There will be local, seasonal foods and tote bag decorating in addition to the usual $150 Goodrich tab and free massages. In the spirit of sustainability it’s also BYOM – Bring Your Own Mug!

THU 10.24.

  • Volunteering at Berkshire Food Project, 9 AM – 1 PM. Help cook a meal at this soup kitchen in North Adams, which “seeks to alleviate hunger, food insecurity, and social isolation by serving healthy, no-cost meals and connecting people to other resources, all in a dignified and respectful manner.”
  • Real Food Day Tasting at Baxter Hall, Paresky, 11:30 AM – 1 PM. As a prelude to the sustainable dinner, local vendors will be tabling and offering students and faculty samples of their foods! From cheese to brownies and fruit, come by for a quick snack and chat.
  • Real Food Day Dinners at Mission, Whitman’s, and Driscoll, 5 PM – 8 PM. In celebration of National Food Day, Dining Services is hosting the Real Food Day Dinners, local and sustainable meals. Come by to learn more about real food and try delicious, local, fair, and humane dishes!

SAT 10.26.

  • Udder Farm Fun: Farm Service with Lehman Community Engagement at 9 AM. Join Lehman Community Engagement and the Zilkha Center for a morning of community service at one of four local farms: Cricket Creek, Full Well, Red Shirt, and Sweet Brook.

SUN 11.3.

  • Organic Kosher Chicken Processing at Robariah Farm at 9:30 AM – 4:15 PM. Are you interested in food justice, sustainability, organic farming, and connections to spiritual practice? Volunteers are needed to help process organic, free-range kosher chickens that have been purchased by the Williams College Jewish Association for Shabbat dinner. Join a group of students to visit Robariah Farms in Deerfield, MA as we get hands-on experience working with a ritual slaughterer (shochet) and preparing the chickens for storage and consumption.

MON 11.4.

  • Strategies for Building a Just Food System Workshop at Paresky 201, 3 – 4:30 PM. In this heart-centered and action-oriented workshop, we will develop a common understanding of “food justice” and explore the successful strategies used by frontlines communities to dismantle inequity. We will specifically focus on how our collective purchasing power can be leveraged to infuse values of sustainability and justice into the food system. 
  • “Farming While Black”: African Diasporic Wisdom for Farming and Food Justice, lecture with Soul Fire Farm’s Leah Penniman at Weston Hall, 7 PM. Leah Penniman, co-founder of BIPOC-centered Soul Fire Farm, will give a lecture on how you can be part of the movement for food sovereignty and help build a food system based on justice, dignity, and abundance for all community members.