Slow Food Nation will inspire and empower Americans to build a food system that is good, clean and fair. The inaugural edition of the event takes place in San Francisco this Labor Day weekend, August 29 to September 1, 2008. Over 60,000 people will come together to tend a victory garden, shop at a sustainable marketplace, share delicious dinners, and enjoy tastings, workshops, forums, films, talks, a music festival and more. The event will be an inclusive platform where those working in the fields of social justice, environmentalism, education, and food access will engage participants, create momentum and show what “Slow Food” means in action and on the plate.
The Youth Program at Slow Food Nation is an opportunity for university-level students and young farmers, producers, cooks and activists to learn from mentors and peers, exchange ideas and build networks. It will feature:
- Panels and forums to galvanize and address issues in the youth food movement;
- Workshops and networking sessions for younger and older participants to connect in the spirit of mentorship/apprenticeship;
- A volunteer program to integrate young people into the event, e.g. cooking meals for participants to share or leading elementary school groups on tours of the Victory Garden
- Youth-specific dinners and social events
Most of Slow Food Nation will be free and open to the public. Plan to come. Tell your friends. If you work or are engaged in food and farming and would like to represent your organization, farm, business, or project as a Slow Food Nation Youth Delegate, please click here to fill out our online form.
Questions? Email Gordon Jenkins at gordon@slowfoodnation.org or call him at 415-369-9950.
Let’s all give a big welcome to the newest Slow Food on Campus Convivium at Sonoma State University in Northern California! Located in one of the most fertile areas of the West Coast, Slow Food SSU is working to bring a Farmer’s Market or CSA to the campus as well as to revitalize an on-campus garden.
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers and Student Farmworker Alliance work together to bring food giants like McDonalds and Taco Bell to the table. Once they get them there, their goal is for these multi-national corporations to acknowledge and change the awful conditions faced by the farmworkers bringing tomatoes to Big Macs around the world.
Their success is inspiring. For example, last November they organized over 1500 people to march 9 miles to the Burger King HQ where they demanded that the corporation take responsibility for the human rights abuses and poverty inflicted by their business
Now they need our help. Burger King is being difficult. They don’t want to publicly accept that the supply chain initiated by their sourcing practices ends with degrading working conditions and sub-poverty wages.
CIW and SFA have launched a petition to stop slavery and sweatshops in the fields. Sign it. Circulate it. Help support the FAIR in good, clean, and fair.
On May 1st, 2008, Italy’s University of Gastronomic Sciences will hold information sessions in Manhattan, NY, and Berkeley, CA, for prospective students interested in learning more about the school’s programs and application procedures. Staff and alumni will be on hand to explain the educational philosophy of the university, present the undergraduate and graduate degrees, discuss internships and work opportunities post-graduation, and answer all other questions.
Co-founded in 2003 by the international non-profit Slow Food and the Italian regions of Piedmont and Emilia-Romagna, the school’s innovative approach is to create a new understanding of gastronomy, linking the act of eating with the act of producing, along with all the phases in between. Four programs at two Italian campuses follow a multidisciplinary learning model, merging science with humanities, sensory training with communications, classroom study with field seminars (including travel to five continents).
The two information sessions will take place as follows:
New York California
May 1, 2008 May 1, 2008
7:00 – 9:00 pm 7:00 – 9:00 pm
Murray’s Cheese The Ecology Center
254 Bleecker St. 2530 San Pablo Ave., Ste. H
New York, NY Berkeley, CA
To attend one of the sessions, email your name and phone number to d.szanto@unisg.it.
(Last-minute attendees are also welcome.)
For more information about the University of Gastronomic Sciences programs, click here.
Welcome to the newest member of the Slow Food family, Slow Food Kapi’olani Community College (Slow Food KCC, for short!). Check out a recap of their first event here.
Slow Food KCC is located in beautiful Honolulu, Hawaii, where the members (many culinary students) are committed to the Slow Food mission of promoting Good, Clean, and Fair food.
Their next event is a joint excursion with Slow Food Oahu to an ancient Hawaiian Fish Pond…wish we could come with you!
Slow Food on Campus is a network of Campus Convivia, chapters of Slow Food USA run by college and university students across the country. These Campus Convivia are the living, breathing, working arm of Slow Food USA in the college community. By promoting food and food justice issues and by engaging their fellow students in the pleasures of the table and the garden, Campus Convivia aim to promote a slower, more just, and more harmonious rhythm of life on our nation's college campuses.
