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Day two of David Pecker testimony wraps in NY Trump trial; Supreme Court hears arguments on Idaho's near-total abortion ban; ND sees a flurry of campaigning among Native candidates; and NH lags behind other states in restricting firearms at polling sites.

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A FEAST of Ideas for Fighting Hunger in OR

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Thursday, July 10, 2014   

COTTAGE GROVE, Ore. - Big things are happening to fight hunger in some of the smallest towns in the state. Oregon Food Bank's FEAST program is bringing communities together to talk about their individual food-related concerns, and to work on improvements.

Spencer Masterson, community resource developer with Oregon Food Bank, says every community's list of food priorities is different. FEAST - which stands for Food, Education, Agriculture, Solutions, Together - attempts to address those different food priorities.

"We really don't choose places to have FEASTs and then come in and organize," says Masterson. "It's communities coming to us, saying they want to have this conversation and they would like us to facilitate it."

Masterson says once FEAST identifies focus areas, the group decides on steps or action items to maintain the momentum.

Beth Pool, a retired home economics teacher with the nonprofit Sustainable Cottage Grove, says what she liked best about the FEAST event in her town was the connections forged between people who wouldn't have otherwise met. She says this created new enthusiasm for the effort.

"People have to step forward, even if it's for one hour a month," she says. "If people can get out of their patterns and habits and into the bigger community - look at the system, and become part of it - then making change is easy."

Pool says the Cottage Grove group chose nutrition education, food preservation, getting more food to low-income families and working to ban GMO foods as some of its priorities. The town has already started a community garden since the workshop three months ago.

Masterson says FEAST participants tell him the organization's discussions raise questions about the food system which would have otherwise never occurred to them - from growing and harvesting, to distribution, marketing, buying and preparation, and even what happens to food waste in a town. He says the goal is to make the system more effective for the people who live there.

"You might feel you have no effect on those big, systems-wide things happening," says Masterson. "But when you break it down into more manageable things, it does make it seem like, 'I can actually do something to make my community more resilient or stronger.'"

FEAST workshops have resulted in new customers for local farmers, new farmers' markets and community gardens, partnerships between schools and farms, and the expansion of local food bank sites.


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