Back to the Bay

From the CFSC website

Last night, I arrived in San Francisco for the Community Food Security Coalition conference, taking place in Oakland. The CFSC is an organization whose mission is defined as "to catalyze food systems that are healthy, sustainable, just, and democratic by building community voice and capacity for change". (www.foodsecurity.org, 11/3/11) The coalition works across North America by providing networking opportunities and training, and advocating for policy change. Besides the annual conference, CFSC maintains a listserv to link members and those interested in their mission, assists with grant writing and implementation, offers support for establishing food policy councils, helps run both the National Farm to School program and a network of Healthy Corner Stores, and publishes many papers, newsletters and research reports on topics related to their goals.


I'm here for the entire conference, including a few pre-workshops today and tomorrow. Today's workshop is on "Introduction to Media Advocacy: Shaping the Public Debate" and tomorrow's is "Planning Successful Community-Based Food Initiatives". Sunday-Tuesday's conference schedule involves workshops, forum/networking sessions and a couple of public addresses. I'm both excited to take part (these things always inspire me) and nervous (since many of the people who attend are established food activists in their communities).


However, right now, the only thing I'm thinking about is getting outside for a run (still on East Coast time and just waiting for the sun to come up!). I briefly thought I might not make it here yesterday, because, as I've mentioned, my dog is crazy. Although she's done great for the past few FF trips, she really freaked out about my leaving yesterday. And, if you've read my Zomppa posts (link 1) on it (follow-up story), she can be very, *very* destructive. Luckily, my dog sitter is A-mazing, and I was able to hop on my flight. I was lucky enough to score a middle seat with a guy on one side who itched his whole body while playing Sudoku the entire flight, a guy on the other side who snored tremendously while scratching and grabbing his crotch (how is this even possible??) and a guy in front of me who practically reclined into my lap the whole flight, farting. And the movie they showed was Rise of the Planet of the Apes which just made me feel bad about the dog and cry. (I mean, I didn't openly *weep* on the plane, but I wish they'd shown more episodes of 30Rock instead). It was a loooong day.


Today is bound to be much, much better!