Big steps forward (and one step back):

The Real Food Challenge is taking off. Our goal: re-direct $4 billion worth of college food spending towards smaller, local, organic farmers in the US and beyond. This summer, we—along with our partners, including Slow Food USA and the California Student Sustainability Coalition—formed a national Design Team. Leading up to the Sept 2008 public launch, we are defining plans, hosting two regional summits (one at Yale in November), and creating a website (late Oct). We plan to hit the ground running with at least 80 schools signed up to work towards a collective goal.

Living the change we want to see: The third class of Cadre members finished their year with a final retreat at a food sovereignty conference in Hawaii. Joining 160 youth, mostly native Hawaiians from all of the different islands, this was a more of a deep experience of cultural revival than a typical conference. We built stone walls, repaired fish ponds, planted taro (“kalo”), made a traditional pit oven, cooked pork, and hosted a fundraiser, among other things. More photos and info at: http://handsturned.tripod.com/

New Cadre class includes 3 from TFP community. TFP alums David Schwartz and Carmen Dongo join John Wang 7 other young leaders from around the country in next year’s Cadre class. There were more than 3 applicants for every spot. Decision-making was excruciating. Thanks to those who read applications and gave input. The first retreat for this group is this weekend. Almost half of the Cadre members are heavily involved in creating The Real Food Challenge. See profiles at: http://www.thefoodproject.org/blast/internal1.asp?ID=602

Reap/Sow is going to cover crop. We are suspending production this year to focus on the Real Food Challenge. The website is still up and contains a great archive of reviews, recipes, art, and other creative and fun stuff. You can always check it out at www.reapsow.org.

Closing words from one of the many chants we learned at Hawaii:
Gratitude, admiration, thanks, and love
To all who are present both seen and unseen.