Past Summits
SOUTHEAST YOUTH FOOD ACTIVIST SUMMIT (SYFAS) 2009
The Southeast Youth Food Activist Summit (SYFAS), the first of its kind in our region, will bring together sixty to seventy students and other youth activists from across the Southeast to share strategies, and to strengthen a youth network in the region. SYFAS will feature youth-led workshops, peer networking, and seasonal community dinners. FLO Food, a student organization at UNC-CH working to promote the availability of fair, local, and organic food on campus, and the Real Food Challenge, a national student campaign for a just and sustainable food system, are collaborating with many students and other organizations to plan the summit.
The summit is one of four Real Food summits taking place around the country this year! Visit www.realfoodchallenge.org to join the student movement for a just and sustainable food system!
Goals:
- Build coalitions on campus, in local communities, and across the state and region;
- Share strategies and creatively problem-solve on starting campus farms or gardens and other sustainable food initiatives;
- Discuss methods of integrating food activism with university research and education;
- Examine and challenge the legacy of racism in the food system and in our work;
- Form a regional steering committee and create specific action plans for each state and the region as a whole;
- Improve future summits, as we strive to make this movement sustainable and inclusive for all.
Students and youth activists will return to their own campuses and communities empowered with concrete goals and the peer support needed to continue grassroots food activism on their own campuses and in their local communities.
Friday, February 13
- 4 to 5:30 Registration at JCUE
- 5:30 to 7 Welcome and Keynotes in Murphy 116
- 7 to 9 Dinner
Saturday, February 14
- 7:30 Early morning yoga
- 8 to 9 Breakfast
- 9 to 10 Group Activity
- 10 to 11 Panel 1 or 2
- 11:15 to 12:15 Panel 3 or 4
- 12:15 PM-1:30 PM Lunch
- 3:30 to 4:30 Panel 7 or 8
- 6-8:30 Community Dinner and Music
- 8:15 Because We're Still Here (and Moving)--Performances at Elizabeth Price Kenan Theatre (UNC campus)
1:30 to 2:15 Group Activity
2:15 to 3:15 Panel 5 or 6
OR
2 to 3:15 Garden workshop
Sunday, February 15
8 to 9 Breakfast
Open Space sessions
12 Lunch (on your own)
3 PM Theatre: Because We're Still Here (and Moving)--Performances at Elizabeth Price Kenan Theatre (UNC campus)
Panels and Workshops
- Welcome and Keynote Addresses
- Ellie Kinnaird, NC Senate
- Anim Steel, The Food Project
- Panel One: Community and Campus Gardens
- Moderated by Jenny Elander
- Erika Littman, Carolina Garden Co-op
- Sarah Dyer, Furman Community Garden
- Sammy Slade, Carrboro Community Garden
- Panel Two: Student Ownership of the Campus Food System
- Moderated by David Hamilton
- Tony Peele, FLO Food
- Gillian Locascio, Emory Culinary Club
- The Real Food Challenge
- Panel Three: Young Farmers--Growing Power
- Moderated by Chris Rumbley
- Rob Jones, Crop Mob
- Chris Boulden-Newsom
- Annie Perkinson, Flying Cloud Farm
- Panel Four: Food Giants--The Whole Hog
- Moderated by Sally Lee
- Tom Philpott, Gristmill
- Noel Ortega, Student Trade Jusice Campaign
- Michael Sligh, Just Food Program Director, RAFI-USA
- Panel Five: Organizational and Personal Sustainability for Activists
- Moderated by Melissa Tinling
- Russ Anderson, Southern Energy Network
- Elinor Benami, Environmental Affairs Committee
- Jason Baker, Weaver Street Market
- Panel Six: Organizing with Food Workers
- Moderated by Laura Stroud
- Anna Jensen, SAF and NC Farmworkers
- Meghan Cohorst, Student/Farmworker Alliance
- Panel Seven: Organizing on Campus and In the Community
- Moderated by Anna Krome-Lukens
- Samuel Wurzelman, Alianza
- Tes Thraves, Community Food Systems Director, Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS)
- Haley Koch and Rob Stevens, UNC-NOW
- Panel Eight: Food Justice in the Classroom and in the Field--Integrating Education and Action
- Moderated by Bryce Koukopoulos
- Alice Brooke Wilson, Maverick Farms
- Minister Campbell, Eubanks Road Community
- Chris Heaney, Gillings School of Global Public Health
- Campus and Community Gardens Workshop
- Grace Macnair, Carolina Garden Co-op
- Erika Littman, Carolina Garden Co-op
Speaker and Panelist Bios
Ellie Kinnaird (North Carolina) is in her sixth term in the North Carolina Senate. Ellie has been involved in civic and community activities since joining the League of Women Voters in 1964. She has been active in politics since 1987 when she was elected as Mayor of Carrboro and served four terms as a popular leader for the environment, arts, downtown vitalization and neighborhood restoration. She is an advocate for the environment, education, social justice and campaign finance reform.
Anim Steel (Massachusetts) is the Director of National Programs at The Food Project (TFP) in Boston, MA. In Boston, TFP employs over 100 Boston-area teenagers from diverse backgrounds and grows over 250,000 pounds of produce. In its national work, the Food Project works to build a strong youth movement for just and sustainable food systems. Born in Ghana, Anim grew up in both West Africa and Washington, DC.
Erika Littman (North Carolina) is a senior at UNC-Chapel Hill and an inspiration to the Carolina Garden Co-op, Carolina's on-campus organic garden.
Sarah Dyer (South Carolina) is a senior at Furman University in South Carolina. She is a member of the Vista House, where she and other students work together to run a community garden and share the fruits of their labor.
Anthony Peele (North Carolina) is a junior at UNC-Chapel Hill and a member of FLO Food (Fair, Local, Organic).
Sammy Slade (North Carolina) is a community activist and grower at the Carrboro Community Garden (http://carrborogarden.org/).
Gillian Locascio (Georgia) is a student at Emory University in Georgia. She is founder of the Emory Culinary Club and has done extensive research on Home Gardens in Panama.
Tom Philpott (North Carolina) Co-Founder and Co-Director of Maverick Farms in Boone, NC, Tom holds a BA in from the University of Texas. In addition to being a full-time farmer at Maverick Farms, he is food editor for Seattle-based Grist.org, and writes the nation’s only weekly column on food politics (called Victual Reality).
Noel Ortega Noel is co-founder of several student organizations such as Global Resistance Network at Mt. San Antonio College, and Students To End Hunger and Poverty at the University of California, Irvine. Currently, Noel serves as the National Coordinator for the Student Trade Justice Campaign.
Michael Sligh is the Just Food Program Director at RAFI-USA (Rural Advancement Foundation International). Following graduation from the University of Georgia in 1972, he spent ten years managing 1000 acres of diversified commercial organic and conventional farm production in the Southeast US. Since 1991 he has been at RAFI, working to promote sound domestic and international agricultural policies.
Russ Anderson is a graduate of Valdosta State University and the NC State Organizer of the Southern Energy Network, a project of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.
Elinor Benami (North Carolina) is a junior at UNC-Chapel Hill. She is co-chair on the Environmental Affairs Committee, an organization of student government (https://sites.google.com/site/eac0809/). She has also
Jason Baker (North Carolina) is owner services and event coordinator for Weaver Street Market, a co-op grocery store located in the heart of Carrboro.
Alice Brooke Wilson (North Carolina) Co-Founder and Co-Director of Maverick Farms in Boone, NC Alice holds a BA in philosophy from Grinnell College and a Master's in Sustainable Development from Appalachian State in Boone, NC. She is now working on a PhD in cultural anthropology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with an emphasis on sustainable-food movements.
Anna Jensen (North Carolina) is a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, where she co-founded Alianza, a farmworker solidarity and outreach group. She now works at the NC Farmworkers Project doing health and safety outreach for farmworkers.
Meghan Cohorst (Florida) is a staff member of the Student/Farmworker Alliance in Immokalee, FL, an organization fighting the exploitation of industrial food systems (www.sfalliance.org).
Samuel Wurzelman (North Carolina) is an organizer for Alianza, UNC-Chapel Hill's farmworkers advocacy group. Sam has worked closely with campaigns the Farmworker Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), Student Action with Farmworkers (SAF) and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW).
Tes Thraves (North Carolina) is director of the Community Food Systems Initiative at the Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS) (www.cefs.ncsu.edu).
Haley Koch (North Carolina) is a student leader of UNC-NOW (United With Northside Community Now), a grassroots organization working to preserve the cultural heritage of a predominantly African-American neighborhood in Chapel Hill.
Minister Campbell (North Carolina) lives and works in the Eubanks Road Community in Chapel Hill. At the recent 2008 Summit of the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, Minister Robert Campbell was awarded the “2008 Florenza Moore Grant Community Environmental Justice Award” for his outstanding contributions to Environmental Justice in the Rogers Road Community.
Chris Heaney (North Carolina) received his Ph.D from the Department of Epidemiology in the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Chris's primary focus is community-driven research, environmental justice, water quality, and environmental epidemiology.
Annie Louise Perkinson is the co-founder of Flying Cloud Farm in Fairview, NC (www.flyingcloudfarm.net). She attended UNC - Chapel Hill for two years, and graduated from Warren Wilson in 1996. Annie works in the planting, tending, greenhouse propagation, harvesting, and scheduling of the farm. She is particularly fond of picking fruit, and working with the flowers.