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Ideas for extending our project

At our last potluck a couple of ideas came up for putting our recipes to work in the community. One idea was to fix a meal together for people in need. Another was to print out some recipes that use common Food Bank ingredients and hand them out at the Food Bank. Does anyone have ideas on how to get the ball rolling on either of these projects? Either one would be fun to do together.

Hi John, Margaret--
I remember we talked of cooking for a soup kitchen ---then this appeared in my email from the Democratic Party of Oregon. Would this help? Or do we have connections with such a project already somewhere? Or should we be focusing on the recipes for the Food Bank idea? Or just wait for the ideas to ripen....

Eve

From: Brandon Thompson

November 29 - December 6 is Food and Shelter service week!
Support those who are most in need in your community by hosting a non-perishable food drive, or helping out at your local soup kitchen or shelter--we'll help you make it a success!

Sign up here to lead a Food and Shelter service project or non-perishable food drive in your community!

We hope you'll join us for Food and Shelter service week, November 29 - December 6. Come on out and do some good in your neighborhood!

See you out there,
The DPO Values in Action Team

 Hi Eve; This looks like a great idea. Do you want to follow up on it? Thanks for a lovely gathering. John

I'm for it. Thanksgiving, maybe/ We should coordinate with the Oregon Food Bank.--Jan

I got some information from the DPO about organizing an event, but this kind of thing is beyond me. If someone wants to take the lead, I'll be glad to follow and I'll send you what I have. Perhaps someone with connections at the Food Bank could find out if they coordinate such things?

Dear Eve and all food lovers: Yeh it overwhelms me as well. what I
would be willing to do is to contact St. Francis church--a church that
offers meals to the homeless, I'm not sure if its every night or just
several times a week. But I could ask them about helping on a
particular night--find out if it could be for part of a meal or if it
would have to be a whole meal and for how many, etc. Helping out
somewhere sound more doable to me, at least for starters. It if works
smoothly, then we could think about further or ongoing actions. Does
this sound like a way to go? Let me know if you want me to research
the St. Francis possibilities. ----- Margaret

Thanks to Eve for following up on our discussion so promptly. I'm impressed that the DPO has ideas for projects all ready to go. Like others who have commented, though, I may not feel ready to organize or lead such an undertaking yet. It's not clear from Brandon Thompson's message whether the food and shelter service week needs both leaders and followers. I like Margaret's idea of starting small--helping at an already organized event. That might be enough for a while, or we might see opportunities to develop something new. I like the idea, down the road, of coming up with recipes for the food bank, but I feel like I need more exposure to the culture before I start making suggestions (as in providing recipes). Of all the projects we discussed at the Heidtmann's pot luck, I think the cookbook idea would be least rewarding. The logistics of such a task might be enormous (do we really have the time and energy to be testing recipes?), and the marketing possibilities seem slim. There are, after all, so many sources of excellent vegan and vegetarian recipes, including our very own website. Maybe we should consider ways to bring more people to us on line instead of trying to reproduce recipes in printed form.

Thanks, Margaret for stepping forward to see about place and program. Right
now I agree that small steps might be helpful in getting 'footing' in this arena.
I'm also suggesting that those who are interested could volunteer at Sisters of
the Road to help out for their lunches....maybe once a month? We could pair up
or triple up? "Don't be attached" is one of the yoga teachings......in other words,
the food there may NOT be what we would serve or want on the menu.....but,
they do a good job in trying to offer balanced and nourishing food every day to
many people......actually, I really believe that the atmosphere and intention
contributes much to the 'value' of the meal prepared. The folks at St. Francis,
also, are really wonderful resources for those already plugged into this
area....perhaps linking us where it is we wind up........
Eve, I don't know what the kit looks like.......do you want to meet and go over
it?
Peace all,
Laura

I suggest we drop the DPO idea---the "kit" would be useful if we were recruiting volunteers, advertising our project, etc., but we are not. Margaret, it is kind of you to offer to research the possibilities at St. Francis. I agree with the above messages---let's start small and see how it works out.