Transition to Permaculture: Building Resilient Communities is the
convergence of two convergences: the annual Northern California
Permaculture Convergence and the Northern California Regional Transition
Network Conference--and it is happening October 11th-13th at the Solar
Living Institute in Hopland, CA. The convergence will be bringing
together permaculturists, community organizers, and all kinds of excited
people to take part in discussions, classes, dialogues, workshops, and
other facilitated experiences to inspire further action in a movement
for community resilience.
This year, the Village
Commons will be in the very center of the convergence space and will
host an open community kitchen alongside a stage, tea lounge, communal
space, and bioregional meet ups.
The community kitchen will be a
free and accessible space where everyone converging over the three days
of the conference can bring their produce, dried goods, spices, oils,
and other items to prepare and cook into wonderful, nutritious meals to
keep nourished through the weekend. How you choose to use the kitchen
is up to you: you may fry up some veggies and a couple eggs for
yourself, or you may get together with others, share ingredients, and
cook up a large meal to share with many.
Through this
community kitchen we hope not only to share a space in which all can
meet their own needs through their own hands and stay happy and healthy
throughout the conference, but also seek to demonstrate a piece of
infrastructure that is currently missing from most of our cities and
many of our social environments, urban and otherwise: open and
accessible common-space kitchens.
Today, about 1 in 6
Americans receive food stamps to assist them in purchasing food. Many
of these people, and many of those who do not depend on food stamps,
often have no place to cook for themselves. This leads to an all too
frequent influence to purchase foods that are easy to eat without
cooking or preparation, which at poverty level are often potato chips,
pre-cooked and preserved sandwiches, and other "junk foods" rather than
the raw and nutrient-rich dried fruits and nuts that can be purchased at
the higher priced end. Through access to kitchens and being able to
cook one's own meals or prepare meals with others, people may very well
be empowered to cook with whole foods, bring greater nutrition to
themselves, and feel able to purchase higher quality foods and eat less
junk.
At the Village Commons of the Building Resilient
Communities Convergence this October 2013 we seek to demonstrate such a
model community kitchen.
www.TransitionToPermaculture.org
