Community center to host food project

Published 1:30 am Saturday, June 20, 2026

CHIMACUM — Anyone who has ever wanted to try a plant-based diet but hasn’t been sure where to start has a unique opportunity to do so.

Starting today, a 15-day event called Together Around Food will begin at the Tri-Area Community Center in Chimacum.

“The goal is to showcase a new food system where everyone in a community would come together to eat delicious, gourmet, plant-based meals free of charge,” said organizer Mike Sanabria, a cuisine representative for Loving Hut Vegan Cuisine, an international vegan restaurant franchise.

Plant-based breakfast, lunch and dinner will be served from 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. today through July 4 at the community center, 10 West Valley Road.

“More than a dining experience, this 15-day community gathering will feature inspiring talks, meaningful conversations, health and wellness opportunities, and new ways to connect with neighbors,” according to the event website, together around.food.

The event is a first of its kind in the United States and is designed as a replicable model for communities worldwide, according to a news release.

“Together Around Food is founded on the simple idea that nutritious food is a basic human right and a shared community responsibility,” the release stated. “The program provides ultra-nutritious, whole-food, plant-based cuisine completely free of charge, with the explicit goal of ending hunger and widespread, chronic malnutrition, encouraging a global shift to plant-based diets, and rebuilding community life around shared meals.”

Sailesh Krishna Rao, executive director of partner organization Climate Healers, said 95 percent of Americans don’t get enough fiber in their diets.

“This is the richest country in the world and people are malnourished,” Rao said.

In May, Rao attended the Global Earth Repair Convergence at Fort Worden in Port Townsend. There, he spoke with event organizer Rick Lukens about the food system problem in the United States. Lukens has worked for decades to develop programs for personal, social and ecological healing, according to the news release.

“Jefferson County has the heart, the people and the partnerships to become a beacon,” Lukens said in the release. “This is what community resilience looks like in practice.”

Rao’s work with Climate Healers is as a systems engineer working to repair the Earth for the last 20 years, he said.

“We have systems all around us,” Rao said. “We have a food system around us that’s supposedly feeding us, but a lot of people are getting sick from the food system itself. The food system is not about nourishing people, it’s about making money. So, therefore, there’s a lot of misinformation about what to eat and what not to eat, and they’re eating all kinds of things that are not good for them.”

Funding for Together Around Food comes from Loving Hut, Karuna Foundation’s Vegan Grants and individual donors, including Rao. The event is designed for global replication, according to the news release.

“By documenting and refining the Jefferson County model, the program’s organizers intend to offer a practical, community-led roadmap for ending hunger, improving public health and restoring ecological balance worldwide,” the release stated.

The event will end July 4 with the presentation of “Declaration of Independence, Reloaded,” a renewed declaration grounded in compassion, stewardship and freedom from preventable suffering for all people, species and ecosystems, according to the release.

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Reporter Emily Hanson can be reached by email at emily.hanson@peninsuladailynews.com.