SEQUIM — Don Wilkin of Sequim and Beth Loveridge of Port Angeles believe in the power of food activism: putting delicious whole foods in front of kids and changing our culture from the grass roots up.
Loveridge has led a local movement for about four years now, organizing the Farm to Cafeteria Conference at the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribal Center last fall and continuing to urge the Port Angeles School Board to replace processed school lunches with the fresh stuff.
And Wilkin, a retired ecology professor, has found a way to arm his neighbors with knowledge, so they too can go forth into battle on the good-food frontier.
Food and culture
Wilkin is inviting those neighbors to “Menu for the Future,” a free Northwest Earth Institute course on how food choices transform our culture, starting Feb. 25 at the Center of Infinite Reflections just southwest of Sequim.
The deadline to sign up is Saturday, so Wilkin is unleashing all of his enthusiasm for it. The six-session course, to run from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Thursdays, has topic headings including “Farming for the Future,” “Toward a Just Food System” and “Choices for Change.”
And to Wilkin’s mind, this knowledge translates into power — power to improve the food system at the local level.
Eating locally makes all the difference, Wilkin said, and with locally grown food available year-round on the North Olympic Peninsula, there is an opportunity to teach and feed our children well.
Loveridge and Wilkin, both avid researchers on the subject, both say that when children have access to wholesome meals at home and school — instead of salty, sugary packaged stuff — they’re better able to concentrate in class.
And that, Wilkin added, could lead to far-reaching rewards for the community at large.
So along with joining the “Menu for the Future” discussions, people have an opportunity to make changes in local culture by joining Loveridge and the farm-to-cafeteria groundswell.
Need ‘food activists’
“We need people to be food activists,” Wilkin said. “Let’s get rid of this complacency . . . I am organizing the ‘Menu’ classes in hopes of providing a critical mass,” because “numbers matter.”
Loveridge, for her part, is focusing on persuading Port Angeles School District officials to change cafeteria menus.
She wants students to have access to a more verdant salad bar and whole-grain breads, for example, and apples instead of canned applesauce with high-fructose corn syrup. Offer fruit in its natural state, and kids can enjoy real sweetness without the sugar high and crash.
And Washington apples, after all, don’t have to cost the school district a fortune.
“We’re not asking them to spend more money. We’re asking them to do better with the money they do have,” Loveridge said.
Other Washington school districts, including Olympia and Lopez Island, have added farm-fresh foods to their menus, she added.
Loveridge, meantime, has been circulating petitions all over Port Angeles. Headlined “I believe that change can’t wait!” the petitions advocate more wholesome foods in school cafeterias.
On Tuesday, she turned in petitions bearing 537 signatures to the Port Angeles School District office, and talked with the school board about holding a public meeting on the school-menu topic.
No meeting date is set, but Loveridge is optimistic about gathering more input — and even extending her efforts, in time, to the Sequim School District.
For now, Loveridge invites other concerned residents to find the North Olympic Peninsula Farm to Cafeteria Program fan page on www.Facebook.com; she and her compatriots can also be reached at FarmtoCafNow@yahoo.com.
________
Sequim-Dungeness Valley Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.