Join Us for Food Matters: A Four Film Series

Film has become a powerful medium when exploring controversial topics or when making a point about a particular subject. For the last several years those concerned with the state of our food supply in this country have done well in exploring, exposing, and initiating dialogue on this critical subject. The Lexington Cooperative Market and Edible Buffalo have joined together to present Food Matters: A Four Film Series. The films selected for the series are some of the most critically acclaimed on the topic of food production, food supply and the overall state of our food economy. The series includes the following films; King Corn, The Real Dirt on Farmer John, Dirt! The Movie, and FRESH. Each screening will take place at Hallwalls ContemporaryArt Center in Buffalo.

King Corn was first released in 2007 and explores the tenuous topic of corn production in the United States. As America’s most subsidized crop, this film follows to young gentleman as they try to follow their corn crop as it enters our food system. What they learn is both troubling and eye-opening as it raises many questions about how we eat and how we farm. As more and more industrial food companies are coming under fire for their prevalent use of high fructose corn syrup in their products, this film continues to be timely and relevant. The screening date for this film is May 27, 2010 at HallwallsContemporaryArtCenter at 341 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo. Doors open at 6:30pm with the film beginning promptly at 7pm.
The Real Dirt on Farmer John is the true story of third-generation Illinois farmer John Peterson and how he struggles to stay afloat as family farms decline. His story is one that parallels the history of American farming. His family farm eventually hits rock bottom but Peterson is able to turn things around and become one of the leaders in the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) movement as head of Angelic Organics. The screening date for this film is June 30, 2010 at HallwallsContemporaryArtCenter at 341 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo. Doors open at 6:30pm with the film beginning promptly at 7pm.
Dirt! The Movie takes on the unlikely subject of soil. This film tells the story of Earth’s most valuable and underappreciated resource. Through modern industrial pursuits and the clamoring for both profit and natural resources, our human connection to dirt has been disrupted. The film makes the case that drought, climate change, even war all directly related to how we are treating our soils. The only remedy is to reconnect with this precious natural resource. The screening date for this film is July 28, 2010 at HallwallsContemporaryArtCenter at 341 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo. Doors open at 6:30pm with the film beginning promptly at 7pm.
The Food Matters film series concludes with an encore screening of FRESH. As films like Food Inc. and Super Size Me expose the pitfalls and wrong doings of our industrial food system, FRESH goes in the direction of looking at solutions to our ailing food supply by celebrating the farmers, thinkers and business people across America who are re-inventing our food system. Among several main characters, FRESH features urban farmer and activist, Will Allen, a 2008 MacArthur’s “Genius Award” fellow; sustainable farmer and entrepreneur, Joel Salatin, made famous by Michael Pollan’s book, the Omnivore’s Dilemma; and supermarket owner, David Ball, who is creating a new market model for our family farmers. FRESH’s focus on these inspiring individuals and their initiatives around the US provides the audience with actionable solutions. The screening date for this film is September 30, 2010 at HallwallsContemporaryArtCenter at 341 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo. Doors open at 6:30pm with the film beginning promptly at 7pm.

Each film is approximately 85 minutes in length and will be followed by an audience discussion. Tickets for each film are $8.00 for general admission and $6.00 for Lexington Cooperative Market members, Edible Buffalo subscribers, seniors and students. There is also a series pass available for $20.00 which provides you admission to all four films. Tickets are available at the Lexington Cooperative Market at 807 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo or online at www.ediblebuffalo.com. The net proceeds from the film series will benefit Field & Fork Network, a non-profit organization dedicated to connecting local consumers and food industry professionals with area farmers and artisan food producers.

Over 100 exhibitors at the Buffalo Niagara Green Expo will help you GO GREEN in your home, body, garden, business, career, & community.

The Green Expo is a free event that will give you the opportunity to learn about the worlds of sustainable energy, weatherization and energy efficiency for buildings, green landscaping and gardening, holistic health, and so much more. (you know we’ll be there, come stop by our table)

SATURDAY, APRIL 17, 2010
10AM – 6 PM
Walden Galleria Mall

Visit the Bflo Niagara Green Expo website for more details:
http://buffaloniagaragreenexpo.wordpress.com/

The UB Green Team is continuing its climate talks, a dialogue on contemporary and local environmental issues. The Spring 2010 series will introduce the campus community to issues such as waste reduction, community gardens and sustainable transportation. All of the Climate Talks begin at 7pm in the Allen Hall Theatre on the UB South Campus, across from Walgreens on Main Street

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2009 7pm Allen Hall Theatre, South Campus: Less is More: Promoting Recycling and Waste Reduction in Western New York

We hope to see you there!!!

Where: University of Buffalo Center for Fine Arts, Room 232

When: Tuesday, Feb. 23 @ 6PM (see poster below for future dates)

Be there for the launch of the Food and Emerging Media Speaker Series, and hear the opening speaker, David Szanto, give a talk entitled “Towards Intelligent Gastronomy: Equilibrating Human Food Systems.

The Great Lakes Urban Exchange (GLUE), a coalition of young leaders, wants to know what it will take to make their friends “stick” in Buffalo. And they want to take that message to the region’s elected officials.

The public is invited to join members of GLUE in completing the sentence: “I Will Stay If…”

When: 5:30 on Thursday, December 3rd

Where: Century Grill at 320 Pearl Street in downtown Buffalo.

Who: Representatives from Buffalo 2032, The B Team, Buffalo Niagara 360 and other community organizations will be present. oh yeah, and YOU!!
Sponsors of the event include Century Grill, Flying Bison Brewery and Douglas Levere Photography.

The “I Will Stay If…” campaign is an attempt to involve a diverse crowd of people to participate in a vital conversation about the future of our cities. The campaign collects visually powerful data
about what residents want most from their cities. Similar events have taken place in Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Cleveland and are being planned in other Great Lakes cities.

Kevin Hayes,  store manager, said “I Will Stay If…I don’t die” (meaning he already plans on staying in Buffalo FOREVER). Rachel Mathews, volunteer coordinator, said “I Will Stay If…Buffalo gets better public transportation.”

How will we get you to stay??

For more information regarding the “I Will Stay If…” event, contact Amy Maxwell at 716.316.4264, or visit www.GLUEspace.org.

So we stuck 5 of us in the caREvan last Friday morning and departed on our roadtrip! First stop: Dayton, OH for the Ten Living Cities Symposium. The Symposium was formed in response to an August 2008 Forbes article entitled “America’s Fastest-Dying Cities“. Of course Buffalo was on that list, along with Dayton, Detroit, Cleveland, and 6 other mostly-rustbelt cities. The objective was to bring together artists and activists, community leaders and organizers, public officials and civic-minded people from the 10 cities to share ideas and inspiration, to show we aren’t dying, and to create new possibilities for what our futures can be.

We arrived in Dayton Friday night, heading straight to Garden Station. Garden Station is an art park and community garden established on a lot that had been abandoned for over four decades. The space serves as a place where artists, sculptors, gardeners, musicians, performers and other “creatives” can express themselves. The manager, Lisa Helm, welcomed us with open arms – and even let us crash at her house Friday and Saturday. We stayed for the Garden’s outdoor screening of “Ferris Beuller’s Day Off” before calling it a night.

After a hearty breakfast Saturday morning, we went to the Dayton Convention Center for the Symposium.

The first speaker was Josh Zumbrun, author of the much-detested Forbes article. He apologized for the negativity surrounding the article, saying it was not his intention to bring such bad press to these places, to lower residents’ morale, or to ignore what these cities are doing right. By the end of the day Josh had heard more than an earful from concerned and upset citizens and community leaders.

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The Vacant Property Summit is coming up, Tuesday, November 18 at the Hyatt Regency Buffalo in room Regency C from 5 pm to 7pm. The purpose of the Summit is to bring together Erie County citizens to develop innovative policies and programming to address vacant property issues in our county.

The Vacant Property Summit is free and open to the public. It will be moderated by Michael Groman, founder of Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s Philadelphia Green program and Anthony Armstrong, of Local Initiative Support Corporation – Buffalo. Members of the City of Buffalo Mayor’s Office and Council Member David Rivera’s office have already committed their attendance. The more city and county officials who enter into this conversation, the more we will accomplish.

Summit participants also include people from other cities who have established successful programming, community members, and stakeholders interested in issues of abandoned properties in Buffalo. Please join us at the table!

In order to plan for a room large enough, we ask that you RSVP to this email address, rebekah {at} buffaloreuse(.)org, by 5pm on Monday, November 17.  We hope that you will join us for the Summit. If you know of others who should attend, please extend an invitation to them.

It is sure to be an important event!  The Summit is part of a four-day conference – the Great Lakes Building ReUse Conference – which will take place November 16 through November 19, 2008 at the Hyatt Regency Buffalo. The Great Lakes Building ReUse Conference will focus on deconstruction, vacant property stabilization, neighborhood revitalization, and policy & implementation. We are hosting an exciting group of keynote speakers from around the country as well as local movers and shakers for nine workshops, two keynote addresses, networking and exchange. For more information or to register for the Great Lakes Building ReUse Conference, please visit www.greatlakesreuse.org.

Michael can rest easy at night because he doesn’t have to worry so much about Kevin’s sanity.  The ReSource finally has a POS (point of sale) system.  This means no more tallying totals by hand for Kevin or figuring taxes on his toes or fearing that ruthless bandits will tie him up and “thief off” with sacks of gold nuggets.  (remember, Kevin is a lot older so his nightmares have different villains).  This also means that we can accept credit card payments too.  Missy, you can leave that sack of nuggets under your mattress; bring us plastic!

Paypal for the conference ends at 5pm
If you’re still deliberating over whether or not attend The Great Lakes ReUse Building Conference –on-line registration ends at 5pm, but you can still pay for the conference in person Sunday at the registration tables.  Please remember there are discounted rates for nonprofs and students.  Take a peek at the schedule.  There’s a one-day only rate and if you have an interest in one workshop or one keynote speaker, bring $10 and you’re in (sorry, that doesn’t include the tours; they’re full).

Youngstown, Ohio has a lot of parallels to Buffalo.  It is also a former steel town whose once booming and densely populated city spread out and has seen residents move outside of the city.   The image and reputation of Youngstown declined since the 70s due to blight and crime.  There seemed to be no plan for growth or survival for the city.  A lack of industry and job opportunities and subsequent struggles fostered a cycle of defeatism and hopelessness.  When children and teenagers absorb the negative morale about living in Youngstown–or Buffalo–it affects them.  If you grow up hearing your city “sucks” you will inevitably internalize some that as part of your identity.  If you don’t believe me, ask yourself why you ask people, “Where are you from?” or “Where did you grow up?” when you meet people and establish relationships. People make judgements about  you based on their, sometimes limited, knowledge of your hometown.  You see their facial expressions change with recognition or disconnection.  I have corrected half a dozen friends and family, “Nope, the Statue of Liberty is on the other side of NY.”  Most people outside of Buffalo have no understanding of Buffalo, except its bleak reputation which includes–snow, poverty, no jobs, 50% dropout rate.

What is it like to be a mayor of such a town–a town that is vulnerable to criticism and wary of people coming in and making undeliverable promises.  We invited Jay Williams, the first African-American mayor (and the youngest) of Youngstown, OH to come and participate in our Great Lakes Building ReUse Conference and share his controversial ideas about right-sizing and regionalism.  How does a mayor “shrink” a city, yet still provide services and opportunities for growth?  Mayor Williams’ program, Youngstown 2010, is a strategy to create collaboration with policy makers from suburbs, towns, villages and the urban core.  The plan also involves targeted demolition and redevelopment in key neighborhoods.   Part of the program offers grants to relocate residents in sparsely populated neighborhoods, which would allow the city to divert the cost for street lighting and trash pickups elsewhere.  Naturally, some lifelong residents don’t want to leave their houses.  What if their houses could be moved to more populated neighborhoods?  Can some combination of this work in Buffalo?

We invited our own Mayor Brown as well.  If the two mayors don’t already know one another, we hope they will talk and exchange ideas with each other and all the conference participants.
It should be a very interesting workshop.  If you would like to register for the conference, please know there are a variety of options and the final deadline is soon.

There is something of a misconception about deconstruction.  The myth is that it is always performed by hand and that men have to climb onto roofs or meticulously pick away each 2×4 and sheet of drywall.  That is a traditional method and it is time-consuming, which translates to expensive.  So, the misconception is that deconstruction becomes a waste of time for municipalities with limited resources.  However, not all deconstruction is performed with just the hands.  Hybrid Deconstruction, the practice that Buffalo ReUse is developing, under the consultation of David Bennink, is different.  The method was originated by David Bennink over 14 years ago and it involves “man with machine.”  It means, men and women using tools and forklifts to dismantle structures safely and efficiently.  If you’ve seen a demolition vs. a deconstruction, the difference you’ll notice is that demos crunch up houses and throw everything into a dumpster, then haul the rubble off to local landfills.  However, deconstruction cuts the houses into panels and reclaims the useable lumber and other materials–like sinks, tubs, staircases, flooring, windows and water heaters which still have a purpose for a thrifty property owner.  There is still rubble that heads to a landfill, but after we’ve separated mulchable lumber and concrete for the recyclers and sent the rest of the useable stuff to our store, we’ve made a significant waste diversion!
The hybrid deconstruction method does not pick apart drywall or shingles or tile floors or other materials which cannot be reclaimed quickly (some of those materials cannot currently be recycled in our market).  Instead, hybrid deconstruction chooses the structures and building materials which can yield the most reclaimable, recyclable, reusable materials or most value, quickly.  If we can deconstruct more houses with the hybrid method, it means we can divert more materials from the landfill because we get through more houses that would have been simply demolished and buried.
If you’re attending the Great Lakes Building ReUse Conference, you’ll have the opportunity to work with David Bennink and talk with other BMRA members.  Bennink is offering a full day of training which will help you implement these practices in your hometowns.

You’ll get to meet other people involved in the ReUse and the Deconstruction movement.  Dr. Robert Falk, coauthor of UNBUILDING: Salvaging The Architectural Treasures of Unwanted Houses will be available.  Here is a review of UNBUILDING, “Much of America’s architectural heritage is ending up in landfills. Bob Falk and Brad Guy want to change that. The book is a guide to “unbuilding,” or deconstruction, the process of dismantling buildings that otherwise would be razed. The purpose is to save reusable elements such as building materials, fixtures and architectural details. Falk and Guy say deconstruction preserves the past, reduces costs, benefits the environment and has the potential to create jobs in urban areas, where they’re needed most. Unbuilding covers the many aspects of deconstruction, including site preparation, safety issues, tools, techniques and resale ideas. Interviews with successful salvagers are included, along with resources for those interested in deconstruction. –Akron Beacon Journal”

You can register to attend just one day and you can still get a discounted rate if you pay your registration before October 23rd.