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What does an East Tennessee Summer of Solutions Look like?

Build It Up East TN is creating and supporting a comprehensive food justice program in East Tennessee through reclaiming local food culture. Our summer plans include:

   1) Hosting workshops to increase skills and raise awareness on how social inequalities impact food insecurity. We are utilizing the traditional cultural knowledge of this region to foster empowerment of the local community. We will spend the summer providing accessible workshops on traditional food preservation (canning, pickling, wild crafting, etc.) hosted by community members themselves. These food justice workshops will also cover issues of food insecurity as it relates to race, gender, the environment, and Appalachian cultural history. Members of the community who are directly impacted by these issues will help teach and facilitate these workshops, thus bringing together various communities of people in the region.


   2) We also plan to use the expertise of neighboring organizations and community members to implement and assist with several community gardens which will help us provide fresh produce to our local food bank while also allowing for skills-training for people in the community.


   3) Our program will culminate in a cross-region tour that will connect rural and urban communities through sharing current work and ideas on food justice.

 

 

By bringing together members from diverse communities to create a sustainable, agricultural based economy, Build It Up East TN intends to reclaim our region’s food sovereignty and revive the spirit of independence in Appalachia. Through this work, the program will address multiple issues of food insecurity simultaneously by empowering local community members and giving them the tools and resources to reclaim local, regional, and individual food sovereignty.

Think you want to join us? Submit an internship application now!

Pictures from our 2012 Summer of Solutions:

Click on the birds to check out our year end report from 2012:

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