Free Write- My Real Food Journey

Steve, my supervisor and mentor, asked me at the beginning of my internship to think about my real food journey, and what it meant to me through the course of my internship. This was something I knew I would think a lot about, and something that would really develop through my internship. 

My real food journey began years ago. It was a journey that lead me to be who and where I am today. Finding real food is difficult, especially growing up in a culture that thrives on fast, cheap, and convenient food. Starting my real food journey was not planned, nor understood at the time. It wasn't until Steve asked me to think about it, that I realized this is what I had been doing all along--finding real food. 

I am extremely proud of this blog post I wrote for Steve, Local First Arizona, and all the localists out there. The blog I would like to share with anyone who reads this blog entry, is very personal and special to me. It describes what a real food journey is through my eyes, and how it has impacted me. I hope it entertains, inspires, and educates anyone who reads it. 

Cristy's Real Food Journey

Free Write- My Personal Experience

How does local, especially local food systems, correlate with my degree in Public Service and Public Policies (Sustainability)?

First off, through my journey here at Arizona State University, I have specifically become interested in sustainability through food. I started off by realizing how backwards our food systems are (this is a completely separate topic, so I don't want to go off on a passionate tangent). Then I realized how much energy, such as fossil fuels, go into production of agriculture and meat. I really changed a lot of my own habits through these realizations. When I came across Local First Arizona's local food systems internship, I felt it was the missing piece to my puzzle.

My internship helped me piece together the fact that a sustainable, and healthy, food system, is predominately local. It has been such a great experience to learn about local food  systems hands on, with the community. Like I have mentioned so many times before, Farmer's Markets are truly a great place to experience these concepts. 

With all that said, local and sustainable foods fall into Public service, because helping the public provide themselves with healthy and local foods is a service. With that, helping to develop policies towards the promotion of local and healthy foods, as opposed to the easy entry of the market of fast food chains vs. grocery stores and markets, is something I would love to be a part of in the future. I have learned to work with the community, again falling into place of public service, and understanding how to make a change for the public through service and policies. 

Most importantly, I realized that you have to inspire and motivate the population to want to make a change, such as a sustainable movement. It is important to understand the population will continue to grow, so policies and service will have to be innovative and adapt. Starting with a social movement is truly the key component. 

Free Write- Food Day

I am sure most people haven't heard of Food Day. I know I hadn't until I started interning with Local First Arizona. 

In a nutshell, Good Food Day is a day that celebrates, and inspires people to change their eating habits by supporting healthy food, and changing our food policies. 

Here is a link to a blog I wrote about Food Day 2014, for Local First Arizona's website:

Food Day 2014: Join the Movement

For Food Day in Phoenix, many people gathered at Cesar Chavez Park in downtown Phoenix. If you didn't catch the correlation between food day and Cesar Chavez, I highly encourage you to look up Cesar Chavez! Anyways, of course Steve, Jaime, and I (all from LFA) set up a table at Food Day to do our part to inspire people. We took the initiative to talk to the public about local food, and how it benefits the consumer and the local economy. We weren't the only passionate folks there. There were plenty of local farms, CSAs, educators, and government presence there. It was a great gathering to celebrate good food, and the initiative to change our eating habits and food policies. 

It was definitely very inspiring to me to learn about this event, and see the day that the City of Phoenix put together to celebrate. One of my favorite parts of the day, was when everyone was given an apple, and at 12 noon, everyone took a bite. It was just one loud crunch of a group of people eating a healthy food item! For me personally, I just love events like these, because I really am passionate about knowing where my food comes from, and supporting a healthy food system. I am not sure why everyone wouldn't want to care more about what they are putting into their bodies!

Free Write- Farmer's Market

I previously wrote about my typical day at the office, so I thought it would be fun to write about what a typical day at the Farmer's market entailed. 

During the week, I completed internship hours at the office. Saturdays were also included in my work schedule, and I spent them working at Farmer's market, and occasionally some other local events which I will highlight later.

I worked various Farmer's markets including: Gilbert Farmer's Market, Downtown Phoenix Public Market Farmer's Market, and Central Farmer's Market.

The Farmer's Markets were fairly new to me. I had occasionally gone to Farmer's Markets, but did not fully appreciate them until I started interning for LFA.

Our role, as members of LFA, was to set up a table that would would help us communicate with the public. LFA actually had a term for this, it was called "tabling". To be honest, I was very nervous to take on a role like this, because communicating with the public about a public change was something that I had little experience in. 

Our table included items that represented our name, and who we were, pamphlets about the LFA organization, lunches and mixers, and also pamphlets of local businesses that were our members. We tailored our paper information to the location of the event we were at. For example, if we were at the Downtown Phoenix Farmer's Market, we highlighted local business in the area, and our pamphlets that pertained to the immediate area. 

Basically, these were the goals of the day:

-Grab the attention of the consumers

-Educate them about LFA and its cause

-Attract the consumers to sign up for the LFA newsletter to learn more, and get more involved with community events

-Engage the consumer to understand how their contributions to the local economy help

-Describe how we interact with our members to develop a local economy

-How our role correlates with the local Farmer's Market

-Answer Questions

-Hand out information

-Promote a local economy, and shopping locally

The Farmer's Markets were always fun, because you met so many different kinds of people, and mostly dealt with people who were already passionate about our cause. As nervous as I was in the beginning, I really learned how to communicate with the public about something I was passionate about, and it came easier than I had imagined. Really, it just came natural. It was more of a conversation, than a pitch. Not to mention, I was able to interact, and get to know other vendors at the Farmer's Market who were selling their local goods. Now those are some passionate people about a local economy, and shopping locally!

Also, I started shopping more at Farmer's Markets. I picked up all my produce, and some fun random items- such as the best BBQ sauce I had ever had! My dogs now eat all natural, and organic treats that I purchase at Farmer's Markets. All around this has been a unique learning experience from a  professional, educational, and personal stand point. 

Typical Day

Two out of three days, I work in the Local First Arizona office. The third day is spent working a local event within the community.

Each day I walk in to the office, I am eagerly greeted by the LFA staff. The team sits around one large rectangular table with their computers. This setup ensures constant collaboration, and a friendly environment amongst the team. I grab an open seat, and set up my lap top. 

Steve, the LFA local food systems coordinator, and my supervisor, gathers our local foods team. We always begin our group work with a team meeting. We discuss goals, ideas, game plans, and work to be done. I love that we start the day this way, because we always try to stay in the loop with what is going on, and make sure that our team is efficient.

The rest of the day is spent mostly working independently. Depending on the project I am working on, my independent work includes research, blogging, data entry, watching webinars, and preparing for our weekend events. 

Although most of my work is independent, my team is collectively working together to accomplish a project. We each tackle a portion of the project, and collaboratively piece it together to make an impacting message. Our work is dedicated towards reaching out and educating the consumers of our local economy. All the work inside the office, by all the LFA teams, really affects the overall goal we are trying to accomplish. 

LFA is leading a social movement, and there are endless opportunities for reaching out and communicating our goal. The work environment at LFA is very friendly, encouraging, and very collaborative. It definitely doesn't feel like work when I enter the LFA office.