FEED Kearsarge hosts successful 1st Annual Food Security Summit!
It was deeply heartening to see the Kearsarge community come together so strongly on Saturday, April 18th, for FEED Kearsarge’s very first Food Security Summit!
At Kearsarge Regional High School, 120 attendees representing over 40 businesses and organizations—including farms, food pantries, healthcare and social services, education, land use and conservation, and policy and advocacy —gathered to tackle a vital question:
How do we move from feeding people to ending hunger to building resilient local and regional food systems that nourish all of us?
We stood together as neighbors committed to a more food-secure and joyful future for the Kearsarge Region. Through panel presentations from with six local leaders and nine collaborative breakout discussions, participants forged new cross-sector connections and left the event informed, inspired, and ready for action.
Here’s what some had to say:
“It was encouraging to be in a room with so many people committed to strengthening local food systems, expanding access to healthy food, and supporting farms and communities in meaningful ways. I left so inspired by the entire day.”
“What a great regional collaborative movement. It has brought together people with many different experiences.”
“Kearsarge offers wonderful leadership that we can watch from the rest of the state and hopefully adopt many of your ideas.”
“The folks who attended and presented are all so committed and doing such amazing work. It was so enlightening to hear from each other so that we could see how we can accomplish more together on big questions as well as in our individual spaces. Knowing what others are doing also creates a sense of community as well as a support network. Lots of happy cross pollination.”
The Food Security Summit was a vital step in developing the FEED Kearsarge Food Access Coalition. The message from the day was clear: our community is ready for more collaboration. By organizing our collective efforts, we can achieve a far greater impact than working alone.
While the day was full of inspiration, good ideas, and strong connections, it’s also true that there is much work to be done. As one participant reflected, “it is more important than ever to support our local farmers and work together to help improve food security.”
From what emerged during the Summit, this includes figuring out how to glean more produce from local farms for food donations, getting more fresh healthy food to kids at school and outside of school, increasing the participation rate in the SNAP program, getting more low-barrier food access sites like Community FREEdges going in the Kearsarge region, and undoing the stigma that keeps people from asking for help when they need it.
There are many areas where we can strategically develop or deepen food security efforts to not only feed people when they need a hand, but to build true and lasting food security for the Kearsarge region, for all of us, for future generations. Our success relies not only on downstream efforts that catch people when they fall - the food pantries and the emergency relief efforts - but also upstream actions that change the conditions altogether for food access and affordability and moreover a resilient and equitable food system.
In that spirit, we’re excited to share some resources from the day and keep this work moving forward:
A Food Security Report created by the Kearsarge Food Hub and Center for Advancing Rural Health Equity (CARHE)
Sign up for volunteer opportunities through Kearsarge Neighborhood Partners
Stay connected with you local food system - sign up for Kearsarge Food Hub Newsletters
The FEED Kearsarge backbone team—the Kearsarge Food Hub and Kearsarge Neighborhood Partners—is diving into all the feedback from the Summit in the days and weeks ahead. We'll follow up soon with a meeting schedule to keep this momentum going. We’ll also be working on the master contact list including folks from the summit and other community leaders working in food security to help us all communicate more directly moving forward. More to come!
Until then, a huge thank you to everyone in the Kearsarge area who turned out to make our first Food Security Summit a resounding success." As one attendee put it, “Community action IS possible and powerful!”
Onwards and forwards!
Thanks are in order:
Thank you to the Kearsarge Regional High School for hosting us.
Thank you to our food providers: Appleseed Restaurant, Sweet Beet Cafe, and Wayfarer Coffee Roasters
Thank you to all our panelists, breakout discussion facilitators, and exhibitors for generously sharing their passion, experience, and expertise.
And of course, thank you to the event sponsors for making the Food Security Summit possible:
Lead Sponsor: Sunset Hill Educational Institute
Partner Sponsor: Mascoma Savings Bank
Supporting Sponsors: Hungry Hearts Gym & Kitchen, Appleseed Restaurant, Forfeng Design, Lake Sunapee Regional VNA and Hospice, New London Hospital, St. Andrews Episcopal Church