Local Food Hub Pop Up Event

Local Food Hub Pop Up:

This pop-up event will bring together interested members of the Oberlin community, area farmers, and food buyers in Lorain County for a day of learning, sharing, and connecting. The event will simulate how a local food hub, a consolidation and distribution point for local food, could actually function in Oberlin. There is no cost to participate but space is limited.  This event is free and open to the public.

What is a Local Food Hub?

Local food hubs have been developed in 168 communities in the United States as a way to grow local food systems. Local food hubs help to connect local farmers, local food businesses (such as processors or distributors), and buyers (households, restaurants, grocers, or institutions). Local food hubs also serve a number of other functions, including education, workforce training, capacity investments in local farms, improving healthy food access in limited-income neighborhoods, or coordination of food waste collection for composting or energy generation.

Pop-Up Food Hub Activities: 

In conjunction with the Oberlin Project’s Pop-up Local Food Hub, are local food presentations each half-hour and local food films produced by three local film-makers.  These presentations and movies will present creative and innovative ways that communities in Ohio engage local food systems to support health, environmental sustainability, and a stronger local economy.

Local Food Hub Pop Up Presentation Schedule – Oberlin High School Auditorium:

10:30 a.m.         Glenn Gall – Healthy Food, People, Farms, Planet
11:00 a.m.         Ruby Beil  - Sustainable Agriculture at
                            Lorain County Community College
11:30 a.m.         Chet Bowling - Oberlin Kitchen Incubator
12:00 p.m.         Tracie Haynes/Dave Sokoll - Neighborhood Food
                           Development
12:30 p.m.         Nick Swetye - The New Agrarian Center/City Fresh
1:00 p.m.           Frank Whitfield - Local Foods and Youth
                           Education/Engagement

 Each presentation is 10-15 minutes with 10-15 minute question and answer session.

 

Local Food Hub Pop-Up Event Cinema – Oberlin High School Library:

10:30-11:30  Network Theory- Athens, Ohio - Network Theory (Brad Masi, Mika Johnson, 2013) looks at how communities in Southeast Ohio engage local food systems to build a more resilient economy and a more inclusive democracy. (Topics: food hubs, rural self-reliance, network weaving, staple foods, local food processing, business to business connections)

 

11:30-12:30  PolyCultures- Cleveland and Northeast Ohio - PolyCultures- Food Where We Live (Tom Kondilas, 2009) looks at the inter-connected efforts between urban and rural communities in Northeast Ohio to grow a healthy and sustainable regional food system. (Topics: urban food access, ecological farming, urban agriculture, local economies)

 

12:30-1:30  For the Love of Food- Oberlin, Ohio - For the Love of Food (Brad Masi, Mika Johnson, 2012) looks at the past and present of Oberlin’s pioneering efforts to localize its food supply, learning from those on the ground doing it and their perspectives about the future of local foods in the community. (Topics: entrepreneurship, homesteading, education, youth) 

The Pop-Up Cinema is a collaboration between: Art + Practice, LESS Productions, and Blue Heron Productions. These films star the many diverse members of Ohio communities that are coming together to grow a stronger and more resilient local food supply. The films feature inter-connected vignettes, so come in and out as you please and see what best practices you might want to apply to your community!

 These events will help you learn, connect, and share your ideas about local foods.  We encourage you to share you thoughts and ideas about your vision of local foods in Oberlin using the “idea wall” areas during this event. 

 

For more information about the event, go to the Oberlin Project website at www.oberlinproject.org or contact Sharon Pearson with the Oberlin Project at 440-775-6473 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

 Click here to register as a vendor, community organization, or farmer/buyer meet and greet event

 

For more information about the event, go to the Oberlin Project website at www.oberlinproject.org or contact Sharon Pearson with the Oberlin Project at 440-775-6473 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.