Minutes Tuesday February 20, 2007 Meeting Hinesburg Buy Local Task Force

Meeting at 7:30 PM

James Reported out on his attendance at NOFA meeting and mentioned the existence of Act 145 which provides state funds for school lunch programs and and mandates that every school have a “school wellness committee,” encourages contracts with local growers and may be a resource for our work in Hinesburg. The Intervale Foundation and Lincoln are doing good work here. James also met with Leo LaForce at CVU and began a dialogue.

Bill will introduce James to Megan Camp at Shelburne Farms who is very active in this area and may have resources available to us.

James has agreed to write an article about this initiative for the Hinesburg Record

Susan agreed to invite Sally Riese to join our meeting to further discuss the Hinesburg Harvest Festival

Susan reported on the genesis and oversight of the Geprag legacy to Hinesburg. “Education and recreation” are the mission and oversight is provided by Select Board.

Rhonda reported in absentia that Land Link most probably has little to offer our task force by way of resources.

Susan had circulated prior to the meeting a proposed mission statement which was discussed and she and Bill agreed to collaborate on a revised draft taking into account the issues discussed.

Then followed a lengthy discussion of the original set of objectives with an eye towards distilling them down to a manageable set and eliminating redundancy by combing them where it made sense. The result of this discussion follows:

1. Develop an integrated agricultural / gardening education initiative in local schools that strengthens the link between locally-produced food production and school meal programs and also nutrition education and an agricultural / gardening curriculum. Specific objectives will be to use local food in school and community meal programs, heighten awareness of the availability and quality of locally produced food, and to develop agriculture /gardening and nutrition curricula.

Establish a community gardens, incubator farm and agricultural resource center perhaps on the Geprag property that would enable:

a. local people to have gardening space and resources,

b. young people interested in farming to have a place where they might be develop a herd or crop initiative and

c. a community resource where students and visitors could come to see the connection between gardening / agriculture and community.

2. Acknowledge the accomplishments of the Lions Club and work with them and Johanna to determine how we might broaden the scope, resources and market power of the Hinesburg Farmers Market. Explore a possible name change to broaden reach by including “producers”, a possible site change and what amenities might enhance its community market impact.

Work with Sally Riese and her group to support and develop the Hinesburg Harvest Festival into a broader, better-resourced event that ultimately creates a town-wide celebration of locally-produced food, goods, arts and services and attracts visitors from other communities. Also discussed was the idea of a local farmer’s diner night, perhaps at a local eatery.

Develop a database of locally produce, goods and services and better market them to the community with a buy local campaign and appropriate marketing materials such as a website (Front Porch Forum, Hinesburg Record?) and perhaps a brochure. Andrea may have already jump started this process.

3. Establish Carbon Farmers of America chapter and local Carbon Neutrality campaign for the people and producers of Hinesburg.

I have tried to delete what we felt we could delete and combine those earlier objectives that were related. I may have missed some points so please feel free to challenge my editorship. This leaves us with three achievable objectives that we should review and discuss next Tuesday evening.

James (#1), Joanna (#2) and Joe and Emily(#3 + #2) have all done some very helpful work further describing the possibilities within each of these objectives that should become part of the work we do at the committee level which we will discuss this coming Tuesday evening..

I look forward to seeing you all on Tuesday evening at 7:30 PM. Sorry for the delay in getting these out. I was out West for ten days.

Bill