Lack of updates? Lack of readers? Yes and yes. Boy, do I feel like a real blogger. I was aiming to have an update on last Sunday but schoolwork and sunshine won out. No worries, I have three more blog posts rolling around in my head. The weird thing is, none of these upcoming blog posts are about cheeseburgers. Am I jeopardizing my base?
Update on last blog post: The Family Economic Conference was very informative. I was able to sit in on an Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance annual members meeting. The most interesting part of the meeting was a presentation on a new activity the group is engaging in. It is called “gleaning,” and it is when volunteers collect produce off farmers’ fields. This is the second year that the Alliance has gleaned. Basically, when farmers harvest their fields, they only take the best-looking food and leave tons, literally, of unpicked, perfectly-good produce.
Four Arkansas farmers and the Alliance have partnered together and in the first year approximately 185,000 lbs of fresh produce were collected and distributed. In their second year, 300,000 lbs of food was collected. They’ve collected all sorts of produce including squash, pumpkins, tomatoes, and many other foods. The organizers said that there is so much food on the fields for picking, that you can’t even tell the volunteers have been there post-picking. The picked food goes to distribution sites where it is given to those in need. The food is never sold to honor the partnerships the Alliance has with the farmers. This year, Arkansas prisoners participated in the gleaning process. Best practices for gleaning are being adopted from work in Arizona where millions of pounds of food is now collected every year.
The Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance invites groups to contact them about volunteer opportunities. Volunteers that collect food can keep the food for their organization and distribute as they see fit just as long as it is never sold. If you’d like to learn more about gleaning or volunteer opportunities, contact me and I’ll forward information onto you.
At this same conference, there was a lunch presentation by Nick Johnson from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. What I remember most from his presentation is the slide depicting the anticipated budget shortfalls in 2012 for many state budgets. (I’m typing all of this from memory as my notes are on my desk at DHS.) Since this presentation, budgets for many government agencies have been cut to make up for funding deficits.
Blah. Enough update business. Let’s talk about what is coming up now. Julianne and I are headed up to Northwest Arkansas to speak to a service learning class at Fayetteville High School. I’m curious if I’ll get a light boo-ing by the kids when I tell them I graduated from Springdale High School.
Why are Julianne and I speaking to kids in Fayetteville? Because we met their teacher in Belize and she asked us to speak. It all goes back to Belize, people.
I’m putting more and more group presentations under my belt and I am pumped about that. I can tell that I’m already more accustomed to speaking in front of a group and that I gain at least some small amount of confidence from every experience. By the time my capstone is completed I may not even be able to keep track of the number of group presentations I’ve done. Woot!
Julianne and I will be talking about our public service experiences before coming to the Clinton School, our work during the Clinton School, and what we want to do after we graduate. This Friday night, Julianne and I worked on our presentation and I’m very excited about sharing the information with the “youths.” We’ll be doing two presentations on Monday and headed back to Little Rock the same day so we don’t miss all the Five Year Anniversary festivities going on for the Clinton Presidential Center. Oh yeah, we don’t want to miss class or work either. Yeah…
Julianne will be meeting my family and getting dirt on my childhood. More to come…more to come…
(Lucy is on the road trip as well!)
