Sustainable practices will be taught tomorrow at the Laramie Local Food Gathering. The Laramie Local Food Group and ACRES Student Farm will host the event. This event is free and will take place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Civic Center. Lunch will be available for $8. Students are also encouraged to volunteer for this event.
During the food gathering, there will be workshops to teach people how to grow and preserve their own food, how to take care of chickens, a garden, how to use watering systems and how to can foods.
“You know what goes into it, so you know what’s going into your body and you are also more aware of your carbon footprint,” Willa Mullen, co-founder of the Laramie Local Food Group, said about the advantages of growing your own food. “It also helps to create a community for people. A lot of times people with an interest in gardening will share land and seeds and it really brings them together.”
However, if a person chooses not to grow their own food, there is always the option of buying food from local farmers. “Food growers from the Laramie Valley and Colorado have the farmer’s market and it keeps money in the community. With the way the economy is today, keeping money in the community is important,” Mullen said.
There will also be two keynote speakers during the gathering to cover more gardening topics: Hill Grimmett, founder of the Northern Colorado Food Incubator, which provides support for food-related and independent community-and-land-based businesses in Ft. Collins, and Kipp Nash, founder of Community Roots, a community-supported farm that grows and sells food at the farmer’s market in Boulder.
The ACRES Student Farm owns and farms an acre of land on 30th Street; the food grown on this land is sold at the farmer’s market or given to low-income families. The Laramie Local Food Group was created just a few months ago and this will be its first food gathering.
To reserve a lunch or volunteer to help at the Local Food Gathering, contact Willa Mullen at (307)-703-0412.
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