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Good Food Day L.A.: More Ways to Participate

by Departures

on March 30, 2012 11:03 AM

This Saturday, March 31, Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa and the Los Angeles Food Policy Council presents Good Food Day L.A. This Day of Service will feature volunteers throughout Los Angeles in a series of activities that work toward a more healthy, fair and sustainable food system. KCET Departures will be at the Urban Semillas Block Party in Glassell Park and Metabolic Studios by the Los Angeles State Historic Park, collecting your stories with a StoryShare event. Be sure to visit this page for details.

We've highlighted a few of the events earlier this week, but there are so many activities happening all across L.A. County during Good Food Day, and many of them are filling up to capacity. So we've put together another list of highlights that are still accepting volunteers, so you can pick and choose the tastiest activities to savor. Be sure to check the whole listing on this map and see how you can participate.

View Good Food Day LA in a larger map

Children's Hospital Los Angeles
4650 Sunset Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90027
Time: 9 am - 2 pm
Contact: Roberta Kato (rkato@chla.usc.edu)

There will be an edible gardening demonstration where children and their families will be able to plant their own edible gardens in small containers with a focus on salad greens and herbs. They will also have vegetable seeds and seedlings that can be taken home and planted in their own gardens or pots, along with educational information to show the health benefits of the different vegetables and recipes that will be provided. There will be a compost demonstration table to show how to compost the vegetable waste into chemical free fertilizer to use on their edible gardens. The information will be provided in English and Spanish.
FAME Renaissance
1968 W. Adams Boulevard, Los Angeles
Time: 9 am - Noon
Contact: Keely Hopkins (keelyh@famecorporations.org)

FAME Corporations and Let's Move LA will host "Healthy Heritage: a Healthy Take on Cultural Cuisine" with celebrity and local chefs demonstrating how to prepare traditional and ethnic food favorites in a healthier way. Learn about the local foods movement and how to incorporate more fresh produce into everyday meals--with delicious, nutritious and budget-friendly results! Attendees are invited to participate in hands-on cooking demonstrations, enjoy food samples, and take-away free recipes and cookbooks. The Let's Move LA Kidz Zone offers organized kids activities, including preparing a healthy snack, Sportz Zone, and arts and crafts. All activities are free of charge, and community members are warmly invited to come out and join the fun!
Fresco Community Market
5914 Monterey Road, Los Angeles, CA 90042
Time: 11 am - 3 pm
Contact: Helena Jubany (hjubany@nacarchitecture.com)

As part of the Mayor's Good Food Day of Service, Fresco Community Market will host the "Taste of Fresco" event. Customer's will be able to sample natural, organic, and gluten free products, including from local vendors. Fresco Community Market believes that the health of the community is as important as the health of the market. Fresco Community Market also partners with local non-profit organizations and initiatives through the Fresco Community Foundation. One of our first partnerships is with the LA Mission where the store hired 14 homeless individuals from the "Back to Work Program". Fresco Community Market is committed to transforming the way business views our homeless population and in bringing our homeless population back into our workforce. Please join us in making a difference in our community.
Sylmar High School - SA Taste of the San Fernando Valley
13050 Borden Ave Sylmar, CA 91342
Time: 9:30 am - 2 pm
Contact: Jennie Carey (jcarey@laep.org or jennie.carey@gmail.com)

The Good Food Fair: A Taste of the San Fernando Valley -- a youth-led event designed to draw Sylmar and its neighboring communities in the East San Fernando Valley together and increase/raise awareness and access to the numerous resources that, combined in partnership, can make our community a healthy, sustainable, and accessible one for all. The saying goes, "it takes a village to raise a child." Yet the irony in this famous saying is that while it is the youth being served, the youth are also proving that they have tremendous power to bring people together. They are the leaders that unite us, they are the ones who have to rebuild the food system where we adults have failed, and they are the ones who will be leading our Day of Service. Over 50 community organizations will participate.
The Richard Lillard Outdoor Classroom (Village Gardeners)
13200 W. Valleyheart Dr & corner of Londridge Ave on the south side of the LA River.

FREE family-friendly event in Studio City! Studio City Neighborhood Council partners with the nonprofit The Village Gardeners and other local institutions to educate and engage the community at large in good food. And, through Million Trees LA, households can adopt their choice of a lime, apple, avocado or orange tree! Located at the Richard Lillard Outdoor Classroom along the LA River in Studio City, guests will enjoy a kids painting station by Celerity Educational Group, storytelling by the Turning Pages Foundation, presentations and information from the Tree People, Backwards Beekeepers, Theodore Payne Foundation for Wildflowers and Native Plants and Los Angeles Urban Chicken Enthusiasts. There is 1 community service part for volunteers: sprucing up the Richard Lillard Outdoor Classroom area (sweeping brush & weeding along the public pathways and natural vegetation). We will also welcome donated cans of food to share with the local pantry.
Watts Farmers Market - Sustainable Economic Enterprises of Los Angeles (SEE-LA)
103rd and Central Ave. (ted Watkins Memorial Park)
Time: 10 am - 2 pm
Contact: Joyce Chan (joyce@see-la.org)

SEE-LA, LA County Health Dept., Kaiser, and Hunger Action L.A. (HALA) will launch a countywide "Farmers' Markets for All" campaign at the Watts Healthy Farmers' Market on Saturday March 31, 2012, from 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. This will be a day full of nutrition access information and health-based activities for the Watts community. The WHFM will host a DPSS truck on site, a kick-off of Department of Public Social Service's CalFresh Awareness Campaign, Veggie Voucher distribution (CalFresh, WIC, Senior FMNP coupon dollar for dollar match), a free Zumba class taught by SEE-LA's Good Cooking/Buena Cocina Instructor, a cooking demonstration using farmers' market produce from the WHFM, Champions for Change - Network for a Healthy California will provide recipes, cookbooks, and a cooking demonstrations with samples from their recipe book, to promote their Latino campaign and their African-American campaign for healthy living, and SEE-LA will conduct an information booth on installing EBT machines for market managers. Tree People will come to the market and prep fruit trees with local students from Watts, and will then distribute the trees to the community for free.
Westlake/ Pico Union Festival and Resource Fair and Walk for Health and Good Food End
1532 W. 11th St Los Angeles
Time: 9 am - 1 pm
Contact: Fabiola Vilchez (fabiola.vilchez@lacity.org)

This event will include several workshops on planting, growing vegetables, nutrition, fitness and healthy eating. Cooking demonstrations using fresh produce and basic ingredients will be available to participants as well as health screenings for diabetes, STD's, oral health and eye exams. The following is a partial list of participating organizations: Kaiser Permanente, The American Diabetes Association, Univision Radio and Talk Show Host -Luz Maria Briceno, USC School of Dentistry, Derby Dolls, Los Angeles Recreation and Parks, Common Ground Garden Program for the University of California Cooperative Extension, and LA County DPSS (CalFresh). Our Community Partners are: Central City Neighborhood Partners, Salvation Army Red Shield, Office of Councilmember Ed Reyes, MacArthur Park Recreation Center, Human Relations Commission, Maya Vision, the Binacional Center for the Development of Indigenous Oaxacans and Levitt Pavilion.
Orville Wright Middle School - Emerson Avenue Community Garden
6550 W. 80th St Los Angeles, CA 90045
Time: 8:30 am - 12:30 pm
Contact: Christine Tope (emersonavenuegardenclub@gmail.com)

"A Day in the Garden" Workday: Install 4 communal community garden beds, plant edible plants, amd install hardscape in the student mandala area. We will also continue or complete construction of circular seating area/outdoor classroom, build a compost pile, care for the existing native garden, and potentially harvest plants from small communal community garden bed so participants can sample fresh produce grown on site. We will also distribute small seed packets and instructions for growing food in containers at home.
Boyle Heights Community Garden - Mothers of East Los Angeles (MELA)
1831 E. 1st St Los Angeles, CA
Note: This event is held tonight, Friday, March 30th
Time: 3 pm - 8 pm
Contact: Diana del-Pozo Mora (dianadelpozomora@yahoo.com)

The Boyle Heights Farmers Market is open Fridays and Sundays. On Friday, March 30th, the Market will invite additional non-profit vendors to host Good Food and health booths at their site. The event will include; entertainment, zumba classes, CRP/First Aid classes, CalFresh enrollment, cooking demos, health and dental information and screenings and Buy 1 Get 1 fruits and vegetables and information from local community organizations.