Week of October 19-25

Hello All!

I am not sure if we had to write this week and if so I am sorry I did not. I totally forgot with getting ready for the Mid-South Conference. Which has been pretty fun so far.

I think that the Farmers Market went AMAZING!!! I was totally pleased and excited. Plus I had lots of fun. This is definitely something that should be done again. There was a considerable amount of excellent feed back.

I have the info to make thank you cards for all things donated. I will get on that ASAP and will have them to their respective student to hand deliver to the correct person.

I think that is all I have for now.

erica

Food Day - so funderful!

Yesterday was so AMAZING! I think if we could get a grade on yesterday, it'd be an A+ ..I knew it would be fantastic (although I was also terrified everything would go wrong) but experiencing it is different.

I uploaded the photos Dr. Burley took from the camera to the Reconnect facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=oa.210347559037454&type=1

Check it out!  And we're also expecting some snazzy photos from my friend Brennan with his snazzy camera.

I counted 36 visual petitions. I didn't expect we'd get so many, so that's awesome. This was a great way to put faces to some of the signatures we got and display some of the many different reasons for getting more real food!

So the farmers said they made enough money to keep doing this again at our school.. Darnella emailed me too to thank us for having them too and also hopes we get to do it again. I definitely think we should schedule a meeting with the farmers some time and talk about making this a monthly thing.

Speaking of that, Tim and I went to talk to three Environmental management students (Atsuko, Chris, Rebecca) about having them do their final project on something to help us with the Real Food Challenge. That went pretty well. They were already thinking of putting a business plan together to organize a farmer's market, but we had already done that. Dr. Moreou told them that he didn't think an on-campus farmers market would be successful and that an off-campus one might be better, but that was before he found out how well we did. Tim and I said that we would give them all of our data from Food day (survey results, pictures, etc.) and tell them what we discussed in the next class about the strengths/weaknesses, so that they could work on putting together a floor plan/business plan for future farmers markets!
How does that sound to you all? I really wanted them to help us with the Real Food Challenge calculator, but that's really a full-time job, and it's so late in the semester.

Also, I forgot to email the organizations that Danaty sent me - eep! Sorry about that! I shall email them tonight, with a brief blurb of how successful Food Day was.

I'm sure there's probably going to be more that I failed to mention.. we can talk in class! It was so exciting to see so many students who were so receptive to this.

I want to thank you ALL for being such a huge help in this project! We were really successful, and it wouldn't have been nearly this good without all of your help, time, commitment, and great ideas. I feel like we really learned a lot in this class.

Thank you so much!!

-- Bonnie

Food Day Good Day

Events leading up to food day included getting the E-Mail to Renee Abadie and procuring bags from the Winn Dixie.
After arriving and setting up I was concerned that we wouldn't attract much attention but those feelings would be short lived. It started slow but soon the buzz was out. I was very excited to see the people enjoying their fresh vegatables cooked while they waited.
My greatest source of enjoyment came through speaking with Ben who seemed to be the patriarch of the group. I think what attracted me to him was his cool and confident demeanor. A new place, new people, not knowing what to expect and Ben was thriving. It wasn't untill his daughter allerted him that it was time for his conference call that I realized just how saavy this farmer from Petal Mississippi really was. When Ben stepped away I carried on the conversation with his daughter. I asked if she had heard of the Blair Grocery and I tried to explain what I was talking about. She rattled off about six or seven schools in New Orleans and when I asked her if they provided produce to them she informed me that they had in fact created urban gardens and educational components to accompany them. I had a very eye opening experience Thank You

Thank You Cards and Donations!

Hello everyone!

The info you need to keep track of if you receive donations:

--Name of Place (store and town Example: Winn Dixie, Slidell)
--Name of Person who helped you out.
--Name of Manager
--Name of product(s) donated along with how many donated. (Example: Reusable Bags, 12)

Remember, the more information I have the more personal and less general I can make the thank you cards. Thanks for all the help!

Erica

This week

Sorry all. I was under the weather yesterday and not functional.

I finished up the pamphlet and ordered 300 copies from Tommy at Xpress. Went to the Reconnect meeting last night. I was kinda loopy, but Bonnie said I reminded everyone to wear green shirts and I showed them the pamphlet and the signs.

While I was there I ran into Eric Johnson, the library director. He is very excited about the farmers market, but had the date and times messed up. His staff is putting up one of our big signs behind the glass where the back of the elevators are. He also asked me to forward him a flier so he would have the dates/times right. Also said he is going to forward it to his entire staff (that is a lot of people).

Asked about getting bags from Best Buy. Was told that the organization requesting the bags has to fill out a C503I (not 100% on that) to show that the org is not going to resell them for profit.

I am willing to do whatever for Monday. Know I will meet everyone at 9am to set up. After that I can talk about the project to interested parties, help man a table, or whatever.

Organizations and Bags

Hi all,

I was having computer troubles, but that now all seems to be solved. I sent bonnie the e-mail list for the organizations. I also am still working on bags for the farmers market. I was walking through a salvage store and made a discovery of a lifetime. I will bring it to class tonight and get everyone's opinion.
As far as jobs for the event, I believe that I would do well with the tagging of bags that need to be held and picked up after classes. I am also willing to do anything else that needs to be done.

Week of October 12th-18th

On Monday, Oct. 17th I was able to give the presentation to Dr. Winter's theatre history class. It went really well, and I had lots of great feedback from them about. One student suggested having a group of us shell peas if the farmers bring some, but I don't think they are bringing any.

On Tuesday, Oct. 18th I also visited two of Dr. Winter's acting classes. Both classes brought a lot of energy and passion to the presentation, and the upper-level acting class gave me 12 signatures with every single person in the class checking the "Yes, I want to volunteer with the campaign" box!!! Also, I stopped and talked to a student that was in a class I previously gave a presentation in. He is a newly elected Freshmen Senator for SGA, so I think we may have a good contact with him for the future of the RFC and Reconnect. Another quick note, one of the DJs on the radio did our Farmers Market PSA and she told me she gave me a shout out for being enthuastic and passionate during the presentation she heard. Nothing can compare to the feeling of being able to convey a message to others and have them say you did a good job. I also attended the Reconnect Meeting Tuesday and met the members we will be working with on Monday. They were all very awesome, passionate people, and I'm glad we can help such a worthwhile group. Bonnie dicussed what needed to be done, and I will bring lots of petitions for walk-up students to sign.


I still haven't heard from Phi Mu's president, so I think it may be time for me to email her tomorrow.

For later this week and the Farmers Market: I have two presentations to give Wed. to Mr. Chauvin's history classes and two to give on Thurs. to Dr. Kleiner's Soc classes. That will give me 7 presentations completed for this week. On Monday, I will be able to help out all day until 2pm when I have me education class, but I can come back at 3pm and watch purchased food or whatever I'm needed to do. I cancelled my class to teach at 3:30, but I will have a sign-up sheet for them, because their assignment is to visit the Farmers Market (hehe). Lastly, we need to get a clipboard for the petitions, or we could just put it on one of the tables. We also need to have pens. I guess we plan on decorating around 9am on Monday, so I don't mind going and putting yard signs in the ground before the farmers market begins especially around Freshmen parking area.

spiraling towards Food Day!

List of things that magically occurred this week:

- talked to Darnella, she said the farmers will have change. Also emailed her flyers!
- received some excellent nutritional cards for each individual veggie from Brittany, a nutrition intern at Campus Dining. She also is providing some recipes, sweet potato pie and spinach dip. Just need to print these!
- sent follow-up email to Joseph
- asked Donna about getting more plates/bowls (compostable).
- emailed invitation to President Crain's assistant, Dr. Bourg's assistant, and Dr. Fontenot's assistant.

Reconnect meeting was short and sweet. Sole and Tim were there too! I talked about the photo petition idea, getting nutritional info, the idea of accepting donations for Baby Jaidynn (Sigma Gamma Rho), the brochures Sole made, and about watching food, Sole reminded everyone to wear green shirts, etc. I passed out a sheet so everyone could sign their names when they're available to help. A few students who couldn't make the meeting also let me know times they were available too. A few of us will be available after 2 to watch food too, although hopefully no one will make us watch food til 5.. but I'll be available til 5.

I asked them what tasks they would be interested in helping with, but mostly everyone seemed fine with everything. I think we can kind of just play it by ear at Food Day and see what people are interested in, or swapping tables, etc. We will have people available to take pictures for the visual petition too. Dr. Burley, can you get a small dry erase board?

A few ideas students had:
- have a list of ways students can help - but a lot of those are in Sole's brochure.
- what about pricing? Will the farmers have all that taken care of already? I can call and ask.
- Monica had a good idea, that we should treat the farmers to lunch.. maybe we could use some of the fundraiser money. What do you all think?

We also talked about where to store food. Jim McHodgkins said we can't have the area near career counseling but that we could have part of the student union (where the ceiling is about 8 ft high) to ourselves. I wasn't exactly sure what he meant when he said they could close that part off to us. But he said we don't have to fill out any paperwork for that, just talk to Johnathan Ambrose the day of (need to talk to him to get extension cords that day too).

I like the bean survey! I think the first two questions are the most relevant.

As for my role, I plan to be there the whole time for sure (of course). I'm not sure what I want to do most. Definitely interact with the farmers a lot, and I wouldn't mind helping with the bean survey, or taking pictures. I wouldn't mind switching back and forth between things, or just answering questions for students too. I want to get a general feel for everything going on that day.

Sweet! 6 more days! This is going to rock! (in all honesty, I am terrified something will go wrong or that I forgot something, but we seem to have things under control...I'll make sure to get lots of sleep the day before.)

-- Bonnie

Benny's Blog Post

I submitted the E-Mail for Dr. Abadie cc to Dr. Burley giving him the information needed to create the press release. I am trying to get some of the reusable shopping bags donated from Winn-Dixie. I would like to re-invite the people who declined attendance. I still have not heard from the Lt. Governors office. I am not clear as to what to do with the lists of signees but will check with Donatae.
I think that we need some people taking exit surveys. I would like to do something that would allow for picture taking, and perhaps video interviews with a few attendees

Week of October 12 - October 18

So this week went buy really fast...

I have emailed teachers back that hadn't responded to me about class presentations still no feedback. I received an email from Tim Chauvin (history department) and he has five classes. Tim is going to be able to go to two of his classes tomorrow (Wed. 20th). I updated the spreadsheet for Tim he is booked this week but I am not scheduling him any for next week.

I talked with Sole' and gave her all the corrections and the correct order for the brochure. She has worked so hard on it I think it will be really great! **Just a reminder. Instead of going with the yellow screen printed shirts...we are all just going to wear a green shirt.

I am going to write thank you cards for all things donated to us: All things that are donated should be written down along with where it is donated from and who to address about it. It will run more smoothly if the name, and items who I should be addressing are together in one place.

I said I would go ask a daycare about getting their large vegetable cans so they can be use with the colored beans. I stopped by a daycare to ask for their cans but they had already thrown out their garbage. So if there is anyone that has other suggestions...

I finally was able to get in touch with Colynne the chef/general manager of Organic Inspirations. She said that they would be there on Monday from 10-2 (she said a little before 10 for set up). I told her what she needed to bring and what we would provide and she was fine with it all. She said she would bring some bison and I reminded her that she could as long as it was college friendly prices and she said that wasn't a problem. She also is going to bring flyers and such for the restaurant for promotion. She sounds really excited about it so I think it will work out well.

Wednesday I finished hanging up posters in White Hall, Biology Building, Mead Hall, Science Building Annex, and Pursly Hall. I am out of posters (and never had any flyers) but if anyone has some I will find places to hang them (library, sac, student union).

Logistics: 1.) Are tables something the school is providing or do they farmers and chefs having to bring their own? 2.) Have we secured a place to hold the produce? And if so what is the cut off time to pick that produce up? Who is going to be available to sit there until that cut off time?

My Role: I am not sure what I want to do for the farmers market. However, what I do know is that I have to be there from 10-2, since someone with the university's food training has to be there the entire time. So I will be there.

Bean Poll Survey for market

here is info for the bean poll survey we will ask people to do. we will need a separate table for this i think and someone to occupy the table the whole time and solicit participation. this is what dar wolnik, my friend and national consultant to farmers markets, suggested for a quick and easy survey.

set up 3 answer cups for each question, Yes, No or Not sure
I would recommend taping the cups to the table if its tool ate for a peg board A frame.

please give credit to marketumbrella.org for the Bean Poll survey (I just get credit for the TA.


other questions you might ask:

Would you attend a regular farmers market held on campus?

Are you in favor of adding more local farm produce to the university menu, even if it means a slightly higher cost?

Do you shop at other area farmers markets?

Oct. 5th-11th: RFC madness!

We have a colorful Food Day sheet banner that Reconnecters painted up in the student union.. check it out!

This week:
-- worked on the (very) rough draft for the letter. Rick says he will have something to add to it for next week. I post this last for you all to look at.
-- I also talked to Matt, my friend and the RFC coordinator for the southeast. He was an AWESOME help and picked the best time to call and check up on our progress while I was stressing out about everything.
I updated him on what all was going on, Food Day, creating a big buzz on campus about it and all the students getting interested, the kind of shaky relationship with Aramark and what happened to Rick, wanting to get direct contracts, and the letter I'm working on. He thinks our goal to get direct contracts & with a less friendly campus dining may be a bit too ambitious, but he was supportive.

 He gave some great advice, or rather reminded me of something really important I over-looked. It's the Real Food Challenge commitment: http://realfoodchallenge.org/commitment  This is something that we would give to Dr. Crain (or whoever) along with the letter we're writing up. It is basically something for our school to sign if they agree with the Real Food Challenge and agree to commit to it over a long period of time. Even if they don't agree to everything all at once (direct contracts, for example) getting them to sign the commitment would ensure that our school would at least be making progress to the RFC goal over time. I can't believe I forgot about this.

He also linked me to the RFC Grassroots Leadership Project: http://realfoodchallenge.org/GLP where schools who are already deep into starting their RFC campaigns on their campuses can apply with what they're doing. It wouldn't be a lot of extra work to apply, but it would hook us up with a network of other schools who are also heavily campaigning for Real Food on their college campuses, which would provide a network of other schools where we can learn from each other and see each other's progress. I'm going to find two more Reconnecters to sign up for this!
-- I also called Ben Burkett and talked to Darnella too. They are both very excited and glad to hear that Food Day is still on. Ben Burkett assured me that there will be PLENTY of food. He also let me know there will be kale and turnips too, in addition to the other stuff (arugula lettuce, spinach, green onion, collard greens, turnip greens, sweet potatoes, and possibly pecans.. oh gods I hope so).
-- talked to Jim McHodgkins. He said that since the upstairs dining area where Career Counseling is is used by students for studying, we probably can't use that area. He did say we can close off part of the student union, the part towards the end where the ceiling is about 8 feet high.. anyone know what he's talking about?? Either way, he said we will have an area for watching food, and that we don't have to fill out paperwork for it. He said just to inform Johnathan Ambrose about it. I will talk to him soon to double-check on all of this.
-- also ran into a Computer Science/IT professor (maybe Sole knows him?) but he had a long complicated name and I don't remember it. I have his card. He said he is teaching Environmental Health. He said that Tim could speak to his class, but that we would have to figure out something to talk about with environmental laws because that's what they're learning in class.

I also need to talk to Chad Winters about getting Tim to speak to the larger theater classes, but I figure Tim has a lot of classes for now. Plus Chad's play is being put on this week so I figure I will talk to him next week when things are less stressful. I also want to see about getting some more biology classes.

"Data:" When I went to the student union to put up the glorious Food Day banner, I unfortunately went alone, and I've never put up a sheet banner so it was quite a hassle. (thank goodness for Donna and the SGA office for helping me with supplies) A student named Neva stopped by and helped me, and when she asked about what it was for I told her it was for Food Day, and she said that she heard of it from Tim coming to her 101 class with Hensley to speak about it. She was really nice and stayed to help me put up the troublesome banner, even though she had to get to class right after. I like to think she was interested in Food Day before and just happened to walk by at the most opportune time to help me with it, so she was doing her part for Food Day. But she was probably just nice even if she didn't care about Food Day. (:

I also ran into more random people I don't know but who recognized me from the school website as well as being "the purple-haired girl" and "oh god you cut your hair!" Next time this happens again I'll make sure to remind them about Food Day again.

Time for the letter rough draft. First of all, I had no idea what to write, so it may be completely off. Thankfully it's just the rough draft. I also wish I could find data on how getting more real food has helped universities with students buying more meal plans, retention rates, etc. I used data from all Aramark schools, and all information from their websites and not from private e-mail conversations (I'll double-check on this later though).
The letter is also pretty long - sorry. I know it is supposed to be brief, but I couldn't stop myself from explaining everything in-depth because to me it seems like all important information, but in class we can cut it down. I also need to make it more cheerful... Tim also suggested maybe that we quote Aramark's "sustainability mission," in there, but it might be too long already? Thoughts? I made sure to use Dr. Crain's mission statement for the university at least. Perhaps there is also some kind of quote we can include about the farming history of SELU itself?

Oh, and I also want to include the Food Day graphic Adam found somewhere near the end.

Okay, enough stalling. Here's what I have:

------------------------------------------

Dear President John Crain,

            My name is Bonnie May, and I’m a student at Southeastern Louisiana University and the president of Reconnect, our environmental and sustainability student group on campus. 

I am writing to you to propose an exciting change for our school that will improve the image and community of the university as a whole, as well as fulfill our bold mission statement: “… to lead the educational, economic, and cultural development of southeast Louisiana.”  This change combines all three of these elements, as well as others, and it is one simple change: Food.

The Real Food Challenge (realfoodchallenge.org) is a national campaign where students work together with their campus dining representatives, faculty, and small farmers to increase access to local, sustainable, and “real” food at their universities.  This task has numerous economic, educational, social, health, and environmental benefits. Supporting small local farmers puts more money into the local economy than purchasing from industrial farmers from far away would, which would allow our university to support the local community it belongs to.  Food that is driven shorter distances also maintains more of its nutrients, is fresher and tastier, and consumes fewer fossil fuels.  Furthermore, allowing students to get to know where their food comes from and the farmers that grow the food allows students to gain a stronger sense of community and pride for their school.  Creating this simple change would provide an applied, hands-on learning experience for students where they discover how food is connecting to all of these issues.

The Real Food Challenge’s overall goal is to shift one billion dollars of university food budget money to community-based, sustainable, fair, and humane food by the year 2020.  As of now, over 300 colleges already have their own farms and other farm-to-cafeteria initiatives, and about $35 million dollars of annual university food budgets have already been shifted towards obtaining more local, sustainable, and fair food. 

Aramark at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, for example, sources aproximately 25% of its food from farms in a 150-mile radius.  They have won numerous awards for sustainability, earning an “A-“ in Food and Recycling on the College Sustainability Report Card.  Pacific University in Oregon, another Aramark school, purchases local cage-free eggs, local grass-fed beef, fair trade products, and produce from local, sustainable farms.  At Arizona State University, another Aramark school, 35% of their food purchases are local while 15% of it is from a 150-mile radius.  They also receive much of their food directly from farmers through monthly farmers markets and CSA’s (Community-Supported Agriculture).  There are many other examples of schools that have successfully shifted toward acquiring more real food and honor small farmers proudly.  We would like Southeastern Louisiana University to be one of them.

So far,  there haven’t been any universities in Louisiana have succeeded in the Real Food Challenge.  Southeastern Louisiana University would be the first in the state, and a leader in the region.  With Louisiana’s rich agricultural history and long growing seasons, it would only be logical for our school to reap the benefits of having fresher, healthier, and more sustainable local food that puts money back into our local economy.

We have many students on campus who think this is a great idea for Southeastern, and we hope that you do too and support it.  Something as simple as changing food can have a big positive impact on our school and on our university as a whole.

Thank you for your time, consideration, and hopefully your support.

Sincerely,

Bonnie May, president of Reconnect

-----------------------------

the end! Thoughts? 

For the week of October 5th -- October 11th

Today I went to a presentation with Tim. It went really well and the class was quite receptive. I think they enjoyed it. I got a message from Ms. Quinn (the teacher of the class) telling me that she absolutely loved us visiting and she is looking forward to the farmers market. We also got more signatures.

I re-emailed Tim Chauvin and am still waiting for a reply. I emailed the club that Dr. Burley sent me the info on. I also am still waiting back from a few professors. Tomorrow I will resend to the ones I am still waiting on and send out a new batch. I do realize the farmers market is getting close but presentations can still be done after. I updated Tim's spreadsheet.

I called the chef at Organic Inspirations and she was too busy to talk so I left a message and said I would call back. So I will take care of that a.s.a.p.

I think that may be it. I'll update if I remember anything else.

Week of Oct. 5 - Oct. 11

Had a great time in Orange Beach to get away from life and all of its complications. Now back to business...
I gave 4 Presentations this week. 2 on Monday to Ms. Sprague's GBIO 106 classes and 2 on Tuesday to Ms. Quinn's Nutrition classes. Erica accompanied me to Ms. Quinn's first class, and have a surprising statistic on nutrient loss in food shipping. All four presentations went extremely well, and I have around 11-12 pages of signatures, and lots of Facebook stalkers.
I also contacted Jim Winter and set up times to present to his theatre classes next week. I'm still waiting on a reply from Phi Mu. I had two different students email me from Ms. Naquin's HS 462 class, and I sent them my presentation materials complete with an outline, petition template, and electronic copies of our fliers to pass out. I will be going to check out the Cayman Cafe tomorrow to see if they are promoting any real-type food already.

Marketing Materials

Hey everyone. The field trip yesterday was fun. The Global Green home was awesome! Did not really like the bayou. I am phobic of stinging flying bugs and there were tons of them. The School at Blair Grocery was probably the best part of the field trip. I need to send him an email to get some honey for my allergies.

Here is the latest draft of the pamphlet. Please look over it for mistakes. It uploaded backwards. Not sure why.

Remember to bring me a yellow tee shirt tomorrow. I only want to deal with this messy screen printing once. Probably want to have them done by next week's class. Since Monday is my only day off that will probably be when I do it.

Everyone should have a copy of the flyers and signs. Just sent those through email.

Real Food Chall

Had a great day on the trip. I am replete in my report as far as activities are concerned other than the realization that I hadn't sent an E-mail to Renee Abadie, as I wallow in disgust over the stupidintendant of agricultures decision to forgo our event I feel a twinge of a challange. Hey was it just me or was anyone else taken aback by the language in use at the end of our tour. Was that an attempt to keep it street level and to give us unknowings a taste of raw or what? I don't know about everyone else but my not when females are present thing kicked in.

Various RFC things!

Sorry for such a late reply. My internet connection was on the fritz again.

This has been a busy week, yet I feel like I have soo much more to do..

This week I:
- talked to Danate about getting more tote bags.

- emailed Allegra about making a map

- emailed signature pages, petition cards, flyers and other promotional materials to Reconnect mailing list, and to the email lists for the Realfoodselu email account. Adam gave me another list of email addresses, so I will send them the email tomorrow

- checked the realfoodselu email address a few times to answer questions. I heard back from a girl from the Alpha Sigma Tau sorority and she wants us to speak to her group. Their meetings are mondays at 6:15. I told her I'd talk to Tim, Sole, and Benny and get back to her soon.

- also going to talk to a nutrition intern from campus dining - she wants to help provide nutritional research/information cards about all the produce being sold, about local food having more nutrition, etc. I'm scheduled to talk to her tomorrow before lunch. This could be super helpful for Food Day!

- worked on the RFC school list a bit, and communicated with a few more of the people who answered back. I got a bit of good info/advice from a few schools, and a couple of them get local food direct from farmers as well as through a distributer. I'm bolding all the schools on my list I found so far that at least get some food directly from farmers and they are: Arizona State University, Cabrillo College (CA), Clark University (MA), and Duke University (NC).  Still got lots more to discover.. I'm hoping I'll get some more time to finish the rest of the list soon!


To be done:
- Talk to Dr. Gilbert - I will talk to her tomorrow.
- work on the RFC school list some more.


Still waiting on a response from Chef Joeseph. A little bit nervous about that. I'll probably have to send a follow-up email.

We also had our Reconnect meeting today - I think over ten people showed up, with lots of new, excited people! Several of them heard about the RFC from class presentations and were really excited to get involved. Flyers should be up in all the main buildings soon, and Allegra is scheduling a paint-party for us on sunday to finish painting the Food Day banner.

That's all I think. Thank you all so much for all your time and dedication. I keep getting so many students who come to me and are excited about the RFC and want to help!

-- Bonnie

For the week of September 28th -- October 4th

Last Wednesday I went to two classroom presentations with Tim. The morning class went pretty well and the students were really into it. However, that afternoon's class can not have the same said about it. They were very unreceptive and all around unenthusiastic. With that said Tim is a very good presenter! I emailed another five teachers about classroom presentations (big classes such as lower level biology and history classes) however only one teacher has so far gotten back to me. I was talking to Sole' and we came to the conclusion that this either means that they haven't taken the time to read the email or it is a polite way of saying no thank you. Either way I will keep trying.

I made a contact card with all of Bonnie's information for Tim that way if anyone asks for it has can offer the card. I gave it to Bonnie as well so she could use it as she sees fit. I also gave Sole' all of the suggestions about the pamphlet that were mentioned in class last week.

I went to a food training workshop last Thursday at 2 p.m. and Dr. Kleiner happened to be there as well. It was pretty informative. So we are now set in that department for the Farmers Market on October 24th. I just have to be there.

I contacted the chef/general manager of Organic Inspirations and I got her voice mail so I am awaiting for response so I can find out how long she can volunteer her time and times.

I think that is it for this week. I am not sure if I am forgetting anything or not so I am done.

erica

Week of Sept. 28th - Oct. 4th

I gave two presentations on Wed. Sept. 28th to Ms. Singlton's advanced nutrition classes. Erica accompanied me and was a great asset especially when the students started asking particular questions involving nutrition and specifics about the farmer co-ops. The first class was very receptive, but the second class was a totally different experience than I was used to. They were very cynical, and did not really react the way I expected (and had seen through other presentations). Hopefully the message got through, but Erica can back me up that they were just very serious and were not very receptive.

On Thursday afternoon I emailed a few different people about scheduling for presentations. First, I emailed Jim Winter about his theatre classes and he responded, so I am now trying to work them into my schedule (will probably do that tomorrow in the office). Next, I emailed Megan Wiggins about trying to speak to Phi Mu sorority about garnering their support for the RFC and our quest for local farmer contracts. I have not heard back from her yet, so Dr. Burley will be speaking with her in his class about what we can do from here (I was looking forward to finally being able to speak to a sorority!). I also contacted a student named Meghan Heitmeier who wanted me to speak to her sorority (Alpha Sigma Tau). She responded by saying that the presentation would be difficult since their meetings are very pressed for time. So we agreed that she would present the information to her sorority. I sent her an electronic copy of the petition, fliers, and my presentation outline (with key concepts in bold) so she at least had some material to present and didn't have to go on pure memory. I also dropped off our informational cards to pass out. Erica handled email Tim Chauvin about the history classes, and got me another two presentations for biology classes.

Monday, I had Dynnishea Jones (from Dr. Naquin's environmental health class) stop by my office and get some informational cards to pass out for the presentation she was giving regarding our work with the RFC. I had sent her the other information prior to this meeting. Also, on Monday I was able to speak to the Black Student Union about trying to get their support. They seemed interested, but the president and I will discuss what action they should take next as an organization.

Lastly, Tuesday I gave two presentations to Dr. Rolling's FCS classes. Again they were somewhat receptive (Dr. Rolling was extremely receptive), but some of the students had heard my speech before and were turned off to listening to it again (my Joe Dirt joke didn't get the same reaction the second time).

Sustainable Correspondence 2

This week I addeed another 120 or so email addresses to the Real Food email list.

I also put in another phone call to the offices of Scott Simon, the state representative from the nearby district. Still no response from him, but I feel like I'm wearing down their defenses and it'll only be a matter of time before making contact.

No word yet from John Besh, either. But I still got my fingers crossed.

Blogging Cool and Sustainably

I got the rejection E-Mail from Mike Strain which I still can't get over. Also ran into Linda Franzo from The Passionate Platter and she says her attendance is doubtful even after I bought an olive tree from her. I still haven't received anything from Lt. Governor Dardenne or Represenatives Simon or Pugh. Still waiting for reply from Rick Settoon @ selu Chanel and Renee Abadie. I went to the LSU Ag center herb show to try and get some ideas. They had cooking and tasting of herbs and even gave me a sweet basil plant for comming. I would really like to get chef John Folse involved. Thanks to all bloggers for the inspiration.

Marketing Materials

The pamphlet is semi-finished. Please check it for errors. The front needs to be changed. I could not think of anything to say so that's what it is so far. Remember, if you click on the small pics, it will enlarge to full size.

Next weeks project is the tee shirts. Please remember to bring those in.

Email and Responses

I have e-mailed everyone on our mailing list with the information that Bonnie gave to me. I am now waiting to send a second follow-up e-mail corresponding the details of what the Real Food Project is about and when the project will be taking place.
Dr. Burley has given me the red light until all details have been finished. Until then,
our e-mail list has been updated with new e-mails and is ready to go.