October 24 – with ECO City Farms
Save the date to celebrate Food Day with ECO City Farms! Food Day is a nationwide celebration and a movement for healthy, affordable, and sustainable food.
Visit the home of the Port Towns Farmers Market (a block away from our Bladensburg Farm) in Bladensburg, MD to experience an urban farm to understand where food comes from, find out about local, affordable produce, and learn about healthy eating and active living. We’ll have music, food, farm tours, a farmer photo booth, apple tasting, face-painting and other activities for kids, cooking demonstrations and our famous smoothie bike. This event is free.
Come spend a beautiful fall day celebrating the harvest and food!
Event date: October 24, 2015, 2-5pm
Location: Site of the Port Towns Farmers market
5801 Emerson Street, Bladensburg, MD 20710
>>If you would like to volunteer for Food Day please complete this online form. For questions, please email kayla@ecocityfarms.org for more info.<<
Check out our Blog Post on last year’s Food Day
Will you be joining the celebration? Let us know on our Facebook event page!
Why do we celebrate Food Day?
Many neighborhoods in the Port Towns of Prince George’s County, Maryland (Colmar Manor, Edmonston, Cottage City and Bladensburg) are considered to be ‘food deserts’: areas where there is very limited access to fresh and affordable food. ECO City Farms and Port Towns Community Health Partnership–a collaboration of community residents, organizations and funders–are all working together in the Port Towns break down the barriers to food access and promote healthy eating and active lifestyles.
“Food Day is an important tool for change” says Margaret Morgan-Hubbard, CEO of ECO City Farms. “By reaching out to local residents who are directly affected by this food desert, we begin a conversation about changing the local food system – a conversation that includes them. It’s also critical to raise awareness about the relationship between food and health, and the sources of fresh healthy food in this area. We want to ensure that our communities are healthy places for healthy people.”
ECO City Farms is a good food oasis in an area largely made up of strip malls, car repair shops, fast-food restaurants and processed food mini-marts. “More than 70% of residents in the Port Towns are overweight or obese, with health issues, such as diabetes, related to poor eating habits,” notes Morgan-Hubbard. “We are working to make healthy eating an easy choice for all.”
Food Day – a National Celebration
Food Day is a year-round nationwide celebration of and movement toward more healthy, affordable, and sustainable food culminating in a day of action on October 24 every year. Created by the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest and driven by a diverse coalition of food movement leaders and citizens, Food Day aims to bring us closer to a food system with “real food” that is produced with care for the environment, animals, and the women and men who grow, harvest, and serve it. Food Day 2012 featured more than 3,200 events in all 50 states!
Food Day is a chance to celebrate what our food system does right and take action to address the pressing food issues we face:
• Poor diets cause widespread obesity, diabetes, and other diet-related diseases.
• Millions of Americans struggle with food insecurity and hunger.
• Vital food safety and anti-hunger programs are constantly under attack in Washington.
• Many food and farmworkers still labor in unfair, unsafe conditions, and animal welfare is often ignored.
The good news? By collaborating on events like Food Day, we can build the momentum needed to change the American food system.
