 So let's do a quick couple shot with us here. We'll move these guys out, and if somebody else joins us, we will just expand a bit. Here we go. This is so good for you. Yes. Okay, great. Great. So because we have a small team this evening, folks, what I'm going to do is actually, we're going to start by just saying our names. And now, you know, you could say where you live in Montpelier. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on introductions, but this will actually be a lovely group to be able to have a good, robust discussion with. So I'm going to start by introducing myself. Then we'll go around the room. This is being filmed, and there are audio microphone devices here. So make sure that you speak up and project because a lot of folks are going to be watching these and adding in their ideas on the tablet, the digital input that we have been having going on since the beginning. So my name is Sarah Waring. I'll just give you a little bit of background on myself. I used to live in Montpelier. I don't right now, but have been working in food systems and agricultural work for quite a while and for a month. I'm really honored to be facilitating this discussion with all of you. And my current job right now is with the USDA's Rural Development Agency. So we do housing, we do community facilities, wastewater infrastructure, broadband telecom, and then we also do rural business support. My sister agencies are agencies like Farm Service Agency and the Natural Resources Conservation Service. So between all of us, we do a lot of the rural economic development and ag development work in the state of Vermont, along with a lot of other great partners like the state itself. Food systems. Okay, come on in if you want us to. Let's start here. I will just go around the room and your name and your town. I am Mike Miller. I'm the Director of Planning for the City of Montpelier here and I also have a small farm. I live in East Hardwick. We'll try to put up my June hand. Albert, I live on 90 North Street in Montpelier and I've been in there in the dirt or making food some kind of way for most of my adult life. Linda Smith, I just moved to Montpelier this fall. I'm a retired farmer. I've been farming for four years working in local food systems and I'm really excited about this. Thanks for coming. I'm Matt Wilson. I live in Mary, but I work in the City of Montpelier. I've been single. I live right behind the cattle in Montpelier. I work in the dietitian and I also live in Vermont with the community. I'm not just a kid. I live in the neighborhood in North Franklin Street in Montpelier. My name is Eric Esselston. I live in North Montpelier. I watch my life in the garden. Happy to be here. My name is Johanna Nichols. I live on 1st Avenue in Montpelier and until our churches were closed, I was a volunteer for the Monday community lunch. Selina Moore, North Montpelier. Eric is my husband and I love the garden but also particularly concerned about the hunger all around and how to use the older experience that people know about dirt and how to do it with your hands and not great big motors but get a lot of food in the ground growing from the ground. So my garden could be more and so forth. My name is Cynthia Hartnett and I live on Upper Main Street. Cynthia Hartnett, Upper Main Street in Montpelier. I've lived here for decades, 45 years I think and I'm very interested in food. I've worked a lot with community artists of Central Vermont and still do and also for the food shelf. And I'm very concerned about the situation farmers are in right now and especially because we have a really rich source of local healthy food here that's been damaged a lot. And we're going to get into all of that so we'll get through the photos. David Hartnett, I live where she lives and I've worked on meals on wheels and kind of get meals and help in the kitchen at the senior center as a volunteer and try planning some food in the community garden. I was washed out but it wasn't persistent so I'm still good. It's all one and the same. I'm John Ryan. I currently live in Burlington, but I coached a number of the food businesses, local food businesses that you guys know well from an office in Montpelier for many years. I just felt called to see if there's something I could do. Hi, my name is Will Stevens. I'm from Addison County from Shoreham. My wife and I ran a commercial organic vegetable farm for 40 years that our daughter has taken over last year. And I was in this building for eight years, a decade or so ago. And the ag committee and now I'm employed as an outreach representative for Bernie Sanders. I cover ag, small business, hunger, nutrition, and a few other issues. So I'm here as Will Stevens. So with that, now that we all know each other, let me give you a brief overview of what we're going to do for about the next hour and 10 minutes. So we're going to start with about a 15 minute just open conversation that is about what is going on right now. And we're going to keep focused sort of on Montpelier in this central region. What is going on right now around this topic and I'm going to read the description of the topic again in just a moment. Then we're going to transition into the ideas for the future. What can be done in the shorter term for recovery or the longer term for resilience? What is our vision for the future, but also what might be able to happen just this year or next year? And then at the end, we're going to pause and we're going to try to prioritize what we've come up with. Because when we go back to the big room, we're going to share out one or two or three of our prioritized ideas. Everything will be captured so don't worry about it being missed, but we are going to sort of do a bit of a consensus or voting at the end to make sure that we carry ideas into that room with the rest of the community there that we feel like are actionable and reasonable and that we can lay out to the rest of the community. Alright, so let me just read our topic one more time. I think I actually gave it away to the people who were lost. So food system and food security is the title. And the way this has been framed is area farmers and emergency food systems have been fundamentally challenged by this disaster. As we look ahead, what should be done to advance the food system, local agriculture, food shelves and meal programs, ensuring that all have options for safe, healthy food and that no one goes hungry in our community. So I'm going to let you absorb that. I'm going to invite you to introduce yourself. We did a quick round of introductions. Hi, Nona Estrana from East Mobile. You're not far away and interested in these proceedings to say the least. Great, welcome Nona. Alright, with that, I'm going to kick us off. And my job is to facilitate, keep us on time and also make sure that we share the airspace. I'm just going to warn you in advance that if you talk too much, I'm going to cut you off and let somebody else talk a little bit, okay? And I'll do it to all of you, so I will not play favorites. I promise, alright? Alright, so here we go. Let's get started. What do we feel like is going on right now around this topic in our community? What's happening around food security? What's happening around the local food system for us in the local community? There is no security right now. The storage, most of the farmers that I work with, one in particular, bear roots. It is the first time since they've been in business, they're actually buying stuff in to try to fill their shells. Their first round of tariffs and a number of other vegetables were just brought in and around. And then these guys have been doing it for years, so they have their systems down and they're putting it in. They know what they're doing and talking to them and the number of farmers and the farmers markets, and I can directly listen to the comments from them. They feel uncertain, insecure, vulnerable and unsupported at this point. We need to find a permanent home along with the kitchen to feed everybody else. May I ask a question? May I ask a question? Are we out of food already now and just coming forward? You know, we'll see how it plays out at the end of the year. Now I know a couple of people that raise animals that are dependent on hay and feed. There is no food these days. There's no other slaughter. There are animals that are keeping the ones that have feed grass for now. So farmers feeling vulnerable and the food supply, right? First time I ever remember there being a conflict between the flat riverlands where we grow food for animals and people. And the talk about creating wetlands to protect us from flooding. So thinking long term. Where do you feel like that conflict is happening right now? The feast farm potentially. Yeah, any place that's flooded near the river, long term thinking will take you to look at it and think, hmm, is this a good place for wetlands? Right. And obviously, those aren't real issues because those belong to people. They own those farms. But there is conflict in thinking. And I feel confused in my own mind about it. And I'm sure other people do as well. Yeah, that's great. What else? Yeah, yeah. Is it still fair to say that basically 94% of our food comes from a diesel truck? Say that again. Yeah, a high percentage. Not that much anymore. He's asking about the percentage of food that's imported into the state. 75% of all of our produce. That's a high percentage. But why don't you give us your, give us your, you know, it doesn't matter the percentage. Why don't you give us your idea or the, the concern that you've got? Okay, we shop regularly and show us or the co-op and we pick up local food wherever we can. I mean, the kind of things we're going to eat. We're having to be vegans. And I'm not sure in the wintertime, we wouldn't get pretty skinny if we just ate local food. And I just, the long range picture of being food independent or semi-independent is a huge, huge step. I can't believe the amount of plastic stuff coming from Kansas or California. That's part of our effort to eat. And I'm more than willing to help, you know, grow local food where we can play a role. We're consumers at the moment, basically. As you said, also diesel fuel is what brings it. So the environment's being hurt by just the fact that we need to get in here. So the role and the size of imports into our food system as we look ahead is going to be really important. How much, when do we bring it in? How does it come to us? So that's good. We'll capture that as we think about long term. Other thoughts about what's going on right now? What's happening right now? I had a question, piggybacking on that. It's just, what are we talking about when we're talking about non-filiar and the area of commerce we're concentrating on? Like this area or the state? And what percentage is being imported? I think we need metrics. We can measure progress over time. I mean, hard work in other places is not only growing, but we can process a lot of food ourselves and keep it through the winter, or store it through the winter. So it's the whole food system. When COVID struck, when this was started, COVID too, it broke the supply chains. So we just have to be strong and we have to support each other. And we can measure our progress over time and how much we are producing. Yep. So I'm going to encourage us to think about what is happening right now on the ground in our first, we've got about seven minutes left for this part. So throw out any ideas about what is happening. I want to think about the meals on wheels and the security issues. I want to think about health issues. So the CSA. Yep. I belong to a CSA and the CSA comes into Mount Baker as well. So it's Calisthenia. But he works as tail. Yep. And I'm sure there's going to be more greenhouses than there is just into the ground. There's a lot of flow of people who are making food and bringing it into the public space to share. And that's the first time I've ever seen that happening in that degree in this area. So you're saying prepared meals happen in a new and different way. Yeah. There are just all sorts of things that have been happening that way. And also I don't think we measure the garden produce that people eat from their own gardens. When we say 75%, I don't think we ever have measured the degree to which that's supplemented by home gardens. All right. So there are a couple who love their hands up. So let me get to them. I think we've got Matt first and then Eileen and then Livia. Yep. So my concern really is just to build the systems for rural populations because the community serves the environment policy for these meals program which serves over 50 plants, over low plants, and not really our number one. Yeah. I just want to make sure that we can expand that to reach more vulnerable populations like in-house or with younger people like myself who have difficulty making them. So expanding that fruits of the vulnerable population awareness. Right. And obviously making them more resilient because obviously the piece of harm is going to be out of where it's going to flood again so it doesn't move. Thank you. I was just going to ask what's happening. How long do you learn the churches are trying to brainstorm about somebody at the kitchen's hand and destroy when they find these central sources that all together utilize one cushion to frame the needs of the community? That's a great conversation. Yes. I think that's what works and needs to continue to be explained. So they're collaborating right now to think about the future. That's awesome. Well, I don't know if this is right now, but the sustainable jobs fund which will know a lot about working the last couple of years on regional resilience. And I think we should tap into what they have already found out because we're part of that. And any stability we have is going to come not from our career but from the greater region. So I would like to tap into the work they've done which is significant in terms of trying to get local produce and see what their idea is. Who's there? Who's there? What's it called, Will? The Sustainable Jobs Fund. The Sustainable Jobs Fund. They do farm to plate and then now they have this new initiative that is trying to tap into the resiliency of the whole region, not just for not. The farm to plate come out with a study of 21-22 that analyzed the percentage of everything we were producing in the state and showed where to make up the differences of what we needed. A bunch of things. Jobs, processing, acres. We saw a page couple of years ago. Yeah, so there's a great resource. We're going to do a couple more and then we're going to pivot into the next part of our work. So this is like my problem. I get stuff I see a say. I don't need it all. But then I look and I think, well, I get it on Thursday but the food shop, I would go to marshmallows on Wednesday. So what do I do with it? I could gather with some of the people in Calis and we could build it that we could put it in a central place. But just one person, it just goes into the compost. There's a place down right next to the fish market that closed. The corner store in Montpelier. What is it called? Uncommon market. Stick it in there. What is fresh? Not everyone knows about all that. I love this. We're going to hold on to this idea. When we go into what can we do in the short term? Because this, where does our surplus go? I think is a great short term action item that we can start to think about. I want a little surplus. A personal surplus. Exactly. If you've got more than you need. I'm going to hold on to that one for a short term. But I want to just turn to the food security system for a moment. And the most vulnerable. I'm thinking about community harvest of central Vermont. Have they done anything new and different during this time? Or is it just more? Are they trying to do more? They weren't in existence 14 years ago. I cannot imagine what it was like before they existed. Because every week I'm there when they're packing up to get ready to send things to sites. And meal sites. And food pantries and such. All over central Vermont. All the way out to Marshfield. And Northfield. And the food is just wonderful local fresh produce. And I just can't wait to go in there. They put in a brand. They got funding. They got a new band. And they got a giant wallet. Yes. They're really expanding. And they're doing well. I think they're a great organization. So it's a circle of leaning on local farms. That goes into the food security system. And it works in conjunction with willing hands. Which is a really big organization. That's a lot of value. And they get things from that weekly. It's just amazing to see the wonderful food that people are getting. There's a lot of organization in the last 10 years. Exactly. All right. Let's do two more of what's going on right now. And then we're going to pivot. You all were so eager to talk about ideas of what we could do. The next part of the conversation will be really exciting. I promise. Okay, Linda. There's other programs, too, like the Farm to Family and the Food Stamps. Could you speak more about it? Oh, Farm to Family and the Food Stamps that go through the farmers market. And there's certain co-ops that people on EBT get a discount. I forget what it is. They get, they can sign up for a program. But those programs make them sustainable for the future. They're good programs. And it requires that signing up, right? And then the awareness of where you can go to buy your food. Which is an education thing, right? It's an education. All right. Let's get two more ideas. One of the factors even more, not hit by the plug, is the affordability of fresh food. And I worked in joint housing for a couple of years. And people would love to have more food. Of course, they have an emphasis on that. But a lot of it's godsend for the different agencies that are involved with communities. There is, I wanted to say that an alliance, as it were, between the farmers and all of these networks, they work together to help. Great. That's right. Yep. Right. A lot of farmers are already connected to the food security system because they do the gleaning. Or maybe they have a surplier. They're donating. But some kind of a small tax break. Any other last comments about the food producers themselves that we want to make sure to get on the table as we think about and transition into thinking about ideas for the future? We heard about the land and the conflict over land. We heard a little bit about just lack of food and lack of food for animals. It's mostly the security of feeling vulnerable and trying to plan for the planet. Do they have a theme up? I heard that there's not a theme up for the farmers. So there's something federally that's empty there, isn't there? They got $1 billion out of the $20 billion. So that's the we get program for the state of Vermont. Farmers are in a different category and do not qualify for FEMA direct assistance as farms. If their house was, you know, there are other things that they may be able to apply for, but as a farm business, FEMA and SBA do not support them. Is that all of the country? It's all over the country. Farm Service Agency is their recovery agency. So their programs are the ones that farmers can apply to. So it's a good one? Yes, it is. All federal agencies are tricky. Yes, it is a good one. It is a good one. Yes, ma'am. So just an example of climate change. So some of the producers that are at the farmers market, this week, he didn't have a particular kind of cucumber because it's so wet that his cucumber is rotted in the ground. And so I think one of my concerns about what's happening right now is our farmers can't depend on the weather. Not that they've ever been, you know, could depend on the weather, but actually there have been times in our past when a farmer could kind of set his watch by when something was going to happen seasonally. Paul Stone, Daniel Shorn told me that he raises a bazillion number of turkeys. I was just saying, not anymore. No, and so now I feel like we're talking about how are we going to live with the rivers? Yes. How is our prototype going to live with climate change which is here now? That's a great one. That's a good one to sort of pivot on because I think that sets the stage for us to come up with a few ideas around what does long-term resilience or even short-term ideas for our soils, our moisture, precipitation that is unpredictable, right? Some of those changing factors in the business of farming. Temperature fluctuation. Temperature fluctuation, you've got it. Like the apple crop. I don't know how shampooing bodies wiped out. You've got it. We're at this program that is happening for young kids who they go to camp. Well, if you think about it, we'll mark it there. It's a new venture. All right, we're going to pivot. The next 40 minutes are about shorter-term recovery ideas. So this is the kind of idea that Eileen brought up about consolidating church kitchens. That can be done in the next year, right? Find a place, centralize it, maybe do the meals together. And then longer-term, like land or like soil and unpredictability of moisture and precipitation and temperature. Longer-term resilience. So as you think about these ideas, say out loud for the group, this is an idea that I think we could do in the short-term and here's what it might look like, or this is an idea that I'd love to see for the future, for the long-term. All right, we're going to do this for about 40 minutes and then these will be the ideas that we consolidate at the end and we just pick a few of them to take back to the group. And I'm going to lean on people who haven't talked yet and other people who need to speak up. May already be under way or under consideration, but when Eileen happened, I think it was the Community Foundation who had a real effort to try to reach out to the producers who were affected by it. And I am realizing that over time there have been a number of organizations that have been able to fund the group that has set the economy that already has in place the ability to review and do outreach to affected farms and producers and just would think there'd be value in trying to utilize those existing places and give them more money and find ways to let them have more funds and to provide either good or interest loans that would be worth buying us. Rather than try to set something up at home. They could even teach younger farmers what they do and they could expand that way. Maybe I'm not understanding that. I'm referring to those farms that have been affected by it, but how they get back on their feet and how they get the money to do that. There are fractures in place that have been doing that for a while and they probably need more resources now than they have. So raising money through philanthropy and into the no interest loan, emergency loan program for farmers that already exist, right? And that could be short term. Yeah, it's just immediate. Justin, the ag budget and I don't get in trouble with this but sending some of that dairy money in another direction for a fossil fuel industry that isn't really sustainable. So tell me you're talking about the federal budget or the state budget? So what action would we take in this community to move if that's an idea that you want to throw on the table? How does this community take a step toward that goal? 500 people in the showroom. There you go, yeah. So like a grassroots campaign kind of thing, yeah. And what's the goal? To redistribute some of the budget out of dairy into green vegetable farm, all the other areas that we have shortfall and we could be growing stuff that could go in the storage and we might have some food to get us to release the season. Okay. Is that short or long term? I think that was a little bit, maybe mid. Maybe, yeah. It might take a couple of sessions. He's got some problems. Yeah. Well, to follow up on the concept of this is the able job. Maybe Monterey would have a representative to this in touch with them so they would be following and incorporating the work that they do into our clients. Oh. That could be short term. So Monterey representative or, you know, some connection between the city and what they're working on and the stable job. So we could see how to use their information and also just get their help. So it gets built into our city plans and some of those longer journeys. Right. So that we become a cooperating partner. There you go. Short term? Why does he vote? We're going to start that tomorrow. I nominate. Oh, wait. That's a great one. All right. Other short term or long term? One of the things that was going on that I read there, what Meals on Wheels is they still got Meals on. Yeah. And I think they still got Meals delivered to Rochester and God knows other places that were closed at a given time. The water is surrounded so much for the state of breaking it up to focus and concentrate on the people that are doing it. And a lot of them are volunteers and it's sort of like instead of waiting for the state, waiting for somebody else to help us out, it's something that we can do individually as an agent in the world. And it's helpful to have folks in higher low places but we have to step up. I love it. So tell me exactly would you be adding volunteers to the Meals on Wheels organization? Would you be just celebrating them in some way or getting them a day off? What was the action? Well, I think celebration would be a good thing. So I work in the kitchen. I work just kind of like vegetables and so forth. It's there. I don't have to worry about it. I've got a knife and I've got a watch for the band. But there are lots of people that come in and they get all this food out. It's just the norm. They get it and bury it too. Now when we get out of here, Bob is a great cook. So you've got a whole bunch of systems of people. Some of them are paid, but many of them are not. I have a focus on that. Just a focus on some of them. And that brings more people in. There you go. You don't have to sit by the corner in a week and sackcloth and ashes. You can do something. No sackcloth and ashes. All right. Good. We've got that one. Linda. First, a question. A question and a comment. I'm confused because there's both fun weeks. There's different sources like the Under Mountain Co-op. It's in the Lord Alpha Cooper farm, which is flooded. And the farmers, there's various sources. I don't know if we can consolidate it or not, or if it's better to have it. Various avenues. It's a question. My comment. My comment about when I moved here, I heard about the peace program. I was like, whoa, the city of Montpelier is growing vegetables and paying money, like supporting this to grow vegetables for seniors and other ones. We need to make that. We need to support that. We need more money. We need to find land for it. I think it's a great program. It's also supported by UVM Extension. It's a win-win-win. So the more money going to the peace program and permanent land is that what I'm hearing. And it's a good example for other communities to do this. So really a city farm. Their current location was totally flooded. Is this a longer term, though? Yeah. This would take a couple years. Yeah. Absolutely. Go ahead, David. And then I'm going to make sure quiet people are talking to you. No, you're good. I watched the two river farm. It was running in the city. And of course, one to two years, the amount of work and effort and energy, and it was like a pop-up. A phenomenon. So it was really sort of sad when the river came. But it can happen again. We build because we need. Yep. All right. I'm going to let it go ahead, Eric. I am not from Montpelier, but when I was three or four years ago, how many acres did the city spend a million bucks? And we're talking about tennis courts. I know that it was a golf course, and it may take a fair amount of renewal of the soil. God knows what kind of chemicals were poured on or a golf course. But there is land within walking distance or biking distance or whatever, which is part of the city, owned by the city. And we're talking about where can we grow food? Can some lens be focused on that as an option, not because a lot of people want to play tennis or whatever they want to do, but because the world is going to need local food. I'm going to put that as a potential, the exploration of that. I'm betting if this becomes a priority issue, part of the next step of the group that tackles this is to find five parcels to then present to the city. So I'm going to put that down as one, but I'm betting that part of what they would do is say, let's look at soils, let's look at river corridor, let's look at housing, some of those other things. And let's look at hungry people. In a world that's changing so fast. There's this woman here, I was talking about their seasons when the cucumbers don't grow. And we're just getting used to that. I have friends who live in Salina, Kansas. Three generations, the first time ever, they've asked for crop insurance. They've been hammered by drought in western Kansas. Thousands of acres of zip. I haven't checked a loaf of bread, but the world is changing. And if we can maybe not depend on Kansas, but the old golf course, Britain did it during World War II. There you go. Matt, Matt said his head up in the road, what do you live in? So what was the act to say? I'm sure our people are going to love your work. I'm sorry, I was just saying, I'm sure our people are going to love your work. The expansion of the program is important. I tried to collate my ideas into short being. Great. This is my job for me. Or short term, just kind of building and strengthening relationships between both producers and suppliers. So I was kind of thinking this way, especially reaching out to small scale producers or indigenous producers. That's really kind of the building that shows up. The medium term solution is hoarding. Sort of. But yeah, just kind of developing those relationships kind of reaching out to product communities and indigenous communities. And then really the long term solution is building out food forests Building out what? Food forests Other small scale Small scale community food operations and it just came back to me. That's alright. I was just like one step out of myself. We'll come back to you, Matt. There's no rush, there's no rush. So I'm just going to take a quick moment. So food forest, right? Edible landscape idea. Okay, Linda, sorry. It seems like, I think you said it, supporting the farmers who are out there now and how can we do it like from the farmers market? But it seems like the PR, the PR has been really good for the business people. But it doesn't seem so good for the farmers. And until we can really say, this is just as important. And it is. And I mean, so there used to be PR for the value and the importance and working with not only getting land, but how about the people who are out there already doing it? And how do we really support them? Immigration of farmers, providing incentives for other states to come here because there's a lack of young farmers in the state. And that could be the apprenticeship program. Yeah, right. Okay. I saw Albert stand up. I guess if I was king of the forest, I think the farm to center the community that I would build a central farm house for all the farmers in the storage where they could sell their stuff every day or get one kitchen there where they could feed the whole community. All the food comes in, it's processed there, it's distributed, and it's central to Montevideo as a permanent house. So there's a model out of Philadelphia called the Common Market. They represent 185 family farms. With climate change, we don't prepare and have some kind of storage facilities like that in places like that. Centralized and shared. Okay. Along with the integrating farmers and the users, what about a regular group of five people who attach themselves to, say, the sheep farm a mile outside of Montevideo? And once a week they go and they're available to do whatever jobs they're given. There's a group like that at the North Branch Nature Center. They build furniture, they swab out the basement, they do all kinds of fun and unfun jobs. But whatever they do that day that they go, they do something that has been lined up for them. And all week long, people can say, oh, we can get our group to do that. So volunteer labor force. Volunteer regular people, like a small select labor force for this place. Okay. For this place, for this place. There's got to be a way to do that, that would work. And maybe it could be in exchange for food, I don't know. That's right. Do you want to actually come into the circle and join us? Sure. You are more than welcome. There's a two. We'd love to welcome you. I wasn't sure if you were butterfly or anything like that. Yeah, I kind of was. And then I was like, wow, this is very interesting. Do you want to just share your name? Oh, I'm Kayla. I work with Linda at the North Branch Foundation. Oh, great. Thanks for coming to me. Yeah. So we're in the middle, Kayla, of short and long-term ideas for the future or midterm if you want to throw those out. Did I see a hand? I thought I saw one over there. Yeah. David. When the tomato flight hit, oops, something along the farmer said, this is it. We can't grow tomatoes outside. We have to raise our tomatoes in greenhouses. And they produce tremendous results. So I'm thinking hydroponics. I'm thinking, well, land is good. We don't always have to grow everything on land. There are urban greenhouses for lack of a better way of saying it. They grow micro plants and so forth. So it's sort of let's stretch our imagination a little bit and think of hallways that if you're a farmer, not only knows how to stay in the business, but is there some way that you can balance your existing practice and then add to it? And then the big communities like Burlington have these high buildings. We could even develop things on the top of buildings. We've seen that before. So I'm going to put this into urban hydroponic or alternative, what do I say? Vertical farm. Vertical, but it's not all vertical. So I'm going to say non-soil based, right? Like other, not on the ground, but on buildings in straight up walls or more hydroponics. Alternative soil based. They're good soil based tomatoes. Little guys make great soil based tomatoes. Spring cake farm. I'm about to visit a 10 acre greenhouse tomorrow in Burlington, Hampshire. Glass or plastic? Glass. I'm just conscious of how... Wow, that's great. I haven't been a lot of suggestions for dealing with food insecurity for those who need it most. That they are often dependent on food excess and upon the ability of producers to have lots of people in the life. And I'm just certain to give, and I'm just conscious that the number of people in the community grows with experiences like this and often comes at a time when the supply and the capacity is limited. So I'm just wondering if folks have thoughts about that before we... And right now all of the churches that were supplying the community lunches all during the week were all closed because we were all flooded. So there's only one site in front of the Episcopal Church that Skinny Pancake is supplying to go. We were doing a real meal. I mean a real sit-down, real dinner on every Monday at our church and other churches were too. So, yeah, what's happening with that? So what's a vision? What's an idea for that? We heard... I think there's actually a meeting to be happening this week around the Trinity Church, which the church kitchen was not affected, whether they could open their doors and then every church could still do their Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday meal in that site. So that's something... The question is, you know, are they going to be able to prepare a meal or are they going to have to purchase the hot meal supplemented, which is what's happening right now? How that cost is going to be addressed? So they don't have a meeting imminent. Imminent. Good. So that's a long-term vision for that. What's an answer to that question? I mean, does it make sense long-term to have each church do their own? That's the question. No, it doesn't. So there's five churches right now. Navy, Navy, plus volunteers trying to service the same group of people that you could go before people in the kitchen. Literally. I thought I'd done the UU meals for years in the morning kitchen, you know, had these conversations for years, but all of a sudden post-COVID floods is a thing. So should we put... I don't want to say consolidate, but should we put organize or coordinate the charity meals in the future? I would like to introduce the idea of voting the idea of doing it some of the time. This is exactly what we got when we got Saga and all the little... I was the director of senior meals and meals for the whole state for 20 years. And we had lots of lovely little kitchens that all went with Saga at some point for exactly these reasons. And all of the local donations stopped coming in five months out of the year that people were bringing in. And we lost something. We gained something. We lost something. So maybe it's a great option. It may be absolutely necessary in some places at some times, but we should... And it may not be something that the community picks up if the churches are going to be working on it themselves, right? So it doesn't have to be a future idea. Mike's got his hand too, so we'll go back to you. I just need to say that we don't just cook the meal. We sit down with people in the community. So four volunteers for eight... That would just... It's not the same. It's very, very important to socialize to be part of a community to share meals with the community. I agree with the social factor. Social factor. That's right. All right, Mike. Let's hear your idea. And then unfortunately, folks, believe it or not, we're going to have to start prioritizing the community. So... So I haven't been saying anything because my boss didn't want me to be kind of jumping in, but there are two things that I think could be helpful. One is the previous MSAC director, the senior center director. One of her goals was with the Country Club Road site was that as we build out that site for... It's meant to be a recreation and community center, and a part of that community center is what's intended to be designed to be a large commercial kitchen because the commercial kitchens are too small in order to do meals on wheels. So they want to grow and expand that. That could be an opportunity where others could... There could be a larger coming together of the churches also go through and say, can we consolidate a lot of our work into in other words, one large freezer? And again, Country Club Road is out of the flood plain so it can't be flooded again. It would be a vocation where we could store food and it's something the city would own and operate and therefore take some of those costs off of the volunteers. They'll need to be probably staffed by volunteers, but at least the city can take some of those costs. I don't know what's happening with that idea and I don't know much about that, Sarah left. I don't know what happened to that idea, but that was always an idea she had. I don't believe there's really any updates on that just because the whole Country Club Road process is still ongoing. I will say the farm has potentially a new site where Country Club Road property is being looked at. Good, so we've got that one. The second large project that a long-term project would be that actually Home Farm Way is not owned by the city. It is still a defunct property not owned by anybody. It is still technically owned by the two rivers farm which is gone and so it's still there in limbo. The feast farm just jumped in and took advantage of a space that wasn't actually occupied. It would be another opportunity the city has always been betwixt in between do we take this property or do we not take this property? It is an opportunity where there could be long-term farming there. It is a farm but these things will happen periodically and that it is in the flood plain. I don't know how often it will flood but periodically it will but in between you might have 30 years without any flooding and this is 15 acres of terrible farmable land but we really need to result the ownership of it. Ownership? Okay. Kaylee, do you have any ideas? Is it Kaylee or Kayla? Kayla, I'm sorry. Do you have any ideas you want to throw out before we start? Yeah, I was just kind of thinking about the free meals and another way how they do free meals every Friday and Wednesday I believe and I feel like they might have been a bit of a forgotten part of the community in a way I've been volunteering there for a little bit and they're really needing help and more people to show up for they have free massage, free acupuncture they have more community gatherings but not many people are coming up but I guess also because most of the people who go there are honestly forgotten community members who need special attention so yeah, I mean they have a garden, they were out of the flood zone. Where is it? On Berry Street. Yeah, another way, community center. Oh, another way. So yeah, maybe there could be collaboration with them as well. Thank you. Okay, bear with me. I'm going to read through all these ideas and then we're going to have to sort of do a bit of a voting the ideas will not get lost okay, we're going to save them all they will all go in the notes they'll all go in the reporting but for tonight's purposes we're going to pick what we think are the most doable or the most actionable maybe a couple short term and one long term maybe only one short term and a few more bigger long term ones remembering that this group who's here tonight and the folks who are going to join us upstairs are the people who are going to vote with their feet we are going to be the volunteers or the city officials or the organizations that stand up and do this together so remember that you're voting for something that you may actually be standing up and raising your hand to do later on okay, short term we have moving more money to financing organizations zero percent interest or philanthropy to farmers in need we have a Montpelier representative to the front, sorry farm to plate so that our local city plans incorporate long term food resilience goals we have supporting and celebrating the volunteers who run Meals on Wheels and Food Security we have the feast program more money and examining permanent spaces for that feast city farm we have strengthening relationships between producers and suppliers particularly reaching out to underserved populations BIPOC and indigenous farmers and food producers we have incentives for other farmers to come to Vermont we have small select regular volunteer labor force to do work on farms we have just public relations just getting the word out about farmers and their need right now just raising the awareness across the state about what has happened to our local food system because of this we have centralized or coordinated church food distribution and that's a question mark because that may really be moving forward on its own and then we have making sure to include all pieces of the food security emergency meals including the another way to use them okay long term do you want to vote on those real quick and then we'll go to longer because this is a lot otherwise I have a thought if I'm trying my best to capture the ideas that you have here on the sticky pad that perhaps people could just do a check bless your heart we have been told we absolutely can't put anything on the walls so the stickies might be good sure sure I'll lend you that one it might take a no problem it could be really long to try to do the ideas I like that thanks John okay so here's some of the longer term ones readjusting our state agriculture budget so that it prioritizes diversified vegetable farms and move some of the money out of dairy the permanent land option I guess I had it in both categories I probably wrote it down in short this is how you just said the permanent land option food forests and small scale community operations so incentivize we don't have a specific action item but that's a long term how do we think about food forests forageable edible landscapes shared farm storage processing distribution in a centralized facility somewhere alternative soil based growing so hydroponics urban agriculture vertical agriculture how do we incentivize these in the state to make sure we have resilience long term and then the land ownership issue of the home farm way site and the potential community center that is already in the planning process and how that could actually be utilized for a large commercial kitchen and food storage we could essentially jump into that process again with this idea so I have a way with short term versus long term it says I can feel this short term seems to be more like meaningful dots for life and then long term is looking for a more centralized structure like but it's more right now we can connect the dots that's a great way to put it so why don't you if you have one that you feel like passionate that you'd like to call out as John is doing this exercise is there any short term idea that you would love to see us take back to the big group anyone want to just call in the paper I want to go with because that's the center of distribution now is that a short term or is that long term are you talking about exploring a permanent site for it long term it would have to be long term because right now there's not much so I'm going to say one vote for this idea of exploring permanent options for the fees farm right and the fees program and exploring more funding for it so that it can become really this community farm that we can turn to and that has a more robust program there's only one vote can we add to that we're going to vote for everybody I'm just asking for anyone that anyone feels passionate about getting on the PR which one? PR getting the word out what's going on okay great I also second the supporting the fees program and all the bias towards them and the emergency food hub I didn't hear that again the emergency food hub so is that the food storage and distribution idea the big central kitchen I had not heard it called the emergency food hub until right now I didn't really doubt it okay so he just put a name on something that's been said a couple times I'm just going to clarify the idea of a centralized kitchen with food storage that farmers could use in the area having that be a seed saver food saver processing kitchen okay I'm going to call that long term yes that would be a building in the city but I think if there's a small group of people who tackles that idea then you can come up with what do we do now what do we do 10 years from now yeah okay so those are great ones are there any short term ones we want to make sure what do we do the PR do you want to give us like an idea of what a group of volunteers and volunteers could do for that well you could use report form you could go to the farmers market signs it's sort of like there could be different radio stations use different ways for talking about it and it's just getting you know things in the editor you know all the PR ways of the message is you know what's really going on here and the farmers here need to report it and this is some of the things you can do so it's really about getting the general public to volunteer to donate to so the farmers know that they're appreciating it too that's really important how you doing Joe okay I'm gonna post this as a singer once the whole idea of performance and arts and stuff and there were all kinds of jingles on the radio in my era and if someone could think of a jingle that would keep singing over and over I love it for me the support jingle was a kitty cup it was talking about how a mantra and singing over and over again how about having a contest for a former song contest I love it hopefully one thing would become the we do have a lot of great performers in Vermont so there you go I'm gonna start we are gonna try to do this thing and give you, it's gonna be tight there are some pens here at this table but the political is also important we're gonna put these short term ideas which includes it includes one of the political one so John's putting these out so we're gonna pass out pens here or if you've got one please use it and please only do two votes at this point perhaps the couple that have the most votes one for short term I think at this point let's just do whatever whatever you want short term I'm moving around here so it'll be a little clearer and I may miss some so and do we mark our vote on the paper that was my thought one vote on each category just put a check mark next to the two that you think we should take upstairs and I and I you have two votes yes you may put two do they need to be on the long term in the short term don't worry about it I will sort them out later and if we get a bunch on the long term all right so if you start to do short term on this side and it moves towards longer term over here and I probably missed a few so I'm gonna move some pens so if anybody sees one that they didn't get captured I'll quickly put it in and people might want to hold a vote until they make sure they got them out so here's what we're gonna do why don't we start Eileen with you you come up and we'll go and we'll establish counterclockwise yes exactly so start behind Eileen and then shuffle this one and vote on vote as you go but we do have to do everything the ten minute sign about six minutes ago so it was good we were definitely wrestling with how do we do dot voting in the state house where you can't put anything on the list it was a tricky round here we go folks I'm going to read the ones that got the most votes out loud if you want to hang out for just a moment we have open dinners and we usually have it kind of like the same thing where's the one for the first time let's see let's see I think alright folks here we go I'm going to read the ones that we have out loud that have the most votes right now and again I'm saving all of these so we have three votes for a local grassroots campaign to readjust the ag budget away from dairy we have short term more money for the feast farm and long term a permanent location and then we have a Montpelier representative to the farm to plate plan so that we can incorporate food resilience into our local planning alright the others will still live okay so if they end up coming back around in community conversations they're still going to be live but these are the ones I'll bring up upstairs alright here we go have some really