Sitka Local Foods Network

Hello and welcome to the Sitka Local Foods Network site. The Sitka Local Foods Network is a 501(c)3 non-profit group dedicated to promoting the growing, harvesting and eating of local foods in Sitka, Alaska. This blog will be used to keep people updated on what we’re doing and let people know how they can participate in this community effort.

The 2008 Sitka Health Summit planted the seeds for the Sitka Local Foods Network when Sitka community members got together at the summit and chose two local-foods-oriented projects among their five community health priorities. The Sitka Health Summit participants wanted to start a public market so Sitka residents had easier access to local fish and produce, and the participants wanted to build a community greenhouse and expand the community garden programs so more local produce could be grown in Sitka. Since there were a lot of tie-ins between the two projects, the Sitka Local Foods Network was created to streamline the work efforts.

During the 2010 Sitka Health Summit, two new local food projects were chosen — to get more locally caught fish into school lunch menus and to plant 200 fruit trees in Sitka — and the Sitka Local Foods Network also is supporting those projects.

The Sitka Local Foods Network meets for lunch from 6-7:30 p.m. on the first Monday of each month at the Sitka Unitarian Universalist Fellowship building, 408 Marine St. (except during the summer when the Sitka Farmers Market is in session, meeting times are subject to change so watch the site for schedule updates). Meetings are open to the public, and new volunteers are welcome.

The Sitka Local Foods Network now has five major focus areas:

• Creating and operating the Sitka Farmers Market, where people can sell locally grown produce, locally harvested fish and locally produced arts and crafts. Produce grown at the St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm communal garden (by the See House behind St. Peter’s By The Sea Episcopal Church on Lincoln Street) is sold at the Sitka Farmers Markets to support Sitka Local Foods Network programming.

• Expanding local community and family gardens, so more people in Sitka can grow their own fruits and vegetables. Sitka currently has the Blatchley Community Garden where families and other groups can get their own garden plot. St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm is a cooperative communal garden with most of the food being sold at the farmers markets or used by non-profit groups. We also partner with Sitka Global Warming Group on a program that matches people with land available for gardening with people who want to garden but have no space.

• Planning and building a Sitka Community Greenhouse and Education Center, which can help extend Sitka’s short growing season and allow us to grow additional crops while also serving as an educational laboratory for local schoolchildren and adults who want to learn about gardening.

• Promoting the responsible and sustainable use of traditional foods (subsistence foods), such as local salmon, halibut, cod, herring eggs, deer, berries, seaweeds and other foods that were in the Tlingít diet before non-Natives arrived in Sitka.

• Providing educational opportunities, technical expertise and encouragement so Sitka residents who want to build their own gardens have the knowledge and support they need to grow their own food. This includes hosting events such as Let’s Grow Sitka and guest speakers such as Ciscoe Morris and Ed Hume. We also work with the Sitka office of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service to make gardening and food preservation resources available.

Sitka Local Foods Network president Kerry MacLane, left, and secretary/treasurer Linda Wilson say a few words after the Sitka Local Foods Network received a Community Wellness Champion award for nutrition at the 2009 Sitka Health Summit