Month: November 2021

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Sitka Kitch to host Cooking With Culture class on how to make Hungarian mushroom soup with Nalani James

Join the Sitka Kitch as Nalani James teaches a virtual class on how to make Hungarian mushroom soup as part of the Cooking With Culture class series.  This class takes place from 5-6:30 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 12, via Zoom.

This vibrant composition is great for a meat substitute at dinner parties. If you love a good bisque soup this is for you. Flavonoids and earthy textures make this a perfect winter dinner. Nalani selected this soup as she would like to show you what you can do with fresh herbs in soup for winter time.

Nalani has offered many classes in Sitka and has been successfully teaching to the community special dishes to her soul.

The class cost is $20, and we need eight people registered to make the class happen. Ingredients are not provided; however a list of ingredients and equipment needed will be sent to all who are registered. A link to the Zoom event also will be sent at that time. Please connect at least 10 minutes before the class starts.

Current (paid) members of the Sitka Food Co-op are now able to attend the online classes for $10 each (the co-op will cover the other $10 of your class fee). Please use the Sitka Food Co-op ticket when you register and send an email to sitkafoodcoop@gmail.com letting them know you’re in the class. (NOTE, Only one person per Co-op household may use the Co-op discount per class. Please name that person when you register so the name can be checked against the Co-op membership list.)

The registration deadline is 11:30 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 9. Space is limited, so register early to secure your place in the class. You can register and pre-pay using credit/debit cards or PayPal on the Sitka Kitch EventSmart online registration page, http://sitkakitch.eventsmart.com (click on class title). For those wanting to pre-pay with cash or check, please call Chandler O’Connell or Kylee Jones at Sitka Conservation Society (747-7509) to arrange a payment.

For more information about the class, contact Jasmine Shaw at 747-9440. We occasionally offer one scholarship spot per class for people with limited incomes, provided we have enough students registered to make the class happen. Contact Chandler or Kylee at SCS for more details about the scholarship.

The Sitka Kitch is supported in partnership by Sitka Conservation Society with UAF Cooperative Extension Service. This class is a fundraiser for the Sitka Kitch community rental commercial kitchen.

The Sitka Kitch also has a new class cancelation policy. If you register for a class, then find out you can’t attend, please email us at sitkakitch@sitkawild.org and we may be able to help fill your slot through our waiting list. If you cancel from the class at least five days in advance (eg, by Wednesday the week before for a Monday class), you are eligible for a partial refund of your class fee, minus $5 for processing (in this case, $15 or $5, depending on if you are paying full price or getting the Sitka Food Co-op discount). If you need to cancel with less than five days advance notice, there is no refund.

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Check out the December 2021 edition of the Sitka Local Foods Network newsletter

The Sitka Local Foods Network just sent out the December 2021 edition of its monthly newsletter. Feel free to click this link to get a copy.

This month’s newsletter includes short stories with a notice about #GivingTuesday on Nov. 30, information about how you can eat some chowder and support the Sitka Local Foods Network from Dec. 1-4, an update about how you can support the Sitka Local Foods Network by buying a t-shirt or hoodie from our online store, information about our 2022 sponsorship programs, and an invitation to join our board of directors. Each story has links to our website for more information.

You can sign up for future editions of our newsletter by clicking on the newsletter image in the right column of our website and filling in the information. If you received a copy but didn’t want one, there is a link at the bottom of the newsletter so you can unsubscribe. Our intention is to get the word out about upcoming events and not to spam people. We will protect your privacy by not sharing our email list with others. Don’t forget to like us on Facebook, like our Sitka Farmers Market page on Facebook and follow us on Twitter (@SitkaLocalFoods).

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Enjoy some tasty chowder or baguette sandwiches and support the Sitka Local Foods Network this week

Now you can eat tasty food and support local nonprofits. The Sitka Local Foods Network is one of five local nonprofit organizations participating in this winter’s Season of Giving at the Ludvig’s Bistro Chowder Cart, located in the historic Mill Building next to the Sitka Sound Science Center.

Stop by the Ludvig’s Chowder Cart from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Wednesday through Saturday, Dec. 1-4, and a portion of your meal purchase will benefit the Sitka Local Foods Network. The Sitka Local Foods Network is the fourth local nonprofit to have a week of support from the Ludvig’s Chowder Cart, joining the Sitka Homeless Coalition (Nov. 10-13), Friends of the Sheldon Jackson Museum (Nov. 17-20), and the Herring Protectors (Nov. 26-27). There will be one more nonprofit participating next week.

“The Sitka Local Foods Network is honored to be selected for the Ludvig’s Season of Giving,” SLFN board president Charles Bingham said. “We love to see local businesses helping support the community like this. Thanks to Ludvig’s chef/owner Colette Nelson for including us in this program and supporting local food security.”

The Sitka Local Foods Network is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to increase the amount of locally produced and harvested food in the diets of Southeast Alaskans.

We accomplish our mission by growing fresh produce at St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm communal garden (located behind St, Peter’s By The Sea Episcopal Church), coordinating the Sitka Farmers Market (where we sell the produce and also offer a matching program for WIC/SNAP benefits), sponsoring the Sitka Food Business Innovation Contest (where a new business and an established business can win $1,500 each for using more local food in their products) and helping link Sitka residents to garden and food preservation/cooking education opportunities. 

If people are interested in volunteering or joining our board of directors, they can contact SLFN Board President Charles Bingham at sitkalocalfoodsnetwork@gmail.com or 907-623-7660.

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Sitka Local Foods Network hosts annual #GivingTuesday fundraiser on Nov. 30

Most people have heard about Black Friday, Small-Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday, three consumer-oriented days geared toward shopping for the holidays. But have you heard about Giving Tuesday, which takes place on Tuesday, Nov. 30, this year?

Giving Tuesday, also listed at #GivingTuesday (known as #GivingTuesdayAK in Alaska), is a day for people to celebrate generosity and give to worthy nonprofits who support the local community. This year, the Sitka Local Foods Network is launching its annual Giving Tuesday online fundraiser to help us meet our mission of increasing the amount of locally produced and harvested food in the diets of Southeast Alaskans. In addition to our usual #GivingTuesday fundraiser page on MightyCause.com (formerly Razoo.com), this year we also have one on Facebook that will be eligible for a portion of $8 million in matching dollars from Facebook/Meta for donations made on Nov. 30 (starting at 8 a.m. Eastern, 4 a.m. Alaskan). The #GivingTuesday fundraiser pages on MightyCause.com and Facebook will accept early donations, for those who don’t want to wait until Nov. 30 to give, and they will last until Dec. 31 for those people looking for an end-of-year tax deduction.

When you donate to the Sitka Local Foods Network you support us as we host the Sitka Farmers Markets during the summer, grow food at the St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm communal garden, and teach people about gardening and food preservation through our education program. We also can use funds to help us match the first $20 in produce purchases WIC and SNAP beneficiaries make at the Sitka Farmers Market, which helps get more healthy local produce into the hands of lower-income Sitkans thanks to a grant from the Sitka White Elephant Shop. In 2018, we launched a Sitka food business innovation contest, so your donation might support that effort to encourage food entrepreneurship in Sitka.

For businesses and organizations, we have a yearly sponsorship program with four tier levels of support — Grower ($2,500-plus), Harvester ($1,000-$2,499), Planter ($250-$999) and Friend ($50-$249).

In addition to our own projects, we support other local-food-related projects in town, such as Fish To Schools (which puts more locally caught seafood in school meals), our fruit tree project (where we got more community apple and cherry trees in town), the Sitka Kitch community rental commercial kitchen, or the Sitka Community Food Assessment (which gave us baseline data on food security issues in Sitka).

It’s easy to donate to our Giving Tuesday fundraiser through our secure donation page hosted by MightyCause.com (formerly Razoo.com, an online site that collects donations for nonprofit organizations), or through our Facebook fundraiser page (the one with the match from Facebook and PayPal). The minimum donation through this site is $5, but we appreciate whatever you can give. A donation of $10 can help us purchase some seeds or work gloves, while a gift of $100 can buy wood, soil and seeds to build a raised garden bed. You also can donate to us through the PayPal Giving Fund.

The Sitka Local Foods Network participates in the Pick.Click.Give. program, and we thank the 35 donors who contributed $1,975 to us in 2021 through Pick.Click.Give. and look forward to the 2022 donation period. In Pick.Click.Give., Alaskans can donate part of their Permanent Fund Dividend when they file their applications between Jan. 1 and March 31 each year. It’s a great way to share the wealth Alaskans receive through the Permanent Fund with a variety of nonprofit organizations in the state.

For those who prefer to donate the old-fashioned way (or want to avoid online processing fees), you can send a check to the Sitka Local Foods Network, 408 Marine Street, Suite D, Sitka, Alaska, 99835. For those looking for end-of-the-year tax deductions, we are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and our EIN is 26-4629930. Please let us know if you need a receipt. We hold a Bronze level rating with GuideStar.org, and we also are listed with Benevity.org (a site where employee donations to nonprofits sometimes are matched by larger corporations) and NetworkForGood.org (an organization that handles fundraisers for various nonprofits).

We thank you for supporting local foods in Sitka, Alaska. Your donation is greatly appreciated. If you need more information about our organization or a receipt for tax purposes, you can email the Sitka Local Foods Network board of directors at sitkalocalfoodsnetwork@gmail.com.

• 2022 Sitka Local Foods Network sponsorship program details and registration form

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Revived Sitka Compost Project Team to host virtual meeting on Friday, Nov. 12

A revived Sitka Compost Project Team will hold a virtual meeting at 4 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 12, via Zoom.

The Sitka Conservation Society is serving as a nonprofit umbrella for the Sitka Compost Project Team. The project team is being led by Caitlin Woolsey, Elizabeth Borneman, Norm Campbell, and Doug Osborne.

Large-scale composting has long been a goal in Sitka, and it was selected as a top goal at the 2011 Sitka Health Summit Planning Day. That led to the Sick-A-Waste group, which did some preliminary work on a community composting plan.

The recent revival of interest in composting led to the Sitka Health Summit contributing $500 to the composting project. The Sitka Health Summit is keen on seeing this happen (in addition to the current goals of ending homelessness and reviving community schools.)

One reason why there is some urgency to this project revival is Sitka has a 45-foot EcoDrum industrial compost unit in town (similar to the photo), and we want to keep it here in town. The person who brought the unit to Sitka no longer lives in Alaska, and the unit must be moved from its current location. We’re trying to keep it from being barged elsewhere.

Also, the city ships a lot of waste that could be composted to the Lower 48, and having a community compost program can reduce how much waste the city ships south. Good compost makes great garden soil, which can be worth its weight in gold in a rain forest community where a lot of nutrients are washed out of the soil due to the moisture. Having access to fresh compost will make it easier for more Sitka gardeners to grow their own food, which will improve food security in town.

The compost project could use people power. It seems like a simple idea; however it’s got a lot of complexity and needs a variety of things: land, brown material, a place for finished compost, etc. Norm Campbell has been leading the charge and has lots of good ideas.

The Sitka Health Summit hosted a Pardee RAND School of Public Policy Fellow named Zhan Okuda-Lim this summer-fall. He is working up a final report for composting in Sitka which was the focus of his work. Zhan will have his final report ready to present on Friday, Nov. 12 (reports are posted below the Zoom info). After going over his slide deck, Zhan can answer questions. After that we can all discuss next steps.

All are welcome – anyone in town who is interested in seeing us composting more in Sitka.

Topic: Composting

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81974794447?pwd=cm9IWmNzMnZIdTFGTmgzOHBHenZVQT09

Meeting ID: 819 7479 4447
Passcode: 319146
One tap mobile
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• Sitka Compost Project Team final presentation, Nov. 12, 2021

• Sitka Compost Project Team final report, Nov. 11, 2021

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Sitka Local Foods Network hosts Thanksgiving artisan sourdough bread sale

Need some fresh bread to go with your Thanksgiving feast? The Sitka Local Foods Network is hosting an artisan sourdough bread fundraiser, with fresh loaves just in time for Thanksgiving.

We will bake up to 60 loaves total, with 40 of the loaves being a rustic sourdough and 20 loaves being the rustic sourdough with cranberries and walnuts added. Each loaf of bread costs $25, and they are hearty loaves weighing about two pounds each. The main ingredients of the bread include white, wheat, and rye flour, water, and salt. The cranberry-walnut loaves add cranberries and walnuts to the mix.

The loaves will be baked on Tuesday and Wednesday, Nov. 23-24, by Laura Schmidt, who also serves as our lead gardener at St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm. In addition to being a gardener, she is a trained baker and in past years has made bread available for a donation at the Sitka Farmers Market.

Our plan is for people to order and pre-pay for each loaf using our online order site, https://sitkafarmersmarket.eventsmart.com (click title to order). We will need to have all orders processed before 6 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 19, so we can square away supplies. Note, to use your credit-debit card when ordering, click on the PayPal icon when you get to the screen that has Invoice and PayPal side by side.

Laura will bake half of the loaves (20 rustic, 10 cranberry-walnut) each day, and we will have them available for pick-up from 5-6:30 p.m. in front of the Hames Wellness Center. Please double-check the scheduled date of baking for your loaves. For those not able to pick up their bread, we will offer a delivery service for an extra $5 per loaf (so please supply your phone number and street address when you order).

If you have any questions, email us at sitkalocalfoodsnetwork@gmail.com or contact Charles Bingham at 907-623-7660.

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Check out the November 2021 edition of the Sitka Local Foods Network newsletter

The Sitka Local Foods Network just sent out the November 2021 edition of its monthly newsletter. Feel free to click this link to get a copy.

This month’s newsletter includes short stories with information about our 2022 sponsorship programs, information about how you can support the Sitka Local Foods Network by buying a t-shirt or hoodie from our online store, an announcement about a series of online food preservation workshops from the UAF Cooperative Extension Service, and an invitation to join our board of directors. Each story has links to our website for more information.

You can sign up for future editions of our newsletter by clicking on the newsletter image in the right column of our website and filling in the information. If you received a copy but didn’t want one, there is a link at the bottom of the newsletter so you can unsubscribe. Our intention is to get the word out about upcoming events and not to spam people. We will protect your privacy by not sharing our email list with others. Don’t forget to like us on Facebook, like our Sitka Farmers Market page on Facebook and follow us on Twitter (@SitkaLocalFoods).

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Like what we do? Now you or your business can sponsor the Sitka Local Foods Network in 2022

The Sitka Local Foods Network in recent years created a sponsorship program to help promote our mission, and Sitka businesses and individuals are welcome to join for 2022. The goal of the sponsorship program is to make the projects we undertake (Sitka Farmers Market, St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm, gardening education, food business development, etc.) more sustainable.

“Sitka has a precarious position when it comes to food security, and the Sitka Local Foods Network is trying to improve our food security through our mission to increase the amount of locally harvested and produced foods in the diets of Southeast Alaskans,” Sitka Local Foods Network president Charles Bingham said. “Sponsors of the Sitka Local Foods Network are working with an organization and a farmers market that values local food and businesses, fun, premium quality goods and experiences.”

In recent years, the Sitka Local Foods Network has hosted seven Sitka Farmers Markets during the summer (from July to September). Due to COVID-19, we had to greatly scale back our 2020 Sitka Farmers Markets, focusing just on produce sales and using an online sales portal, but we did double our number of market weeks. In 2021, we hosted an outdoor-only market that brought back some of our vendors. We haven’t set our 2022 dates yet, but we anticipate we will have a more normal market experience this year.

In addition, we grow most of the local produce sold at the markets at St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm communal garden and a couple of other locations in town. In March 2020 we built a new high tunnel at St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm, which helped us increase our produce production despite a wet and cold summer, and we were able to add another new high tunnel before the 2021 growing season. We usually offer a variety of garden education classes in the spring. And one way we ensured fresh, local produce is available to lower-income Sitkans is through our matching program for WIC and SNAP beneficiaries (the first $20 spent on produce at the market), courtesy of recent grants from the Sitka White Elephant Shop and the Sitka Legacy Foundation.

In 2018 we launched a new food business innovation contest to inspire food entrepreneurs in Sitka, and have continued the program with the expectation of hosting it in 2022 (our 2021 winners were Joanne “Chef Jo” Michalski of Muddy Mermaid Mudd Pies and Nalani James of Eggstravagant). We also have hosted the annual Running of the Boots costumed fun run fundraiser for more than a decade, with 2018 and 2019 in partnership with Youth Advocates of Sitka but canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID-19. In addition, we support other local food projects in Sitka, such as the Fish to Schools lunch program and the Sitka Kitch community rental commercial kitchen.

There are four levels of sponsorship available, and each has its own set of perks.

  • Grower ($2,500-plus) — We’ll hang your banner at ANB Hall during the Sitka Farmers Markets, include your logo and company name prominently in our merchandise and advertisements, and thank you on our social media and web pages. If appropriate for the Sitka Farmers Market, you may set up a free promotional booth.
  • Harvester ($1,000-$2,499) — We’ll hang your banner at ANB Hall during the Sitka Farmers Markets and include your logo and company name in our merchandise and advertisements.
  • Planter ($250-$999) — Your banner will hang at ANB Hall during the Sitka Farmers Markets.
  • Friend ($50-$249) — You are listed on our online sponsor page.

We have limited space for banners at the Sitka Farmers Markets, so please contact us before May 1 to guarantee your spot. To learn more about the sponsorship program, click the link below for details and a registration form. For more information, contact Charles Bingham at (907) 623-7660 or by email at charleswbingham3@gmail.com, or email us at sitkalocalfoodsnetwork@gmail.com.

• 2022 Sitka Local Foods Network sponsorship program details and registration form