Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
The Palouse Tables Project, a collaborative effort by Community Action Center, Backyard Harvest and others, has been meeting with residents in towns in Whitman and Latah counties to discover food needs and solutions.
“We find people are pretty creative, even in places people shop,” said Joe Astorino, garden and nutrition specialist with the Community Action Center of Whitman County.
Astorino and his team are at about the half-way mark in meeting with the various communities to find what is working, how people deal with food insecurity and what can be done to improve situations.
“They kinda brought a new vision to us, thinking how we can support that and get it going,” Astorino said.
The project team starts each meeting with the “appreciative inquiry method” where people tell stories of things in the community that work, like town festivals, and of the generosity and creativity people have exhibited in dealing with food insecurity.
The team is also learning about how people cope, compensate or compromise with food insecurity.
“People are sharing with us they’re eating one meal per day,” Astorino reported. Others confessed to watering down or skipping meals or eating unhealthy because that was all they could afford. There is also a lot of sharing: excess food and garden produce, rides to grocery stores, local livestock cooperatives.
“If people can think creatively . . . I think that is kinda the key to food security,” Astorino said. Examples they found were in one town the food bank provided milk cards that could be filled out at the local food center or people making once-a- month trips to big grocery stores and then smaller weekly trips to the local food center.
Food security is not an issue that should just be centered around food banks, he added. As such, the meetings have also discussed community gardens, gleaning, or rescuing groceries, school food programs and farmers’ markets.
Astorino has observed each of the towns seem pretty unique in their stories and desires.
“I really hesitate to compare town to town,” he said.
One strong desire from many, however, is to focus on the cooking aspect and eating together as a community. The meetings have helped the towns to “feel more comfortable envisioning their own ideal food community in the future.”
“Participates have described a future when everyone’s pantry is full, gardens are thriving, farmers markets are developed and people are celebrating their heritage through both food preservation skills, cooking and eating together,” Astorino stated.
The project is still in the data collection process with three more Whitman County stops scheduled: June 5 at Uniontown Community Center for Colton and Uniontown starting at 5:30 p.m., June 12 at Palouse Community Center starting at 5:30 p.m. and June 30 at The Center in Colfax with an open invitation for all.
The Colfax event willl be different from others as it is on a weekend and willl include a scavenger hunt portion for those interested. The focus of the scavenger hunt will be farm-to-food bank. Details are still coming together, but Astorino explained there will be stations set up around town that highlight different ways of getting more local food into the emergency food system. Each station will have information or something for the participants to take away for the scavenger hunt. Even for those not interested in the scavenger hunt, Astorino noted there will be a lot of information and networking that can be done at the meeting.
The scavenger hunt will begin at 1 p.m. on June 30 with the meeting portion starting at 2:30 p.m.
Once the meetings are all done, the Palouse Tables Project will look at applying for a grant for phase two to follow up on the planning and get some of the ideas brought up during the meetings into action.
“There’s just a lot of information,” Astorino noted.
Those wishing to contribute stories, dreams or ideas for a better food community, but can not attend a meeting, are welcomed to email palousetablesproject@gmail.com.
Jana Mathia is a reporter at the Whitman County Gazette.
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