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Make Yours A Healthy Community

Local Food:  Community Gardening and CSAs

Get into growing your own food at home or in a community garden.  Want to learn more about local food?  Jacksonville's Sustainable Future and Jacksonville Carbon Neutral Initiative are both exploring and developing ways to local food.  Grow food in your backyard, in pots on your patio, or get involved with a community garden in your neighborhood.  Come back here often for more information about community gardening in Jacksonville and on the First Coast.

Community Sustained Agriculture (CSA) is bringing food from nearby farms to local markets near you--local sourcing of food reduces emissions of greenhouse gasses.  There are several CSAs in our area.  We're building references to share with you soon.

Visit  the American Community Gardening Association for more info about how to find our start your own community garden. Learn more about urban gardening from the Duval County Extension Office.

The True Cost of Food Campaign

In the 1928 presidential campaign of Herbert Hoover, a Republican paid newspaper advertisement promised prosperity in the form of "a chicken in every pot and a car in every backyard, to boot."

Hoover's prosperity has arrived in spades with food and with cars. Yet, less than 100 years later, worries about global warming and suburban sprawl are making most of us doubt the wisdom of the cars, even suggesting we should often forego the private automobile in favor of public transportation or even bicycles. It now seems that we should often forego the chicken, too.

The Sierra Club's True Cost of Food campaign exposes the hidden costs to our planet of our meat-rich, pesticide-laden, and transportation-heavy diet. Now you can learn how to eat more responsibly and teach others how, too.

The Story of Stuff ...

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever. Click the graphic or this link www.storyofstuff.com to see the 20 minute video.

Featured Articles

• Where's YOUR Clutter?
  04-13-2009
  Reduce - Reuse - Recycle
  

• Eating Locally Grown Produce Can Be A Huge Step Towards Making Your "Carbon Footprint" Smaller
  by Cate Dobbins, Loretto Environmental Club Parent Advisor 07-19-2008
  Learn more about what types of produce are best for eating in a responsible, sustainable manner that supports your health and your environment.
  

• True Cost of Food Campaign
  05-18-2008
  This campaign seeks to provoke thought and discussion about the effects of our food choices. The way we eat affects our planet and our quality of life; we hope to help you make more informed choices about what you eat every day.
  

• Is your community a walkable community?
  09-21-2006
  Learn what makes a community walkable
  

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