Buy Local Food In Kitsap

KCAA Looks To Expand Its Board of Directors For Ambitious 2010 Plan

The Kitsap Community and Agricultural Alliance is seeking new, passionate, skilled members to stand for election to the board. In January of 2009 the then existing board laid out its vision of what was needed to advance the cause of local food and local agriculture in a document it has entitled its task force outline. All throughout 2009 in our regular monthly educational meetings, special promotions such our winter CSA promotion and special events such as the recent highly successful Local Food Chef Showoff the KCAA has made measurable progress toward its objectives as we were able to sign up over 200 new subscribers for Kitsap farmers offering CSA shares and nearly 400 people attended the Local Food Chef Showoff.

All that activity has attracted new members and supporters, opening new opportunities to accomplish even more for the coming year.

A number of leaders have stepped forward to offer their time, talents and resources to work with KCAA to continue the construction of our local food network. They include:

• Scott Hall of the Legacy Farm Project
• Peggy Hall of the Legacy Farm Project
• Tawnya Hayes of Minder Farm and Minder Meats
• Chris Plemmons instructor in the Olympic College culinary arts program and co-founder of Two Snooty Chefs, a value added food company
• Jade Pope of Jade Agritech, an agricultural service company
• Jill Marie Smith a recent law school graduate from Wisconsin
• Jeff Waite of the Harbour Pub and Pegasus Coffee House on Bainbridge Island

The current board members include:

• Nikki Johanson of Pheasant Fields Farm
• Marilyn Holt of Abundantly Green Farm and Holt Ranch
• William Looney farm management consultant
• Jim Freeman associate broker at Coldwell Banker Park Shore Real Estate

Others interested in standing for board positions should contact Jim Freeman at jimfreeman@jimfreeman.com or call 360-616-7924. Each board position carries a three year term in office.

All candidates will be asked to attend the October 13, 2009 KCAA meeting and introduce themselves to those in attendance. Elections will take place at the November KCAA meeting on 11/10,2009. Election procedures will be publicized in between those dates.

Here are the details of the October meeting:

KCAA October Meeting
The 100 From 500 Campaign
The Kitsap Food Co-op Capital Campaign
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
7:00 to 9:00 pm
Norm Dicks Center, 345 Sixth Street, Bremerton, WA

These candidates embody the KCAA’s strategic vision of helping young people to overcome obstacles to entry into farming and value added food enterprises. Currently, the KCAA has uses performance objectives to measure the value and effectiveness of our volunteer organization. We seek to focus our efforts on initiatives that:

1.Would increase local food capacity and production.
2.Would increase local food consumption.
3.Would extend the growing season.
4.Would extend the selling season.
5.Would leverage existing resources and efforts.
6.Would mitigate constraints to open new markets for farmers or value added vendors.
7.Would increase the incomes of local farmers.
8.Have a probability of paying back funds used with a return of and a return on investment.
9.Create or increase specialized finance or marketing resources for farmers, vendors, distributors and retailers of local food in Kitsap.

Among the most qualified of these initiatives id the 100 from 500 Campaign to raise private capital form local people to fund the procurement of a WSDA mobile poultry processing unit by the Puget Sound Meat Producers Co-op for use by Kitsap farmers and others in a six county area around Puget Sound.