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Arlee Food Sovereignty Committee hires first part-time employee

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ARLEE – Supporting a local food system and promoting healthy eating habits will be Jenny Fowler’s focus in her new position. She will serve as the Arlee Community Development Corporation’s new food sovereignty associate.

The Arlee CDC facilitates projects “deemed to be beneficial socially, physically, economically and culturally to the public interest of the Arlee-Jocko Valley community,” according to the organization’s mission statement. 

In 2017, the CDC held a community visioning session and a common interest in building positive relationships with food emerged. Donna Mollica, a founding member of the CDC, said the group formed a community action team to address issues related to food. “As we met we realized that what we were talking about is food sovereignty in its broadest application,” Mollica said. According to the U.S. Food Sovereignty Alliance, food sovereignty is defined as “the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods.” 

As the food sovereignty associate, Fowler’s primary focus will be to facilitate the organization’s community dining program. She will also implement other food sovereignty initiatives guided by community input. The committee hopes that with the dedication of a staff person, the food sovereignty initiatives developed in Arlee can spread to the rest of the Flathead Reservation.

The origins of Arlee’s food sovereignty initiatives came from Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribal council member Shelly Fyant’s food sovereignty project called “Healing the Jocko Valley” in 2016 and 2017. The grant-funded project focused on empowering residents to participate in the region’s food system and to choose a healthy diet. Through the project, community members were given garden beds and education on growing food in tandem with healthy cooking classes.

The Arlee CDC’s Food Sovereignty Committee adopted the causes that guided Fyant’s project. Since its inception, the food sovereignty committee has held gardening classes, facilitated a farmers market in Arlee and led cooking classes.

In 2018, the group decided to try to encourage families to share meals regularly. A member of the group attended training on The Family Dinner Project.

“It turned out that what we’d been trying to develop on our own is actually a very well done program from Harvard,” Mollica said. According to The Family Dinner Project’s website, the project aims to support families in creating a habit of dining together. Research shows that regular family meals can help children achieve academically and develop emotional resilience.  

The Food Sovereignty Committee chose to facilitate The Family Dinner Project in Arlee, starting with monthly community dinners. The dinners give families the opportunity to eat a free meal together. They allow the committee to distribute information on healthy eating and building positive habits around mealtimes at home. The monthly dinners, which started in October, have been well received with up to 50 attendees each, Mollica said. The Arlee School District and Tribal Health partnered with the Arlee CDC to facilitate the program. 

Initially, the program was funded by small grants from local organizations and staffed by volunteers. Mollica said the committee realized that in order for the initiative to have a long-term impact it would need a paid staff person and a larger source of grant funding. In December of 2018, the Arlee Food Sovereignty Committee received a grant from the Montana Healthcare Foundation that will fund Fowler’s salary for two years. The grant will also fund community dinners and other related programs. It is the first sizeable source of funding the Food Sovereignty Committee has received. 

Mollica said the Food Sovereignty Committee selected Fowler out of a well-qualified pool of applicants. Fowler has experience with family outreach through work she has done for CKST and Nkwusm. According to Mollica, Fowler has extensive knowledge of the Arlee community and has successfully organized events and programs in the past. Fowler was a great candidate because she has the ability to incorporate community input into the development of the Food Sovereignty Committee’s projects, Mollica said. Fowler has also demonstrated her dedication to promoting food sovereignty by volunteering to organize the Arlee Farmers Market. She has extensive knowledge of indigenous food and plant medicine. Mollica is eager to see the project develop under Fowler’s attention. “She’ll really be able to expand our programming,” Mollica said.

 

 

 

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