Farming, food culture celebrated at CMU Food Day
Central Michigan University's own Campus Grow facilitated an event by the name of Food Day. On Oct. 24, students and members of Wesley church gathered together not only to eat delicious, organic food, but to also enjoy the presentation of Chris Swier.
Chris Swier presented a powerpoint in an effort to display the hard work his family puts in to maintain their family farm. He also showed his audience some of the food his family grows on the farm.
Students and families were amused and intrigued by the many anecdotes he told about life as a farmer versus what people expect to be in life as a farmer. Before the presentation began, people were offered food and refreshments. On the menu was green salad, squash soup, vegetable soup, roasted red potatoes, apple crisp and apple cider.
As part of the fun, people were given the opportunity to guess the amount of zip ties in a jar to win a gift card or a jar of honey.
Groups gathered at tables. Member of Campus Grow and Holland junior Becky Vander Sluis, was one of the many people who walked around to greet the audience. She said Campus Grow is an organization that focuses on sustainability, gardening, and lots of support for the local community. Food Day is a national event that helps to celebrate and support farms in the community.
"It celebrates good quality food and local farming. What we did this year was put on a Food Day event and called it a '100 mile meal'. Every thing that we're serving is sourced from within 100 miles," Vander Sluis said. "We started by going to the farmers in our community. A lot of them were willing to donate products, and then we went from there. While we prepared the food, we composted the products and used a lot of good techniques."
The greeter of the event, Waterford junior Lena Butler said that event was also geared towards educating the students of CMU on the importance of knowing where to find good, organic food.
"We are hoping more for the college students because they're just getting out into the world, and they're future consumers of produce from local farms. We want to educate them on where their food actually comes from," Butler said. "The students may think that having food sourced within 100 miles isn't a lot. But, there are so many farms that we want to educate the students on."
Following Swier's presentation, attendees were able to ask questions about his farm. Swier discussed the purpose of what his family does and the importance of maintaining his farm, not only for his family, but also for the benefit of the community.
"If I were to look at local foods, nutrition and sustainability, what I would see is a tremendous change we all need to make," Swier said. "It' s not just the growers; it's not just the consumers. It's not just those who raise food or those who eat it; it's all of us. We need to pay attention to our healthy, sustainability and the food we choose to buy and consume."
