University YMCA Friday Forum focuses on food

This spring, the University YMCA‘s Friday Forum series will focus on food justice. The forum series takes places each Friday at noon at the University YMCA (1001 South Wright Street, Champaign). 

From the website:

FOOD JUSTICE
Local, regional, and national speakers will address a number of important facets of Food Justice, including the global food security, local and national politics of food assistance, issues of food sovereignty, local food systems, food production and the environment, food labor, urban agriculture, and interfaith efforts to alleviate hunger.

THE SPRING 2015 FRIDAY FORUM LECTURE SERIES SCHEDULE
All Friday Forums are at 12 Noon in the Y’s Latzer Hall

1/30 Justice in The Global Food Economy, Kelsey Timmerman, author, Where Am I Eating?

2/6 Expanding the Local Food Movement, panel including Brad Uken (Champaign County Farm Bureau), Natalie Kenny Marquez (Urbana’s Market at the Square), Rick Weinzierl (UIUC), and Dawn Blackman (Randolph Street Community Garden)

2/13 Food Assistance: How Our Politics Shape the Way We Help, Andrea Rundell (YWCA) and Michael Gillespie (EIU)

2/20 Food Justice Matters: Toward a New Black Food System Model, Lou Turner (UIUC),

2/24 “A Place at the Table” film screening at the Art Theater, 7:30pm. All proceeds will support Sola Gratia Farm and increase donations of produce to the Eastern Illinois Foodbank.

2/27 Hunger as an Interfaith Issue, Rev. Jennifer Bailey (Faith Matters Network)

3/6 Food, Farm Bills and the Environment, Craig Cox (Environmental Working Group)

3/13 Living Wages and a Fair Workplace in the Food Services, Denzel Baldwin (Fight for 15)

Friday Forum has been continuously running for over 80 years at the University YMCA, continually adapting to the times while remaining committed to providing talks that address topics of relevance and urgency in our society.

Sponsors :
Channing-Murray Foundation, The Chapel of Saint John the Divine Episcopal Church, C-U AAUW, Eastern Illinois Foodbank, First Mennonite Church, Common Ground Food Coop, Naomi and Eric Jakobsson, Mary Kruse, LGBT Resource Center, McKinley Presbyterian Church and Foundation, Saint Matthew Lutheran Church/Sola Gratia Farm, Social Action Committee of the Unitarian-Universalist Chuch of Urbana-Champaign, Urbana- Champaign Friends Meeting, Wesley United Methodist Church, Wesley Foundation at the University of Illinois, YWCA of the University of Illinois