Center for Food Systems and Community Transformation

Just a reminder that TOMORROW is our upcoming Center Fellow Speaker Series, "Results from the 2024 Virginia Tech Employee Food Access and Wellbeing Study." We will be joined by Dr. Chanita Holmes, Dr. Sarah Misyak, and Dr, Ralph Hall! This session will be held from 2:00-3:00pm ET, and you can join either on Zoom, or in person at the Newman Library in the Goodall Room! You only need to register if you will be attending from Zoom, so the link and QR code can be found in the flyer below. We hope to see you there. https://lnkd.in/ei8GuJDG

Get ready to join us for our next Center Fellows Speaker Series: "Results from the 2024 Virginia Tech Employee Food Access and Wellbeing Study." On March 19th, we will be joined by Dr. Chanita Holmes, Dr. Sarah Misyak, and Dr, Ralph Hall, who will speak on the Virginia Tech Employee Food Access and Wellbeing Survey which assessed food security among university employees, particularly staff and non-tenure track faculty. The study aims to shed light on how food insecurity may impact the wellbeing and effectiveness of the university’s workforce. This session will be held from 2:00-3:00pm ET, and you can join either on Zoom, or in person at the Newman Library in the Goodall Room! You only need to register if you will be attending from Zoom, so the link and QR code can be found in the flyer below. We hope to see you there! https://lnkd.in/ei8GuJDG

Our Blacksburg area Center team decided to channel our intentions and “take aim” by going on an axe throwing team building outing! Thank you 540 Social in Blacksburg for hosting us! #moredetermined

Join us tomorrow for our next Fellow's talks, featuring Adam Taylor of the Catawba Sustainability Center! College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Virginia Tech#RegenartiveAgriculture Center for Food Systems and Community Transformation #regenerativegrazing #localfoodeconomy

Thank you so much to the Translational Plant Sciences Center for bringing us all together around the theme of Agricultural Resilience during their Annual Symposium and Summit! Our Director, Dr. Kim Niewolny, and one of our Center Fellows, Dr. Ozzie Abaye, along with colleges from different disciplines and institutions were just able to engage in a lovely dialogue around agricultural resilience. Yesterday Center Associates, Dr. Lia Kelinsky-Jones and Dr. Katie Trozzo, were also part of a summit exploring cross disciplinary collaboration to support agricultural resilience of small farmers.

We invite you to join us for our first Center Fellow Speaker Series Presentation of the year! With us will be Adam Taylor, Manager of the Catawba Sustainability Center. This event is on February 26, from 2:00-3:00pm. The link and QR code to register can be found in the flyer below; We hope to see you there! https://lnkd.in/ebRrfDqS

Our Center team was thrilled to connect, learn, and collaborate with extension professionals across Virginia at the Virginia Cooperative Extension Winter Conference held at the Inn at Virginia Tech this week! A few highlights: ? Dr. Kim Niewolny and Dr. Katie Trozzo collaborated on a session titled "Storytelling from Soil to Plate: Community Cultural Development Approaches for Food Systems Programming," where they also facilitated a story circle for participants. ? Dr. Lia Kelinsky-Jones presented her poster, "Extension Strategies for Food Systems Resilience in Appalachia." ? Roberto Franco, Dr. Kim Niewolny and partners Jeremy Daubert and Laura Siegel presented on "Farm Stress, Safety, Wellness, and Suicide Prevention Education for VCE Professionals" ? Dr. Katie Trozzo and partners, Adam Downing, Dr. John Munsell, Dr. John Fike, and Tim Mize, led a session on "Agroforestry 101" for VCE professionals. A huge thank you to the organizers, speakers, and everyone who connected with us. We’re leaving energized, inspired, and ready to put new ideas into action! ???? #VirginiaCooperativeExtension #WinterConference #CommunityImpact #ExtensionExcellence #Teamwork

The Center Fellows Speaker Series has RETURNED! We have four fantastic speakers that will be joining us each month from February to May, talking all about the powerful work that is being done by our fellows. Registration is available now for each session, and can be accessed by copying and pasting the tinyURL links found in the flyer below. Feel free to share this with your peers, and we hope to see you there!

Our Center Associate, Dr. Katie Trozzo, joined as part of the leadership team for the Roanoke Foodshed Network's (RFN) January All Partner Meeting where we launched our new Regional Food Systems Partnership Implementation grant! The grant connects the RFN with new partners and will support existing and new initiatives of the network!

Virginia Urban Agriculture in Petersburg!