The recent One Call for All fundraising campaign was the most successful ever for EduCulture as a result of tremendous support from a Bainbridge Island community partnership with One Call for All (OCFA) and The Harbour Public House.

As a result, EduCulture doubled the number of contributors and tripled the number of contributions, an incredible example of the difference community partnership can make! The campaign brought in a record $11,500; $8,000 through One Call for All, and $3,500 in direct contributions to EduCulture.

EduCulture was honored to be featured in two local fundraising campaigns that became one community partnership.

Building a Tradition of Giving with One Call for All
This fall, EduCulture was one of five featured partner agencies in the OCFA campaign. It is clear that having our work highlighted helped educate the community about our locally grown work, and created a greater identity for EduCulture.

As with previous years, contributions raised through this Bainbridge Island tradition of giving will go to support our locally grown Edible Education and Heritage Education programs serving Bainbridge Island.  We would not be able to accomplish we what we set out to do this year without OCFA.  Some of the projects that One Call for All funds will help underwrite include:

• The development of school garden programs at partner elementary schools: Wilkes, Ordway and Blakely.
• The Edible Democracy Project; an intercultural edible education exchange program between Island students and students from neighboring tribal and urban schools, to celebrate the unity and diversity of our regional foodshed.
• Further development of our Heritage Education program at historic Suyematsu Farm.
• Our 5th Bainbridge Island delegation to Manzanar, the former concentration camp where our Japanese American neighbors were sent during WWII.

“The support we receive from One Call for All is not just an important source of economic capital to support the work of EduCulture, it is a valuable source of cultural, educational and community capital that keeps us grounded and invested in serving our local community,” says managing director Jon Garfunkel.

The Pub Steps Up to Support EduCulture
Harbour Public House and its owners, Jeff and Jocelyn Waite, launched a fall-winter campaign to help publicize the work of EduCulture with a feature article on their menu, showcasing other promotional materials at the restaurant, and offering to match up to $7,500 in contributions to EduCulture through OCFA.

The generous matching contribution from Harbour Public House will help enrich and enhance our programs with Butler Green Farms at historic Morales and Suyematsu Farms.
The $7500 in matching funds from the Pub will be utilized in several areas:

• Building a multi-use outdoor classroom for students to process and prepare food they help raise on the farm, bringing the learning experience from place to taste
• Much needed soil amendments to the instructional plot that has served our farm-school and BISD Bite of Bainbridge programs so well since 2010
• Further development of infrastructure and curriculum for our Chicken School House, where students will learn about the animal’s life cycle and food production. It will also serve as a community learning lab for raising backyard chickens.
• Adding to EduCulture’s existing menu of field studies, we will be continuing the development of demonstration stations and curriculum around the study of local greens and strawberries – from farm to fork.

“We are so grateful for these community partnerships that help feed the work of EduCulture,” says Jon Garfunkel. “To be educational partners with the farmers whose produce we find at our farmer’s market, our local grocery store, and at restaurants like The Pub, is displaying the model of a healthy, local, durable food chain that so many of us seek in our local community. It is a lesson for our students in everything: food miles to food systems – and farm stewardship to food citizenship.”

We, at EduCulture, are so grateful for these wonderful examples of community commitment, caring, and philanthropy.

Foodshed dessert

Foodshed band

Foodshed guests2

Foodshed salad

Foodshed guests1

Foodshed apps

Foodshed large room

More than 55 guests joined EduCulture on December 15, 2013 for a five course, locally grown, farm-style meal in support of Edible Education. The first in a series, EduCulture was gifted the farm-table dinner, which was sourced and prepared by The Food Shed of Kingston, WA. 

The menu was designed to represent the bounty of our regional foodshed, prepared in a fashion to mark the true nature of the season – SLOW. The five course meal included:

• wine made and grown locally by Bainbridge Vineyards
• homemade crackers, local cheeses, fruits, and krauts
• quinoa salad with winter greens and beets
• roasted pumpkin and coconut soup with chicken curry empanadas
• roasted, spiced goat with root vegetables, chutney and polenta; potlatch pilaf croquettes
• gingerbread with poached pears and cinnamon molasses whipped cream

Guests mingled with local producers and enjoyed entertainment provided by a storyteller and Bluegrass band. The Filipino-American Hall, with its rich history and comfortable features, provided a great setting for the evening.

All proceeds from this event will benefit our Edible Democracy Project, a ground breaking intercultural edible education exchange program, pairing island, tribal and urban schools and their food communities.

A Future Foodshed Series
This foodshed to fork dinner is the pilot for what EduCulture hopes will be a series of dinners that bring people together season by season to taste our way through the wild and cultivated food traditions of our Pacific Northwest bioregion, which some call Salmon Nation. EduCulture and The Food Shed are partnering to help deliver this convivia dinner series built on what is seasonal and regional, all sourced locally, fairly and sustainably.

Thank you to all of our guests, producers, and entertainers for making this such a lively, delicious, and meaningful evening!

About The Food Shed
The Food Shed’s objective is to cultivate conscious consumption by advocating local and sustainable food sources and cycles. They strive to be stewards of our own food shed by providing local food experiences, enriching relationships between micro-producers, growers and local consumers, and modeling a “cradle to cradle” food hub that is centered in a deep local economy. The Food Shed makes sure every step along the food chain, from production to recycling, works in a cyclical and durable progression, and strive to pioneer new ways of collaboration and food interdependence, which in turn encourages farm literacy, folk culture, and micro economic viability from the root of the community. To learn more about The Food Shed, visit www.KitsapFoodShed.com or see their Facebook page.