How to address food security in Interior Alaska?
Well, you start with Mel Sikes, go to schools, and community, teach about growing a garden, composting, preserving and then put programs in schools where kids are taught about growing greens all year around, where students are loving the lettuce that THEY grow so much that they are having lettuce eating contests! You also have Mel have a vision of food hub and community kitchens, the two most needed facilities that can help us grow more, store more and use DEC certified kitchens to preserve more.
I had an opportunity to sit down with Melissa Sikes to discuss her work with Fairbanks Soil and Water Conservation District, food security, education and training programs and learned a lot! There is so much work being done by her and the Alaska Food Policy Council that one can’t be anything but awed and impressed.
Mel is a tireless foot soldier who has this impressive talent is getting funding for many of the programs she teaches through grants. She works her magic and again and again secures grants and funds when there is no state funding, even though the entity she works for is a State Agency.
Her wonderful personality and her go getter attitude is infectious! She has a lot of fans! People working across the board in farming, farmers markets, food policy, university, community, schools and collaborates with everyone so she can keep pushing this issue of food security to everyone’s forefront!
On this episode I’m speaking with the imminent authority of food security, and educator and the go to person on all things locally grown food. She travels all over the Interior and Northern region, and is the go to person when an idea emerges and the collaborators want advice on how to secure funding and how to proceed.