The University of Colorado Boulder's "Food and Environmental Justice Week" will be held on campus April 11-17.
The weeklong event features films, panel discussions, the Buffalo Can Challenge, Food Justice Fair and Better Boulder Better World service and volunteer event. The week is sponsored by CU-Boulder's Volunteer Resource Center, Environmental Center and Institute for Ethical and Civic Engagement.
Each year millions of people around the world suffer from a shortage of food and problems associated with environmental degradation, and the weeklong event is meant to help bring these issues to light, according to Anna Domenico, director of CU-Boulder's Volunteer Resource Center.
"There are so many amazing people on campus and in the community who are working on cutting-edge issues surrounding food access and environmental justice, so it made perfect sense to organize this event to highlight the innovative things people are doing on campus and in the community," said Domenico.
The Food Justice Fair, featuring the fourth annual Buffalo Can Challenge, will be held on Wednesday, April 13, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Dalton Trumbo Fountain Court outside the University Memorial Center. The fair will include a public theater performance, live music and information tables from 15 organizations that represent a wide variety of perspectives and projects surrounding food justice, according to Domenico.
The film "Dive! Living Off of America's Waste" will be shown on Thursday, April 14, at 7 p.m. in the Visual Arts Complex room 1B20. The film will be followed by a question and answer session with Jeremy Siefert, the film's director; Elizabeth Kucinich, an international advocate for human rights; and Kelly Shea, vice president of White Wave Foods.
On April 16-17, the Better Boulder Better World service event will be held. Several service opportunities are available for volunteers, including working at Boulder community farms, planting trees, restoring the Fourmile Canyon burn area and others. For more information or to sign up to volunteer visit www.colorado.edu/vrc/bbbw/index.html.
"Food justice is a concept that suggests there is enough food to feed all the hungry people in the world, but that those people don't have fair or equal access to this food," said Peter Simons, director of CU-Boulder's Institute of Ethical and Civic Engagement. "This weeklong event fits into our campus goal of graduating civically engaged students because it gives them the opportunity to investigate where their food comes from, while also giving them a multitude of service opportunities."
A full schedule of events can be found at www.colorado.edu/vrc/bucc
