Healthy Community Society of the North Slocan Valley and the Slocan Lake Arts Council are 2021 SVLF grant recipients for their project: Community Events .
The grant they received helped provide two Harvest Festivals, one Earth Day event, one Composting workshop and the “Let It Flutter” community art project in the New
Denver/Silverton area. Each event included community engagement across all
age groups and community connection. The Healthy Communities Project also
incorporated learning and healthy food or the production of healthy food.
LET IT FLUTTER
The “Let It Flutter” project, co-sponsored with Slocan Lake Arts Council, took place on six different days during the summer at locations throughout New Denver and Silverton and involved 175-200 people of all ages. The small flags, on which participants were invited to share what they’d learned or experienced throughout the past 15 months, were hung on a fence in downtown New Denver and fluttered there for the summer months; they have since been made into a quilt which will be presented to the community this winter.
At the Earth Day Lunch, students and volunteers made over 60 liters of
sauerkraut and Kimchi, cooked eggs with locally made sausage, and spent all
morning in the forest creating clay creatures to leave behind, studying insects,
whittling, cooking bannock and hearing stories told by elders around a fire and
drawing nature sketches. Both Harvest Festivals included innovative ideas such
as carding and felting with sheep wool next to some real sheep, bringing in a
compost expert to go deep into compost making, creating flower garlands, corn
husk dolls and giant batches of Stone Soup and delicious cob oven cooked
bread. 2021’s Stone Soup took on a Persian twist when made by Indy Foorazan.
Apples were scarce in 2022 so we made bicycle powered smoothies instead of
cider! Seedy Saturday could not go ahead but we did save a large quantity of
seeds with the Lucerne Students which we planted, shared around and will sell
as a fundraiser at next year’s Seedy Saturday. Harvest Dinner was replaced by
a full day community event on Compost Making and Compost Teas.
HARVEST FEST 2022
COMPOSTING GROUP
