Date/Time: Tuesday, May 1 | 4:50 - 5:20PM

Speakers: Belinda Chin, Seattle Parks & Recreation

Category: Healthy Lifestyle

Description: The Urban Food System(UFS) program addresses needs that are relevant and timely for every community in Seattle: access to healthy food, engagement with equitable and sustainable environmental practices, opportunities for active recreation and cultural place-making. UFS program priorities for addressing needs include providing access to healthy food and active recreation opportunities, community engagement with parkland used for food production, providing coordinated recreation and learning opportunities focused on Seattle's urban food system, outreach and engagement of youth, seniors and other underserved communities. Seattle Parks & Recreation staff will share about the Urban Food Systems goals and priorities, partnerships and programs, and City of Seattle policies that guide the UFS program.

Learning Objectives:

• Become familiar with Seattle's UFS and Food as an environmental systems topic.
  
  
• Identify issues that impact urban food systems in Seattle and the planet at large.
  
  
• Discuss equity and social justice impacts on urban food systems.

Speakers: Belinda Chin is the Program Coordinator for Seattle Parks and Recreation’s (SPR) Urban Food Systems (UFS) Program. The food grown from SPR gardens and orchards is used for community-building activities informed by diversity, equity, and inclusion practices. This is particularly meaningful for Ms. Chin, the daughter of immigrants who fled their homeland to escape a war shattered environment and agonizing poverty. Her family’s pursuit of culturally relevant food resulted in lasting impressions about boundaries, specifically boundaries that discriminate by race, class, and place. These experiences gave rise to her career committed to civil service and social justice. Green 2.0, a group of environmental professionals committed to increasing racial diversity across mainstream environmental work places at all levels, named Ms. Chin as an accomplished environmental leader of color in their “Leadership at Work” series in October 2017, https://www.diversegreen.org/leadership/