Food Justice Events - September 2023

Join Healthy Acadia, Impact Justice, and College of the Atlantic, on September 7, 8, and 9, 2023 for these food justice conversations and community gathering events.

Food Justice Farm Dinner

Thursday, September 7, 2023 | 5:30 p.m.

Beech Hill Farm

171 Beech Hill Rd, Mount Desert, Maine

Healthy Acadia and Impact Justice will once again host a dinner and conversation focused on food justice in Maine’s prisons and jails. The evening, held at College of the Atlantic’s Beech Hill Farm, will feature renowned guest speakers Maria Girouard and Randall Liberty and benefit Healthy Acadia’s Downeast Restorative Harvest project and Impact Justice’s Chefs in Prisons. The experiences and perspectives of these two outstanding individuals will engage diners in meaningful thought and conversation around topics of food justice. This, while they enjoy a beautiful and delicious meal featuring local foods and support two critically important food access and corrections projects.

A member of the Penobscot Nation, Maria Girouard is the Executive Director of Wabanaki REACH. She holds a master’s degree in history from the University of Maine and is a historian with particular expertise in the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act. Maria is a longstanding community organizer and activist for environmental and social justice. She is a founder of The Peoples' Garden community garden at Penobscot Nation and dedicates many volunteer hours to community gardening. Maria is a 2015 recipient of the prestigious Maryann Hartman Award for her advocacy work on preserving the rights and cultural heritage of the Penobscot Nation.

Randall Liberty is Commissioner of the Maine Department of Corrections and holds responsibilities to guide and manage the administration of Maine’s adult and juvenile correctional facilities and programs. He is also a certified UMaine Extension Master Gardener and founder of the prison’s gardening program. Commissioner Liberty has more than 36 years of leadership experience in the fields of corrections and law enforcement, having served as the Warden of the Maine State Prison since 2015 where he has worked to reduce recidivism through enhanced programming, education, and vocational training.

*** Limited public tickets are available for this event. For more information, please contact Development@HealthyAcadia.org. ***

Visions of Food Justice: Community and Carceral Systems in Maine

A Panel Discussion

Friday, September 8, 2023 | 9:30 to 10:30 a.m.

College of the Atlantic, Center for Human Ecology Room 102

105 Eden Street, Bar Harbor, Maine

Across the nation, people are working to transform food systems. Carceral food systems are no exception.

The Downeast Restorative Harvest project is breaking ground on a community garden in Washington County, Maine, to engage jail and prison residents, members of the recovery community, agriculture educators, and other community members in growing food for the jail’s kitchen and for donation to local food assistance programs. Maine State Prison has developed a robust horticultural training program to provide healthy food and meaningful vocational training for residents. Nationally, groups like Impact Justice are working to expand access to nourishing food in prisons and jails as a fundamental human right.

In this panel, Dr. Kourtney Collum will lead a discussion with Regina Grabrovac, Leslie Soble, and Rebekah Mende about their work and expertise on these and other projects to realize food justice and build community food security in Maine and beyond. 

Dr. Kourtney Collum is the Partridge Chair in Food and Sustainable Agriculture Systems and Associate Dean of Faculty at College of the Atlantic (COA). Kourtney teaches a range of courses that examine ways of transforming food systems to achieve better health, equity, justice, and sovereignty for the humans and other-than-human beings entangled in those systems. Kourtney holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology & Environmental Policy and an M.S. in Forest Resources from the University of Maine, Orono. She has conducted research with farmers, beekeepers, and maple syrup producers across Maine and Maritime Canada to better understand human-environment interactions within agriculture, particularly the ways in which social and political conditions influence on-farm practices. Kourtney serves on the board of the Bar Harbor Food Pantry, is a member of the MDI Food Access Project and the Hancock County Food Security Network, and serves on the advisory council for the Downeast Restorative Harvest Project. Kourtney’s most recent work focuses on addressing the growing rate of hunger among college students across the United States, including at COA.

Regina Grabrovac (she/her) is a previous farmer and lifelong homesteader. For the last twelve years, in her role as Food Programs Manager at Healthy Acadia, Regina has managed various food programs across Washington County that help increase food security and access to healthy foods, including the Downeast Gleaning Initiative, Washington County Food Pantry Network, and several community gardens. Regina has decades of commercial and small-scale organic farming experience and is an organic certification inspector for several state and international agencies. Currently, Regina is leading the on-the-ground efforts to develop the Downeast Restorative Harvest program, a large community garden based in Machias in partnership with the Washington County Jail and the Maine Department of Corrections. This program will provide opportunities for jail residents to participate in gardening and educational programming to support residents' ability to gain employment in their communities upon release, as well as to benefit their physical and mental health. Regina is an alumnus of College of the Atlantic and holds a BA in Agricultural Economics from Marlboro College.

Rebekah Mende is the Vocational Trades Instructor in Sustainability with Maine State Prison. The maximum-security correctional facility is well known for its robust horticultural program, which engages residents in the growing of food for the prison’s dining services and local food pantries. The prison has also partnered with UMaine Cooperative Extension to offer a horticultural training program for prison residents looking to develop skills in the horticulture industry. In addition to providing meaningful job-readiness training for residents, the garden and compost programs have led to significant cost savings for the facility. Rebekah holds an MS in Food Systems and Society from Marylhurst University and received a Bachelor of Science in Community Development from Portland State University. She has focused her work on prison food reform for over 10 years with combined experience in both private-sector prison advocacy as well as present-day security-informed experience.

Leslie Soble (she/her) manages the Food in Prison Project and is the lead author of Impact Justice’s national report, Eating Behind Bars: Ending the Hidden Punishment of Food in Prison. An ethnographer and folklorist, Leslie has spent nearly five years immersed in research on the carceral eating experience and its impacts on individuals, communities, and the environment. In her current role, she oversees Impact Justice’s initiatives at the intersection of food and incarceration. Leslie holds an MA in cultural sustainability from Goucher College, with a focus on the intersection of foodways, narrative theory, and social practice art, and received her BA in gender studies from Brown University, where her course of study focused on grassroots movements for social change.

*** This event is open to the public. Pre-registration requested. To register, click here. For more information, please email kcollum@coa.edu. ***

Downeast Restorative Harvest Garden Party

September 9, 2023 | 4 to 7:30 p.m.

Downeast Restorative Harvest Garden

73 Broadway, Machias

Join us on the Downeast Restorative Harvest land for an unforgettable evening celebrating the innovative community garden program. The event will open with a pray led by Dwayn Tomah, Passamaquody Language Keeper. Prepare to be enchanted by an incredible lineup of musicians featuring renowned fiddling sensation, Gus La Casse, and the soul-stirring sounds of Milk and Honey Rebellion.

While a suggested donation of $20 to support Downeast Restorative Harvest is greatly appreciated, we won't turn anyone away!

*** This event is open to the public and everyone is welcome! Registration is not required. Bring your friends, family, and neighbors - everyone is welcome to join in the fun!

For more information please email Regina@HealthyAcadia.org or call 207-255-3741. ***