"Invite farmers to talk at your place of worship. If you're a farmer, connect with your local places of worship, even if they're not of your identified faith.
"Start an on-site farmers' market CSA program, or community composting for your congregation.
"Host a community farm-to-table dinner. Encourage guests to cook with at least one local, seasonal ingredient. (Great start: farm-fresh eggs.)
"Organize a CROP Hunger Walk (cropwalk.org). These walks are organized by the Church World Service to raise money to help eradicate hunger around the world. Or simply find the closest one to walk in!
"Organize your congregation to host a film screening, a conference, or a workshop around an issue that is relevant to your community now.
"Encourage fresh, unprocessed, whole foods to be served at community gatherings and coffee hours.
"Investigate whether your existing kitchen can be certified as commercial or whether you want to build a commercial kitchen. Then you may be able to help clean and process gleaned produce or make another value-added product such as cheese, jam, or even beer. (Think like the Trappist monks of St. Joseph's Abbey, in Spencer, Massachusetts, who brew the only Trappist beer outside of Europe.)
Things Clergy Can Do
"Bring congregation members together to focus on food and justice.
"Arrange a special prayer or sermon for Food Day, October 24 every year (foodday.org), or World Food Day, October 16 every year (worldfooddayusa.org).
"Weave food and faith into your sermons. Host local food activists, farmers, fishermen, or beekeepers to speak to your congregation. Invite a farmers' market manager, farmer, or good food advocate to talk about his or her projects, be they focused on food insecurity, school food reform infrastructure, policy, or turning lawns into gardens.
"Start a sustainability committee with a goal of integrating some good food change and action within a year. Compost, build a garden, plant an orchard.
"Engage the youth program around food education every day.
"Partner with other congregations to create a local interfaith lecture/sermon series. Invite the public."
