Mark your Calendars: Mark Winne is Coming to Colorado

Mark Winne, author of Closing the Food Gap, Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty, is coming to Colorado!

Winne is a renowned food activist. From 1979 to 2003, he was the Executive Director of the Hartford Food System, a private non-profit agency that works on food and hunger issues in the Hartford, Connecticut area. During his tenure with HFS, Mark organized community self-help food projects that assisted the city’s lower income and elderly residents. Mark’s work with the Food System included the development of commercial food businesses, Connecticut’s Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program, farmers’ markets, a 25-acre community supported agriculture farm, a food bank, food and nutrition education programs, and a neighborhood supermarket.

Mark is a co-founder of a number of food and agriculture policy groups including the City of Hartford Food Policy Commission, the Connecticut Food Policy Council, End Hunger Connecticut!, and the national Community Food Security Coalition. He was an organizer and chairman of the Working Lands Alliance, a statewide coalition working to preserve Connecticut’s farmland, and is a founder of the Connecticut Farmland Trust. Mark was a member of the United States Delegation to the 2000 World Conference on Food Security in Rome and is a 2001 recipient of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary’s Plow Honor Award. From 2002 until 2004, Mark was a Food and Society Policy Fellow, a position supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Mark currently writes, speaks, and consults extensively on community food system topics including hunger and food insecurity, local and regional agriculture, community food assessment, and food policy. He also does policy communication and food policy council work for the Community Food Security Coalition. His essays and opinion pieces have appeared in the Hartford Courant, the Boston Globe, The Nation, In These Times, Sierra Magazine, Orion Magazine, Successful Farming and numerous organizational and professional newsletters and journals across the country. His book “Closing the Food Gap — Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty” was published by Beacon Press. He now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he serves on the New Mexico Food and Agriculture Policy Council and the Southwest Grass-fed Livestock Alliance.

Winne will be sharing his knowledge and experiences with us from March 26 – March 29 at the following venues:

• Tuesday, March 26, 6 p.m. -- Live Interview on KCFR 88.9
• Wednesday, March 26, 8-11 a.m. -- Creating a Local Food Policy Council, The Food Bank for Larimer County, 1301 Blue Spruce, Fort Collins, CO -- Winne will share best practices, case studies and the do's and don'ts of starting Food Policy Councils. He will also moderate a discussion and planning session for Larimer County.
• Wednesday, March 26, 4 - 5:30 p.m. -- Presentation and Book Signing Colorado State University, Lory Student Center, Room 213-215, Fort Collins, CO
• Wednesday, March 27, 7 p.m. -- Reading and Book-signing, Matter Bookstore, 144 N. College, Fort Collins, CO
• Saturday, March 29, 2 p.m. -- Discussion and Book-signing
  Tattered Cover Bookstore, 1628 16th Street, Denver, CO