Ann DeSanctis' July Update

Another month, another successful Pittsburgh Food Policy
Council Meeting. Exciting new attendees are Nicole and Jim from the
University of Pittsburgh Center for Entrepreneurial Excellence. Also, continuing to ramp up, are the plans and contacts for the Regional FPC Symposium. The key players have been identified and Heather and I are now initiating discussions for dates and topics.

With PSU’s budget cuts the main topic of discussion at the office I did some research at the Foundation Center for grants for next year’s Local Foods Showcase and other events and Heather and I applied and received scholarships for the Sustainable Agriculture Education Association conference in Lexington, KY. Blog posting slowed down as I started researching, more in depth, for the next two blogs I have in mind. I tried to balance with interesting articles posted on facebook and was very pleased with the 20% increase of “likes” for the month. As a favor for another Fellow I contributed a policy recommendation piece to the Pittsburgh Climate Action Plan 2.0 and as a fun and educational experience, Heather and I attended a PASA mushroom foraging/cultivation/economic opportunity class in Clarion County.

My SCA involvement was all very fun this month and consisted of
shooting a short film for Lara and GASP, tabling at the Blues Festival, touring a retrofitted diesel tugboat with GASP, and starting to review our service project proposals.

Fun volunteer/training activities on my own time were the Tree
Tenders course through TreePittsburgh, touring the Phipps Center for Sustainable Landscapes through GBA, and volunteering for the “Green Team” at the U2 concert.