Portland State’s Food Week kicked off last Monday, Oct. 21 and ran through the afternoon of Friday, Oct. 24.
Hosted by PSU’s Food Action Collective, the event’s purpose was to celebrate National Food Day, while also showing the diverse ways in which we can engage with our food system and raise awareness about healthy and sustainable food.
The week began with the Food Week Carnival. The week’s most popular event saw an estimated 150 people pass through the carnival—located at the Native American Student and Community Center—between the hours of 12 and 4 p.m. on Oct. 21.
Local businesses SoupCycle and Mixteca provided soup and tamales for festival goers to enjoy while they took pictures at the photo booth, had their faces painted, and entered the Bob’s Red Mill Raffle.
Those with a sweet tooth sampled homemade pumpkin desserts and voted for their favorites in the Pumpkin Treat Bake-Off. Others perused tables manned by representatives of Kitchen Share, Guayaki, Columbia Gorge Organics, Las Mujeres, Bob’s Red Mill, and Three Sisters Tortillas.
A tour of the Oregon Food Bank was originally planned to be the second event of the week, but was canceled because of low expected attendance. FAC co-chair Kelsey Hoffman speculated that the timing of the event most likely had the heaviest impact on attendance.
“It was early and right in the middle of the school [and] work week—a rough time for most people to make it out,” Hoffman said.
Food Week continued Wednesday, Oct. 23 with its next event—a preview screening of the film Gaining Ground a Short Film + Dialogue. The producers of the film intended to be there, but had a conflict with filming they were doing elsewhere and were unable to make it to the showing.
“There were some good stories that provided a nice perspective, but the main point was a bit unclear in the 20 minutes the film lasted,” sophomore Amelia Sherman said. “I liked it, but it left me wanting to know more about the purpose behind the film.”
Key stakeholders in PSU’s food system were on hand to chat and answer questions at Food Week’s next event, the Food Policy Panel on Thursday, Oct. 24.
Conversation topics included how their companies were involved at PSU and what they could make better. After the panel, attendees broke up into workshops to discuss more specific topics.
“I thought the information was really concise,” said PSU sophomore Sonya Friedman. “It was just enough to be able to wrap your head around.”
Wrapping up the week was a relaxed lunch in the Greenspace. FAC members gave information on how to get involved in future events and chatted about the week.
“Next year I’d like to start planning earlier and get more people involved,” Hoffman said. “It would be great to collaborate with other groups and do a bit more outreach.”
