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LENTEN FERIA
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from Inlander
By Eliza Billingham
If you've been to Zola, you probably have your favorite nook. The Tilt-a-Whirl booth where you had your first date. A front-row seat up close and personal with the band. A bar stool and some hot gossip with Sheldon Moore, your favorite bartender-turned-best-friend. In early December last year, the string lights at Zola were about to go out. Staff whispered to regulars that it was their last shift. Social media posts claimed the bar was permanently closed. After 15 years on West Main Avenue, maybe Zola just wasn't what it used to be. Maybe downtown nightlife in Spokane was fading. When budgets are tight, "going out is not a priority," says Taijah Howard, Zola's general manager. "Rent is." But suddenly, Zola staff took to Facebook to say the bar would stay open through the end of the year and review its options. A glimmer of hope. Was someone going to keep the music playing? That someone was Nick Velis — a dentist, Spokane Valley native and decadelong Zola regular. When he heard his favorite hangout spot might close, he couldn't let it slide. He rallied a group of half a dozen friends and their spouses to buy Zola together, to the delight and relief of staff and guests alike.
By Eliza Billingham
In 2023, over 150 schools in Montana served Montana Marinara, a "picky eater approved" red sauce made with locally grown carrots, squash and onions. It took supply chain funds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and complex coordination between the state's Office of Public Instruction, farmer-owned food cooperatives, and a nonprofit community development organization just to feed Montana kids some veggies grown in Montana. Call them dreamers, but some people don't think it should be that difficult to eat local food. Earlier this month, on Friday, Feb. 16, the Northwest Food Hub Network hosted its third annual summit at Gonzaga University. The event brought together farmers, ranchers, distributors, processors, marketers, policymakers, university researchers, educators and health care workers to brainstorm and share experiences. They spoke in shorthand jargon, like "value chain coordination" and "resilient food chain infrastructure," but the question at hand was simple: How do farmers sell their food to people who live nearby? The Northwest Food Hub Network is an umbrella organization that tries to strengthen and coordinate individual food distributors. It currently supports LINC Foods in Spokane, the Puget Sound Food Hub Farmers Cooperative and the Western Montana Growers Cooperative. Its goal is to create more opportunities to buy and sell local food so small farmers aren't competing against one another, but working together instead.
By Eliza Billingham
Do you know what's in the back of your fridge? How about the corners of your pantry? How many times do you take advantage of a great BOGO deal, only to forget about the bag of spinach liquefying in the guts of your produce drawer? Unfortunately, Spokane County leads the state for the amount of food thrown away each year — about 170 pounds per person, according to a Washington state Department of Ecology study. About a third of all waste in Spokane could have been composted instead of thrown in the garbage. In 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Agriculture created a national goal to cut food loss and waste in half by 2030. Four years later, Washington lawmakers passed the "Use Food Well Washington" plan, with similar goals. The plan also created the Center for Sustainable Food Management within the Department of Ecology. The state "food center" opened in January, with plenty of input from Kris Major, the waste reduction education coordinator for the city of Spokane, and Second Harvest, an Eastern Washington-based food distribution charity.
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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington
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