The Ottawa chapter of the Canadian Organic Growers is throwing a midwinter fundraising feast on Monday, Jan. 26 at 6 p.m. at the Courtyard restaurant in the Byward Market.
The event will benefit a summer camp program that teaches youth about food production.
The medieval-themed soirée starts at 6 p.m. and boasts an agenda fit for a king. The program co-ordinator of the Ottawa Chapters, Lynda Hall, says guests will get to watch a local fire dancer, enjoy chants from a youth theatre dressed as wandering minstrels. They will also indulge in a dinner of roasted lamb, veggies, oysters and cheeses (all locally and organically produced) and take home a hand-painted goblet as a souvenir.
The Canadian Organic Growers is a not-for-profit organization working with farmers and gardeners to promote sustainable, organic food production. It started a youth outreach program in 2007 called Growing Up Organic.
Brianna Aird, a Grade 10 student at Canterbury High School, participated in the program last summer.
She says campers spent the first three in Ottawa, looking at community and school gardens and creative urban gardens. Aird says students between the ages of 11 and 14 years old were sent to Alpenblick farm, near Stittsville, where they helped out in the garden and tended to the cows, goats and sheep during the last two days of the five-day program.
“We learned the nitty-gritty of farming,” says Aird, 15, who is a vegetarian.
In addition to getting their hands dirty and learning how to grow food in the city, Aird says the participants learned about where food comes from.
“We talked about food security and peak oil and the effects those things have on our food supply,” said Aird.
She says the camp was “perfect” for her because she wants to be an urban farmer when she grows up.
Fran Doy, a self-proclaimed recreational “organic grower,” says she jumped at the chance to support the Ottawa chapter.
While she has no affiliation with the association, Doy says she is happy to shell out the $150 for a dinner ticket. “I’m getting a tax receipt for $120, so I feel like I’m getting a deal – Only $30 for a dinner like that,” says Doy.
Doy says she supports the program because it’s important for “young people these days to know where their food is from. They see how it is grown and that they can grow it themselves.”
She says she’s sure the dinner will be “delicious” and is excited to partake of the roasted organic lamb and meet people with interests similar to hers.
Hall says this is the first time the Ottawa chapter of the Canadian Organic Growers has hosted this kind of fundraiser, but they are considering making it an annual event.
The Ottawa chapter’s program co-ordinator says their goal was to raise $3,000 to supplement three five-day long sessions of the camp.
This summer will be the Ottawa camp’s second season, says Hall.
If all 60 tickets sell, they will have raised $7,200.
For more information on how to purchase tickets, contact Lynda Hall at 613-233-6294.