After a five-year hiatus, we are thrilled to see the Sustenance Festival back, featuring 23 city-wide local food-inspired events and celebrations throughout Vancouver. Sponsored by the Vancouver Parks Board, this Festival is just a small taste of the richness of Vancouver’s community-based food programming.
Since 2009, the city-wide Sustenance Festival has provided a unique platform locally, showcasing the amazing neighbourhood and community-based food work that gives space to explore the growing concerns around food in our world, while also celebrating and appreciating the positive ways in which food connects people and cultures.
But Sustenance Festival is also more. It reflects a deeply connected community of kindred spirits, many of whom who are featured in this year’s event, working together in various ways throughout the year to grow the food movement in Vancouver. This year’s festival revolves around the theme of salmon and salmonberries — two vital sources of sustenance and significance in Indigenous culture — which can be seen in the event logo.
The Vancouver Neighbourhood Food Networks are indeed proud partners in this heartfelt Festival.
Check out the Sustenance Festival website for full details on the events listed below.
Oct 16 – Britannia Harvest Ceremony
Oct 17 – Canning at Strathcona Community Centre
Oct 17 – Urban Plant Walk: Exploring Indigenous Flora and City Garden Design – Holistic Buffalo
Oct 18 – Kale Taste Testing Drop In- Frog Hollow Neighbourhood House
Oct 19 – Self-Guided Walking Tour launch – Cottonwood Community Garden
Oct 19 – Natural Dye Garden: Tour & Seed-Saving Session – Still Moon Arts
Oct 20 – West End Garden Club Tales from the Garden – Village Vancouver
Oct 20 – Apple Days – Riley Park Community Garden
Oct 26 – Harvest Fest – South Van Neighbourhood House, Fresh Roots
Oct 27 – Indigenous Women Rise Fall Celebration
Oct 29 – Nourishing food sampling highlighting surplus food – CityReach Care Society
Oct 30 – Potluck Dinner & Food Systems Conversation – Vancouver Urban Food Forest Foundation
Oct 30 – Canning 101 – Hastings Community Centre
Nov 2 – How to Make Vitamin C Gummy Bears/Wild and Edible Plant Walk (for children and youth aged 18 and under)
Nov 2 – Day of the Dead – Ancestral Food Ways
Nov 5 – DIY Beeswax Wraps and Zero Waste in the Kitchen – Village Vancouver
Nov 10 – Discover the Magic of One-Pot Cooking! – Trout Lake Community Centre
Nov 13 – Getting Around to Feed Ourselves Well – BC Poverty Reduction Coalition
Nov 13 – Permaculture Vancouver November Meetup and community meal – Village Vancouver
Nov 14 – Nutritious Dishes – Kiwassa Neighbourhood House
Nov 18 – The Painful Truth About Hunger in America Author Talk with Marian Chilton, Carnegie Community Centre – Vancouver Food Justice Coalition
Nov 19 – The Painful Truth About Hunger in America Book Author Talk with Marian Chilton, Spartacus Books – Vancouver Food Justice Coalition
Nov 20 – The Painful Truth About Hunger in America Book Launch and Author Talk with Marian Chilton and Leona Brown, Vancouver Community College – Vancouver Food Justice Coalition