There’s good eating close by, and a variety of perks are coming in September: That’s the message from Eat Local First Olympic Peninsula, which launches its new campaign today.
In an effort to raise awareness of the food being harvested across Jefferson and Clallam counties, a flock of partners are inviting everybody to try something new, and then post about it on social media.
On the Eat Local First Olympic Peninsula Instagram and Facebook pages — via @eatlocalfirstolypen — there awaits a game card: the September Virtual Bingo Challenge. It offers specific activities:
• Learn something new about a local farm.
• Shop at a farmers market or farm stand.
• Preserve a local food for winter.
• Eat a 100 percent local meal.
• Eat local seafood.
• Try a new local product.
• Get takeout that includes local food.
• Eat local on a budget or help others to do so.
People can post photos of themselves engaging in such pursuits on the Eat Local First pages, and see what others around the Peninsula are doing, said Patricia Hennessy, director of the Local Food Trust and a spokesperson for the campaign.
“It’s going to be really fun to see what people come up with,” she said.
“You can look at the Bingo card and say, ‘I’m going to go over to Key City Fish (in Port Townsend) for the very first time,’ ” for example, or, like Hennessy did on a recent weekend, you can stop by one of the farm stands in the Chimacum Valley.
Each time consumers make hash-tagged posts, they will be entered to win one of several prizes in the September drawings. Those include dinner and a night’s stay in a premium room at the Red Lion Hotel in Port Angeles, a picnic basket loaded with locally made goods and gift cards for Country Aire Natural Foods in Port Angeles, Aldrich’s Market in Port Townsend and the Chimacum Corner Farmstand, among other stores.
The benefits of eating local include a more resilient hometown economy, Hennessy added.
“COVID really messed with the supply chains” around the world, she said.
In contrast, she added, buying food from local farmers, fishers and producers strengthens local connections.
Farmers markets in Port Angeles, Sequim, Port Townsend and Chimacum have programs that make fresh produce more affordable for people using Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, Hennessy said.
Farmer Anderson Mackenzie, who works at Foggy Hog Farm of Port Townsend, debuted his products at the Port Townsend Farmers Market last Saturday. He spoke with prospective buyers one at a time about the operation’s community-supported agriculture (CSA) shares, its sausages and its “A pig with a purpose” motto.
This is the most local of food: Foggy Hog Farm is on Seventh Street off Discovery Road, on the same land where owner Alex Lemay, Mackenzie’s brother-in-law, was born.
Victoria Gilligan, who worked her friend Kelli Winter’s Crust Bakery stand at the Port Townsend Farmers Market, said she’s been watching the local food network expand.
“I have good faith that we have a lot of new young people here, really putting down roots to continue to build that infrastructure” for farming, she said.
“It’s a super blessing,” Gilligan added, to have local providers such as the Cocoa Forge, a chocolate maker in Port Townsend.
To help hungry people find the farm stands, farmers markets and food producers nearest them, the Eat Local First campaign offers a directory, complete with maps, that asks the user for a ZIP code and then shows the places to go within 5 to 200 miles.
It’s called the Washington Food & Farm Finder, and its address is https://eatlocalfirst.org/wa-food-farm-finder.
Hennessy said the Local Food Trust has many partners in this campaign. Among them are the Port Townsend Food Co-Op, Washington State University Extension’s Regional Small Farms Programs, the North Olympic Land Trust and the Olympic Culinary Loop.
For information and links, see https://eatlocalfirstolypen.com.
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Jefferson County senior reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3509 or durbanidelapaz@peninsuladailynews.com.
Farmer Anderson Mackenzie talks with Victoria Gilligan about Foggy Hog Farm in Port Townsend, where the motto is “a pig with a purpose,” at the Port Townsend Farmers Market. Such markets are among the destinations in this month’s “Eat Local First” campaign. (Diane Urbani de la Paz/Peninsula Daily News)
