Peanut Festival & Celebration of Local Food
/2020 date - CANCELLED
Keene Parks & Recreation Center park,
312 Washington Street, Keene, NH
Keene residents are invited to enjoy novelty games, shows, concessions, raffles, workshops, and locally produced desserts at the Peanut Carnival and Celebration of Local Food, DATE TBA, 5:30pm – 8:30pm at the Keene Recreation Center park. The Monadnock Farm and Community Coalition has teamed up with the City of Keene to provide a family friendly event that is both fun and helps to familiarize residents with programs that help to make local food purchases affordable.
The Celebration of Local Food will offer: free raffles for $15 gift certificates to food trucks and more, fresh, locally grown food samples, pudding from Echo Farm Pudding, Ice Pops from Cheshire Garden, gelato from Frisky Cow Gelato, container garden workshops, takeaway seed pots for children and more.
Residents can learn more about “Granite State Market Match” (GSMM) -- a matching fund that enables SNAP recipients to "double up" their fruit and vegetable purchasing, Double Up Food Bucks that offers 50% off fruits and vegetables (with your EBT card) and the Healthy Food For All program at the Monadnock Food Coop.
Keene SNAP recipient, Chrissy Davis explains how one program affected food purchases -- “Thanks to GSMM, I doubled the amount of my fresh blueberry purchases and froze 9 pints to enjoy over the winter. Taking advantage of this program has provided me with a variety of affordable, fresh food I can eat now and throughout the year.”
Other resources are the Monadnock Farm Share program -- providing limited income residents with the opportunity to support local CSA farmers and receive reliable high-quality produce on a regular basis, all season long. The Community Kitchen gleaning program collects and harvests produce, and delivers it to the weekly pantry program and hot meals served at the Community Kitchen. Community Garden Connections (CGC) serves to build local capacity to grow food. Currently, CGC oversees 9 gardens in the Keene area.
Community Garden Connections will be offering a free container gardening workshop during the Celebration of Local Food at the Peanut Carnival. Free takeaway seed pots for children to plant will be available, as well!
UNH Extension Nutrition Connections (UNHNC) offers no-cost, hands on nutrition education that provides limited-resource families the knowledge and skills they need for better health. Christine Parshall, of UNHNC will be sharing easy, affordable recipes using local food.
Cheshire Garden Fruit Ice Pops
A raffle includes: $15 gift certificates to food trucks, pudding from Echo Farm Pudding, Ice Pops from Cheshire Garden, and gelato from Frisky Cow Gelato.
More information and resources will be available at the Celebration of Local Food booths and online at www.mfcommunitycoalition.org/foodforall
Celebration of Local Food events are free except for some desserts. Tickets are bought and used in place of money for the Peanut Carnival. Tickets are $2 per 25, or $4 per 75. Please be aware this is a peanut-free event!
The Celebration of Local Food event is a collaboration of MFCC, Cheshire County Conservation District, Community Garden Connections, The Community Kitchen gleaning, C & S Wholesale Grocers, UNH Extension Nutrition Connections, and Healthy Monadnock.
Don’t miss out on one of the biggest events of the summer for families!
To find out more about the event visit www.mfcommunitycoalition.org/foodforallor Keene Parks and Recreation website, www.ci.keene.nh.u
