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26 <br />• Savannah Chatham Food Policy Council: Assisted in the creation of a policy to <br />develop a city -run program to collaborate with interested parties to build <br />....community gardens on city -owned property. <br />• Santa Fe Food Policy Council (Santa Fe and Santa Fe County): Collected <br />information from seniors regarding needs and challenges of food access; <br />performed an analysis of their "foodshed," yielding information on the area's <br />food culture and access issues to recommend policy changes. <br />Stakeholders who often find a seat at the food council table include farmers, chefs <br />and restaurant owners, local grocers, educators, food justice advocates, nonprofit <br />and university partners, as well as government officials. <br />Food councils serve as both a platform for community education and a forum for <br />exploring and coordinating innovative solutions to particular issues. Against a <br />national and international backdrop of increasing consolidation of economic power <br />in the food industry, these conversations are necessary and urgent. <br />The Orange County Food Council <br />The Orange County Food Council (OCFC) began as a grassroots effort of local <br />residents involved in the local food system -- chefs, health and nutrition experts, <br />people working on food scarcity, farmers, farmers' market managers, county <br />extension agents, and Carrboro town staff. The first tangible product of this effort <br />was a baseline Community Food Assessment created for the Food Council's initial <br />Task Force, in 2015 -16. This report was created with the support of a microgrant <br />from UNC as part of its pan- university Food For All initiative. The Food Assessment <br />provided a wealth of data on food - related issues within the county, and has served <br />as a useful starting place for identifying gaps and developing an action plan. <br />Over 100 interested attendees participated in the first community meeting, held in <br />2015. The efforts of that first gathering resulted in a one -time grant administered by <br />United Way from the Burt's Bees Foundation, as well as seed funds from Orange <br />County's Agriculture Economic Development grant program. The OCFC was officially <br />formed at this point, and it began meeting in May 2016. <br />The new council had four urgent tasks for that first year -- hosting community <br />forums, forming work groups that could begin taking the actions all the partner <br />organizations are /were eager to undertake, deciding the organizational structure of <br />the Council in the long term, and hiring a part -time coordinator. <br />Two work groups - -Food Access and Local Food Economy - -have been established. <br />The workgroups' priorities emerged from two community forums held in February <br />and March of 2017. Over 100 community members, representatives of area <br />organizations, farmers, small business owners, chefs, and elected officials attended <br />