Festival of Food and Faith Workshop
Workshop Session A
Sharing Food as a Christian Practice
Dorothy C. Bass
Dorothy is director of The Valparaiso Project on the Education and Formation of People in Faith (Valparaiso University). Books she has authored and edited include Practicing Our Faith: A Way Of Life For A Searching People (1997), Receiving the Day: Christian Practices for Opening the Gift of Time (2000), Practicing Theology: Beliefs and Practices in Christian Life (2002), Way to Live: Christian Practices for Teens (2002), and Leading Lives That Matter: What We Should Do and Who We Should Be (2006). A graduate of Wellesley College, Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and Brown University, Dorothy has taught at several colleges and theological schools.
Justice, Joy, and Daily Bread
Michael Schut
Michael is the editor of the award-winning book/study-guide Simpler Living, Compassionate Life: A Christian Perspective and the book Food and Faith: Justice, Joy, and Daily Bread. Having served on Earth Ministry's staff for 11 years, Michael is now editing a book on faith, money and economics. He has an M.S. in Environmental Studies from the University of Oregon and a B.S. in Biology from Wheaton College.
Defiant Gardens in the Great Northern Feedlot
Fred Bahnson
Fred is the garden manager for Anathoth Community Garden in Cedar Grove, NC. He is also a freelance writer. His poems and essays have appeared in The Christian Century, Orion, Sojourners, and Best American Spiritual Writing 2007. With his wife Elizabeth and their two children, they raise milk goats, sheep and chickens on a small subsistence farm.
Grace Hackney
Grace is beginning her fifth year as the pastor of Cedar Grove United Methodist in rural Orange County, NC. Grace is particularly called to the formation of disciples and communities in practices that will sustain a life of Sabbath living. She and her husband live in Cedar Grove and are the parents of two college-age children.
Mike Mulberry
Mike is pastor of Community United Church in Champaign, IL. A graduate of Eden Theological Seminary, Mike has served as a missionary in Chiapas, Mexico, working with displaced indigenous people of southern Mexico and Guatemalan refugees. He continues this work through Illinois Conference involvement in Illinois Maya Ministry. While Mike finds meaning in the critique of empire within scripture and theological scholarship, he also finds great purpose in playing for the church softball team. Mike believes that God is infused in all of creation and that our holy task is observing, discerning, acting in partnership with, and celebrating God's work in the world. Mike lives in Urbana with his wife and their three children.
Stranded in the Food Desert
Mari Gallagher
Mari is Principal of Mari Gallagher Research and Consulting Group and has enjoyed a national reputation for diverse, high impact projects around the country. As a practitioner, Mari developed transit-oriented initiatives, affordable and energy efficient rental housing, and an award-winning community garden and mural created by former and rehabilitated gang members. As a researcher, Mari has led a variety of qualitative and quantitative projects including studies of "below the radar" data, indexes, neighborhood report cards, and market analyses for undervalued and high-transition African American and Latino urban and rural markets. National media have covered Mari’s research on housing, commercial revitalization strategies, immigration, undocumented Mexican population patterns, traditional and alternative financial services, the ITIN mortgage market, asset building, workforce development, food systems, and public health. Mari lived and studied in Latin America, speaks Spanish, and has a Masters Degree in Urban Planning and Public Policy from the University of Illinois.
Mindful Eating: A Means for Realizing Your Profound Connection
to the Eternal
Phyllis Bowen
Phyllis (Ph.D.) is a professor in the Department of Human Nutrition at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a registered dietician. She has over 80 research publications on oxidative stress and antioxidants metabolism especially in prostate cancer, heart disease and diabetes. She established the Functional Foods for Health Research Program combining over 90 faculty from the Urbana and Chicago campuses of the University of Illinois at Chicago and 30 Industrial Affiliates including several Fortune 500 food and pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Bowen is Assistant Dean in the College of Applied Health Sciences charged with the development of the Urban Allied Health Academy. She is a member of Pilgrim Congregational UCC in Oak Park where she leads an Interior Journey seminar and the Spiritual Gifts Workshops.
Come to the Table: A Hands-on Exploration of
Food and Feast
Carol Montgomery-Fate
Carol is a Parent Educator with the Partners in Learning program, providing intergenerational, interfaith, educational group meetings for families, many of whom are new immigrant or refugee families. She is an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ and a licensed social worker. Carol has served in children’s ministry, as a youth pastor, and as a missionary, and in a variety of community social work settings. She is a member of Pilgrim Congregational Church in Oak Park, Illinois.
Elizabeth Jeep
Elizabeth M. Jeep is associate director of the Siena Center of Dominican University. She lectures at universities and parishes in the Chicago area and nationally and is author of Blessings and Prayers through the Year, and Children’s Daily Prayer for Summertime (Liturgy Training Publications). She holds a doctorate in theology and psychology and is a specialist in religious education.
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Presenter Biographical Information
Workshop Session B
Breaking Bread in Jesus’ Name
Susan Briehl
Susan is a Project Associate with the Valparaiso Project on the Education and Formation of People in Faith. Susan co-authored Practicing Our Faith: A Guide for Conversation, Learning, and Growth and contributed to the Way to Live Leader's Guide. She is a Lutheran pastor (ELCA) who lives in Spokane, Washington with her husband and two daughters. She and her daughters wrote "The Story" and "Food" chapters for Way to Live .
The World on Our Table: Confronting Hidden
Injustices in our Food Choices
Karla Kauffman
Karla (M.Div, D.Min) explores the relationships between our eating and our ecological, social and spiritual life. She writes and speaks on this in her community of Three Rivers Michigan, and in the Mennonite Church. She facilitates a local food sustainability group which is building food stewardship resources in Three Rivers.
Amy Ellison
As a board member for Chicago Fair Trade, Amy works with businesses,
non-profits and the faith community to promote the tenets of fair
trade: just wages, community investment and environmental
sustainability. As the Community Supported Agriculture liaison for
Berry United Methodist Church, she helps educate her congregation and
the church community about domestic farming issues. As a professor
at the Film School at Florida State University, she was initially
challenged to think consciously about consumption by student advisees protesting the university's involvement in sweat shop production.
Growing Power: Urban Partnerships in Faith and Farming
Clare Butterfield
Clare is director of Faith in Place, an interfaith environmental ministry in Chicago that gives religious people tools to become better stewards of creation. Faith in Place congregations work together to support renewable energy, conserve energy, build markets for local sustainable agriculture and fair trade products, and train the next generation of stewards of the earth through urban agriculture with youth. Clare is an ordained Unitarian Universalist community minister. She has an M.Div. from Meadville Lombard Theological School (2000), a J.D. (University of Illinois College of Law, 1983) and a B.A. in History (University of Illinois, 1980), and is currently enrolled in the D.Min program at Chicago Theological Seminary in with a focus on faith and the environment.
Erika Allen
Erika is Projects Manager for Growing Power. As the daughter of Will Allen, she has a small farm agricultural background and experience. She spent her formative years, involved in all aspects of farm management from transplanting seedlings to managing farm stands and farmer’s markets. Ms. Allen has received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and recently received her MA in art therapy from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Years of experience working in urban communities with art education and social service have brought her full circle back to her farming roots. Integrating the creative and therapeutic techniques with food security and community development have enabled Ms. Allen to establish four urban agriculture and food system projects in Chicago, IL. Recent work has included the development of the Chicago Food Policy Council, where she has been elected as co-chair and also serves as civic co-chair for The City of Chicago’s Chicago Organic initiative’s Education, Training and Schools sub-committee. Her specialties include project planning, community food systems design and direct marketing training. Supporting limited resource producers to strengthen their farm businesses and working in partnerships to create healthy and diverse food options in inner city and rural communities. Ms. Allen was an awardee for the Chicago Tribune’s Good Eating Award in 2006 and was honored by Family Focus in 2007 for her work in community food systems.
Welcoming the Hungry and Homeless to the Table
Oreon K. Trickey
Oreon is the Director of Breaking Bread, a ministry of hospitality and outreach to hungry and homeless individuals in the community surrounding LaSalle Street Church in Chicago. She has lived in Chicago for over 13 years, serving in various inner city neighborhoods as an educator and minister. An ordained minister with LaSalle Street Church, she also directs congregational care programs and activities in the church.
Resources for Ethical Eating
Kirsten Peachey
Kirsten is director of Congregational Health Partnerships for Advocate Health Care. She works with faith communities in metropolitan Chicago to support their role in promoting health and healing through training, consultation, resource linking and partnership development. Kirsten also collaborates with other health organizations to engage congregations around impacting the health of their communities and leads numerous grant-funded projects in congregational health. Ordained in the United Church of Christ, Kirsten holds an M.Div from the Chicago Theological Seminary and a M.S.W. from the University of Chicago.
Don Richter
Don serves as Associate Director of the Valparaiso Project on the Education and Formation of People in Faith. Don coordinates resources for youth and youth leaders, including Way to Live: Christian Practices for Teens (co-edited with Dorothy C. Bass) and Mission Trips That Matter: Embodied Faith for the Sake of the World (Spring 2008). An ordained Presbyterian minister (PCUSA), Don was the founding director of the Youth Theological Initiative at Emory University and has taught Christian education at Emory's Candler School of Theology and Bethany Theological Seminary. Don’s essay “Ethical Eating” is on the library page of www.practicingourfaith.org.
The Welcome Table: Exploring God’s Grace through Drama
and Art
Lisa Wagner
Lisa is the founder and director of Still Point Theatre Collective. For over thirteen years, she has toured the country and overseas with Haunted by God: The Life of Dorothy Day. While researching the play, Lisa volunteered with the St. Catherine of Genoa Catholic Worker community, then became a full-time Catholic Worker and lived in the community for two years. Lisa’s performances and productions include: Points of Arrival: A Jean Donovan Journey (exploring the life and commitment of one of the four North American church women killed in El Salvador in 1980); Walking with Them (commissioned by the Sisters of Mercy); Deep Listening (a new production on death and dying). Lisa began a theatre program for women at Chicago’s Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC), and recently expanded the program to three other Illinois institutions. Lisa is also the founder and co-director of The Imagination Workshop, a theatre company for adults with developmental disabilities based at Esperanza Community Services. Lisa holds a B.S.E. degree from Emporia State University.
Carol Montgomery-Fate and Elizabeth Jeep (See workshop A)
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