Come gather with us!
We’re excited to invite you to gather with us in Moh’kinstsis / Calgary on June 17 & 18, 2025!
See you in
!Community Food Centres Canada (CFCC) together with our supporting partners The Alex Community Food Centre (Alberta), Turnor Lake & Birch Narrows Community Food Centre (Saskatchewan) and Norwest Community Food Centre (Manitoba) are hosting a Regional Prairies Gathering for community food organizations that are based in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
What is a Gathering?
It’s a chance to learn, share and gather with Community Food Centres and Good Food Organizations from your region.
Our bi-annual national Food Summits bring together all of our Community Food Centres and Good Food Organizations from coast to coast to coast to Toronto. We were so excited to see many of you this past October at our most recent event! But as our network continues to grow, we’ve been heading out to meet our partners where they’re at.
We’ve hosted our Atlantic partners in Halifax, our BC partners in Vancouver, and Quebec partners in Montreal, and now we’re thrilled to meet our Prairie partners in Moh’kinstsis /Calgary!
What to expect?
This Gathering invites you and your teams to join us for two days of connection, with an emphasis on:
- relationship building
- profiling and learning about your local context and communities
- mobilizing support for shared advocacy priorities.
Planning your travel🚕🚗🚲
- The Confluence Historic Site & Parkland
750 9 Avenue SE, Calgary, AB (View in Google Maps and get directions)
During the two days of the Prairies Gathering, we’ll spend most of our time together at this stunning and significant location. Learn more about the history of this beautiful site and while at the Confluence, you can listen to an audio tour of space.
Parking at the Confluence - Parking is courtesy of ParkPlus and payment requirements are in effect.
Other ways to get there - See the Confluence website for info on arriving by bike or bus. - The Alex Community Food Centre
4920 17 Ave SE, Calgary, AB (View in Google Maps and get directions)
On the afternoon of Day 1, we’ll travel by taxis to The Alex CFC at 3:15 for a tour and tasting, a traditional food demo, a shared meal and live music. At 6:00 pm a shuttle bus will take participants back to the Confluence, if desired. Learn more about The Alex CFC >>
Planning your time ⌚
Below
are some key times to note for the Gathering. Be sure to read the full
schedule on the event website. You can view your breakout session
selections by clicking Manage Registration at the end of this email.
(Your name tags will also include your session choices.)
- Day 1 - Tuesday, June 17: 🌄
- Arrival time, 9:30 - 10:30 am - Register and enjoy a casual networking breakfast before the official opening at 10:30 am.
- 1:30-3:00 pm - Session 2.C participants only will travel to the Land of Dreams.
- Travel to The Alex CFC, 3:15 - 3:30 pm - All participants will travel by taxis to The Alex CFC where we will enjoy a visit and tours, including a light meal.
- End of day, 6:00 pm - Shuttle bus back to the Confluence for those that need it - Day 2 - Wednesday, June 18: 🌇
- Arrival time, 8:30 - 9:00 am - Arrival at the Confluence and light breakfast before our first session at 9:00 am.
- End of day, 5:30 pm - Official end of the Prairies Gathering.
What to wear 👕👟☔
The weather forecast
for June 17 & 18 currently looks mixed, (Daytime: 23°C, night: 9°C)
with a good chance of rain. We suggest you pack layers to adjust to the
different indoor and outdoor temperatures, with a raincoat or umbrella.
Also bring comfortable shoes for walking on the land at the Confluence.
Presenter highlights ✨
There will be such a fantastic line up of speakers and presenters at the Gathering!!!
Speaker info is now up on the event website. Click on each session in
the Schedule to see who is presenting, and click their name to read
their bio. Or see the full lineup in the Speakers section.
- A few key people we’ll hear from:
⭐Syma Habib, Food Resilience Specialist at the City of Calgary, who will be speaking about the city’s first Food Resilience Strategy. Read more >>
⭐Dicky Dikamba, Executive Director of Canadian Volunteers United in Action (CANAVUA) about how they’re responding to the current crisis with local action in Edmonton AB. Plus we’ll get a visit from their Community Food Truck! Read more >>
⭐Jeny Mathews-Thusoo, a skilled facilitator and practitioner in Inclusive Futures for Social Resilience, will guide us through an exploration of our shared visions for Good Food Futures. Read more >>
Bring seeds for the Seed Swap 🌱🌱🌱
We’ll have a Seed Swap table during our Gathering with the Calgary Seed Library. Come check out seeds, learn about new ones, or share some of your own.
What’s on the menu 🥣😋
Your
tummy will be happy! The Confluence’s in-house catering will provide us
with delicious breakfast, lunch, snacks and beverages on both days of
the Gathering, including a wide variety of items to meet your needs.
Tasty eats will be served at The Alex CFC at the end of Day 1, provided
by The Alex CFC chefs, Soup Sisters and Ethnicity Catering. Don’t hesitate to ask a member of our team if you have any questions while you’re there!
Join the Prairies Gathering online space
Be
sure to join the dedicated space in the Partner Portal for Prairies
Gathering attendees to: connect with one another before, during and
after the Gathering; catch exciting updates; and share comments,
questions, photos. 👉Join the Prairies Gathering space
Why hold the Gatherings?
A Regional Gathering brings together the community food sector in a specific region. As a participant, you'll be able to gather with local peers for two days of connection, learn and share about your local context and communities, and together mobilize support for shared advocacy priorities.
During our time together, we’ll focus on four key areas:
- Advocacy: Engaging in more collective action around shared priorities
- Deeper connections: More downtime and opportunities for networking and learning with other organizations in a deeper way
- Regional priorities: Hearing from partners about local and regional priorities
- Reaching more partners: Decentralizing our in-person events to reach partners who may not be able to attend our larger Food Summit, and allow more participants from each organization to attend.
We hope you’ll join us for two vibrant days of activities, connection and conversation in Moh’kinstsis / Calgary.
Looking forward to gathering with you,
The Knowledge Exchange team at CFCC
Karthi, Dion, Mam, Raymond, Ziadh, Meredith and Brooke
Above: Participants take a tour of The North Grove CFC farm in Dartmouth, during the Atlantic Gathering.
Above: GFO & CFC staff with sweet dance moves at Food Summit 2024 in October.
Check out the Poem by Guyleigh Johnson. She wrote this about the Gathering in Halifax (scroll through the poem)
In the lead up to the event, the Priaires Gathering team wanted to share a bit more information about the intentions we bring to the planning the Gathering, and share an invitation for feedback to shape how we gather together.
This network is made up of individuals who work hard every day to intentionally create spaces of belonging in community - places where community members feel reflected, respected and play a role in shaping the programming and support being offered.
As we prepare to gather with each of you at the Prairies Gathering, our team has been working hard to bring together elements that support a sense of belonging – from nourishment, to nurturing, openness, design, connection and representation. Each detail of the Gathering is informed by what guides our work, what we’ve learned from the events we’ve hosted and participated in, inspiration from how you lead in these ways, and the feedback we gather from partners along the way.
We wanted to share with you some of the elements we’re weaving into place, and invite you to provide any suggestions for how we might better support your sense of belonging during our time together.
You can see from our posted Agenda that the schedule covers a wide range of topics and formats, weaving in the varied priorities and expertise within our network.
Question 1 of the feedback form invites you to share your thoughts and feedback on the agenda.
Indigenous and Black Leadership
Our vision is for the right to food to be realized, and that every community has a place for food that nurtures health, wellbeing, belonging and social justice. With Indigenous and Black communities disproportionately impacted by food insecurity, we embed working with leadership within these communities as central to informing, shaping, and restoring the pathways each of us must support, to transform the systems of oppression and systemic racism that have led to these inequities.
Throughout our two days together, and across our ongoing activities offered online, we continue to be committed to centering the voices, priorities and perspectives of Indigenous and Black organizations and communities, as speakers, facilitators, advisors and vendors. There is an abundance of leadership within our network - and we know many of you have connections to other leaders within your own circles. If there are individuals or organizations that you think we should connect to, please let us know.
Question 2 of the feedback form invites you to share your contacts.
Connecting with Each Other
The sessions we’re coordinating are designed to make the most of this unique opportunity to spend time together in person.
Every session offered and every element of the agenda has been curated with intention, with lots of time for networking, opportunities to share with one another, identify opportunities for collaboration and centre time to deepen in relationship.
We realize that in the food security sector, it’s hard to find the time to meet in-person with other community organizations. Using the opportunity of gathering in Calgary on June 17th and 18th, would you like us to find some additional time in the agenda to give Indigenous partners to connect with one another and Black partners a chance to connect with one another?
Question 3 of the feedback form invites you to share your thoughts on having an additional meeting time/place for community peers.
Connecting to the Land
We selected The Confluence as our venue because of the significance of the space. As shared on the venue’s website, “It’s the place where two rivers – flowing in different directions – inevitably meet. It’s messy and unpredictable. But it leads to a powerful transformation. Charting a new path, the rivers unite and become stronger. Every day, the Bow and Elbow rivers that converge here remind us of this truth: different perspectives can co-exist and flow together.
“The Confluence Historic Site & Parkland is home to many stories from diverse people. Long before the North-West Mounted Police arrived in 1875, Indigenous peoples have been gathering on this land from time immemorial. The shift from colonization to industrialization also brought a new wave of settlers with different worldviews. While some celebrate this land as the birthplace of Calgary and an icon of national pride, others recount stories of hardship under colonial rule.”
In our time together we’ve embedded moments to be out on the land, to walk together, reflect, connect and celebrate. We encourage participants to step away as they need to, to walk by the rivers, get grounded and take the time you need to be present in the moment. We invite you to connect to the histories that came before our time together, that continue to shape our futures.
Nourishment
The energy we bring to the Gathering is just as important as the content of our conversations. This includes visiting welcoming and inspired spaces like the Land of Dreams and the Alex Community Food Centre, to the selection of local caterers, who represent the diverse flavour preferences of our partners, to sharing foodways from Turnor Lake Birch Narrows Community Centre and pairing our dinner together to the sound of good beats from local DJ Sarah Good Medicine. We hope this time together not only provides you with inspiration and energy to bring back to your communities, but that it nourishes you in ways that support and restore you after all that you give and put into your work.
Deepening Our Impact
As we round the corner towards our time together we want to keep the channels open to hear from you about how we might be able to strengthen our approach. This could be while making connections to new partners, in particular opportunities to learn from local Indigenous and Black leaders engaged in building places for food in their communities, or regarding conversations or spaces you want us to consider creating. We welcome your feedback, insights and ideas, and the opportunity to collaborate with you to make these two days together more aligned with your priorities.
Please feel free to reach out to us at gathering@cfccanada.ca and let us know your thoughts via email and/or by completing the feedback form linked here.