Eat In, Act OUT !
aka A Reflection on Food Project Induced Insanity with Five Steps to Plan Your Own Eat In, Act Out Week Event and Instructions to Make an Eggplant Costume
by Lily Perkins-High, Food Project Intern
(Eat In Act Out Week is an international week of events to promote local food, featuring YOU! Host an event in your community! Learn more at www.thefoodproject.org/eatinactout)
I am, at times, prompted to do strange things in the name of The Food Project. For instance, last August I found myself dressed up in a homemade eggplant costume, passing out carrots to complete strangers, urging them to eat locally. I was a part of Carrot Day, one of the numerous events during Eat In, Act Out Week.
Eat In, Act Out Week works to promote public awareness of local food. Last year, over forty different groups in 25 states and three different countries sponsored events that educated the public about how and why to eat locally. These events ranged from an organic farming conference in St. Lucia to a biking tour of community gardens in Brooklyn, NY. In Boston, The Food Project interns loaded up the box truck with 1,000 bunches of carrots and headed into Copley Square to distribute them to the public.
The idea of the eggplant costume surfaced during a brainstorm about ways to attract attention to our events. The costume idea floated around for a few weeks, and then actually happened; my friend’s mother just happened to have a piece of eggplant colored fabric and leaf colored fabric lying around her house. The costume took shape and by eleven o’clock the next morning I was in the center of Boston, embarrassing myself for the sake of local.
This year Eat In, Act Out Week is going to be bigger than ever. In Boston this means getting restaurants and farmers markets involved, sponsoring cook-offs and vegetable taste-tests and leading nutrition workshops. But to make Eat In, Act Out really work, we need your help. I’ve made it easy by providing a five-step guide:
The Five Steps to Plan Your Eat In, Act Out Event
1. Step One: People
In order to host an effective event, you need a coordinating body. At The Food Project seven interns are responsible for the majority of the local events. Your coordinating body can be your family, your friends, your farm or a random group of people you find on the street. Whoever you work with, they just need to be oriented to the cause: promoting local food.
* If you want to connect with a group in your area, visit www.thefoodproject.org/eatinactout to see who’s planning events for 2006.
2. Step Two: Ideas
Now you need an event. At the Food Project we typically sit around a table and throw ideas up on a flip chart. Ideas can range from simple to complex. For a list of event ideas visit www.thefoodproject.org/eatinactout
3. Step Three: Pick an Event and Tell Us About It
After our brainstorm we boil all the ideas down and narrow in on an event that is possible, exciting and effective. Generally, a good event reaches a lot of people and does a good job of educating them about the purposes of the week. Once you’ve decided on an event, e-mail Monica Pless so we can add it to our website.
4. Step Four: Publicize
In order to make your event successful people need to know it is going on. Communicate your event to the public. Use the newspaper, the radio, television and the phone to tell people where you’re going to be and when. Download more media tips at www.thefoodproject.org/eatinactout
5. Step Five: Do It!
And finally, Directions to Make Your Own Eggplant Costume!
Materials:
- Needle
- Purple and Green Thread
- Duct tape [if you’re not on the crafty side of things]
- Pins
- Purple Fabric (enough to cover from your shoulders to your feet and wrap around your body)
- Green Fabric (enough to make leaves) – 3 to 4 pieces as big as your hand
- A tutu
- Two Elastic bands (one big enough to go around your neck, one big enough to go around your knees)
Directions:
1. Take the purple fabric and sew it together to make a tube.
2. Fold the top inch of the tube down and sew it shut to make a pocket for the elastic band to slide in. Repeat the process with the bottom.
3. Cut a slit in each pocket and insert the elastic bands and tie. The top pocket elastic should fit around your neck and the bottom should fit around your knees.
4. Cut the green fabric into leaf shapes and sew them along the neckline.
5. Cut armholes and reinforce edges with duct tape.
6. Slip the tutu on first to fill out the body then the eggplant on top of it and go pass out carrots!
Do you have a vegetable costume design? Send it to us!