Climate Café 1st Annual Harvest Celebration & Plant-Based Potluck

Date:  August 24, 2024
Time: 12 pm – 2 pm
Location: Abundant Grace Farms – 7221 S. King Street, Canby, OR.
Parking is available for up to 30 vehicles, and we encourage ride-sharing.
Event: Abundant Grace Farms Harvest Celebration & Plant-based Potluck (bring a plant-based dish). 

Make new connections and share the best local foods

Climate Café has enjoyed pop-up events are various locations throughout the Portland Area for over two years, teaching small communities and congregations how to grow and harvest food, and how to prepare delicious, healthy, and local plant-based food together.

For this end-of-summer event, our host farms – Abundant Grace Farm and Grace Garden are sharing the bounty at Abundant Grace Farm in Canby, Oregon. This is a farm-to-table potluck in a casual, outdoor gathering with meaningful and engaging events the whole family can enjoy:

– Join us in a drumming circle led by Rev. JJ Crow and honor Mother Earth
– Learn about regenerative agriculture, led by Jim Wallace.
– Have a conversation with Rev. Gabrielle Chavez and learn about her passion for growing the best smoothie foods available at Grace Garden.
– Have concerns about our climate? Bonnie Facre Cochise, Teacher in Childhood Education will pass around a very large globe ball so each person can share their heart.
– Want to join others in song? Julie Gorham will share songs with her guitar, inspired by the Christ the Healer Community, and for personal and planetary improvement – Breathe on Me Great Mystery, From Joy I came, and Raise the Bar.

A few of the farm-fresh foods and treats being prepared:
Kimchi and Sauerkraut
Pickles & Kale Chips
Avocado & Cucumber Soup
Summertime Basil Potatoes
Pear & Apple Galette
Mushroom & Walnut Burgers with Plum Worcestershire Drizzle
Fresh Grape Juice

This is your chance to learn from the experts and find joy with us together as we share our finest gifts and celebrate with you. Parking is limited. Please carpool! 

The Climate Café model can be reproduced in any sized community. The goal is to love all creation as ourselves – that means loving our neighbors as ourselves, and caring for one another with nourishing food and personal connection. Please join us and learn how.   

The Power of Community

A new way to give, a new way to eat, and a new way to live – This is the Climate Café.

What if, anybody, in any budget, could afford the highest quality food available? What if, together, we can reverse the damage caused by unhealthy consumption that erodes our vitality and causes illness and death? What if, you can give and receive perfectly nutritious, and tasty food, based on what you can afford, and the benefits are exactly the same as those who can afford more or less? You would have little to lose, but everything to gain. Climate Café is a model of both giving and receiving based on whatever you can afford. Have you heard the term gift economy?

At Christ the Healer, we hear from many of our younger members who practice purposeful living and giving, and Climate Café’ is widely embraced for this reason. If you want to help others, desire a higher quality of life, seek deeper and more meaningful connections, and understand the value of healthful eating, Climate Café was made for you. We have farmers and chefs at the ready, and we are gearing up.

Growing together, in the unified intention, to create a low-carbon, sustainably sourced and produced, plant-based meals in a pay-as-you-go model.

When I first embarked on my healing journey, I was in so much physical pain and my vitality was low from a SAD (standard American) diet. After I began moving to a more plant-based diet, I asked Thomas Chavez, “How will I know if I’m feeling better? How can I tell if I’m making improvement?” He said, “It’s not one thing you do, but everything you do. Compounded, your vitality will naturally rise.” Through years of guidance with natural foods, a plant-based diet, and discipline, combined with a supportive community, my vitality continues to grow. I have also witnessed Gabrielle and Thomas embark on their own healing journey with an all plant-based diet and I’m impressed with their results. So many people feel awful, and lack of vitality and sickness is often related to a poor quality diet. In addition, low-income households typically can only afford low-quality foods on their tiny budgets, so how can they experience true vitality? Climate Café seeks to help heal our health crisis and and food injustice. I’m in!  – Julie Gorham

A philosophy and practice

According to CtH UCC Co-Founder, Gabrielle Chavez, Climate Café creates an opportunity for CtH to live out the ideal of the early church, as demonstrated in Acts 4:32: All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. ³³ With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all ³⁴ that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales ³⁵ and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need. 

Are you ready to get involved and make a difference? We welcome you to the conversation. Learn more about our vision here. Check out more ways you can help, below. 

The Climate Café needs investors too. Can you help?

We have submitted an initial grant for funds to assist in the necessary expenses of a startup, including licensing, legal, operations, marketing and more.

Funds are also needed for a commercial kitchen conversion and upgrade for one possible church building partner. We are also open to your inspiration!

Do you have executive leadership skills and love to present to investors? Do you know investors who want to make a difference and need a tax deductible contribution? We would love to hear from you.