An invitation: The Other Strawberry Festival

In the final chapter of my upcoming book, The Kitchen Activist, titled “Time to Set the Table,” I write about how every action we take in our kitchens sends ripples outward.

Meal planning.
Shopping with purpose.
Kitchen organization.
Cooking.

These are the steps I’ve been exploring recently on the Kitchen Activist Podcastwith Dr. Faith Kares and Pilar Ortega—two women who are integrating these practices into their lives in real time.

Each action is like a stone tossed into water.

The first ripples are felt closest to us—by our children, partners, siblings, parents, and friends. Then they expand outward to our larger communities: the places we work, the schools our children attend, the churches we gather in, and the businesses where we shop.

My own Kitchen Activism eventually sparked the Pesticide Free Soil Project(PFSP). What began as a simple Compost Tea Party at an elementary school—sharing the idea that compost tea can build soil health, something I learned visiting regenerative farms across the country—has grown into something much larger.

That early effort helped launch a 10-acre regenerative organic farm within the same school district. Today, PFSP staff and youth interns lead community days there, bringing volunteers together to harvest and care for the farm.

The produce grown there feeds thousands of children in nine school cafeterias, all pesticide-free.

Our next community day is Saturday, March 14, from 10–12. If you live near Oxnard, California, I would love for you to join us. Reply to this email for the directions.

And the ripples continue.

This year, my kitchen activism is growing deeper roots with the Other Strawberry Festival. Oxnard—my hometown—is one of the world’s largest strawberry producers. Wherever you live on this planet, there’s a good chance you’ve tasted berries grown here. They are sweet. They are lucrative. They are exported worldwide.

During peak season, the fragrance of strawberries drifts through the air on the coastal breeze. So do the fumigants sprayed on the fields. Some of the most toxic pesticides in agriculture are used on strawberry farms, now covered in miles of white plastic that is discarded after each harvest.

The Other Strawberry Festival—not to be confused with the popular two-day Strawberry Festival that celebrates all things strawberry—invites us to look at the berry more fully.

We will still honor the sweetness of strawberries—and the hands that harvest them.

This gathering also asks a deeper question:
What would it look like to grow strawberries—and all agriculture on the Oxnard Plain—in a way that truly cares for people and the planet?

The festival marks the transition from a virtual gathering to an in-person event, bringing together community partners, youth leaders, farmers, and neighbors who are weaving a new path forward.

It will take place at Community Roots Garden, located on the property of the United Methodist Church of Oxnard. For over a decade, this garden has grown pesticide-free produce that is distributed free of charge to community members.

Community Roots—and the people who tend the soil there—are an example of food justice in action.

The event is free and open to the community.

It is, in some ways, an un-festival. And yet it will be festive. A celebration of the sweetness that emerges when communities come together to grow well-being for all. Those words remind me of something Albert and Carny Farris—corn and soybean farmers in Tennessee—once said when I asked them why they transitioned from conventional farming to pesticide-free regenerative agriculture in the 1970s. Their reason was simple: 

“To care for all God’s creation.”

There reason says it all.

If you live nearby, I invite you to join us—whether as a collaborator, a volunteer, or simply as a neighbor curious to learn more.

And if you live farther away, perhaps this plants a seed where you are.

That’s how change grows. We cross-pollinate ideas so we can all thrive. I’d love to hear what you are up to.