Intergenerational Dinner a Success!

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Above: Food prep for the Intergen gathering in March 2019

Over 70 participants and volunteers had a great time at last Friday’s  March 15 Intergen gathering.

The evening started with a delicious dinner of appetizers, vegan curry, minestrone soup, spinach salad, organic bread, and  a table’s worth of desserts.

Thanks UBC Sprouts-Community Eats for your donation of produce! A big thanks to the volunteers from the Environment Team and Love Soup who planned and cooked the dinner, and cleaned up.

Dinner over, our stomachs full, we were eager to hear what the evening’s program would bring and we weren’t disappointed.

Vivian Davidson emceed the evening.

  • Tamiko Suzuki explained to the non-Unitarians in the audience about Unitarians having a long history of being loving  **** -disturbers.
  • Quoc Nguyen from Leadnow, spoke of the mental health benefits of volunteering in these uncertain times.
  • Dr. Dave Steele of EarthSave spoke with passion and emotion about animal cruelty in industrial farming.
  • Dr Tara Cullis, president of the David Suzuki Foundation, spoke of the campaigns with First Nations in the Amazon and up the coast of BC fighting to save their lands from dams, and logging.
  • Lorimer Shenher, writer and ex-member of the Vancouver Police Department, touched on racism, sexism, and mental health in his time working on the Missing Women portfolio in the DTES.

Above: Discussion circle with Tara Cullis

Above: Discussion circle with Lorimer Shenher

After they gave their 15 minute ‘elevator speeches’, the guest speakers spread out in Hewett Hall and the audience was invited to go sit at one of their circles to listen, ask questions or share stories. They could get up and check out another circle whenever they want which kept the energy level high.

The photos taken of these circles all show people deep in thought or listening intently but there really was movement between the circles.

The speakers said they wished they too could have been able to sit in on the other discussion circles as the topics were so varied and fascinating!

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The event wrapped up with a group of Sto’lo and Haida guests who sang a few songs to close out the evening
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Guests were urged to take home some of the produce that hadn’t been used for the dinner; a head of broccoli, a bunch of bananas, or whatever was left in the boxes as a parting gift!



Categories:

Environment • Intergeneration • Meals • Youth and Young Adults