Talks-Panel Discussions-Presentations-Workshops

Grace Farms Announces Feb. 7 Regional Conference on Sustainable Development

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In support of the global effort of the U.N.’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Grace Farms Foundation and Live Green Connecticut are partnering to host the first-of-its-kind Regional Conference for Sustainable Development on Feb. 7, 2018 at Grace Farms.

Thought leaders from the area and around the world, including Jeffrey Sachs of The Earth Institute, Bryan Garcia, President and CEO of Connecticut Green Bank, and Joe DeLong, executive director of the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, will gather to discuss wide-ranging strategies for promoting sustainable development with case studies demonstrating successful implementation in Connecticut. __________

— an announcement from Grace Farms

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Local businesses, not-for-profit organizations, town committees and individuals are invited to present relevant work to conference attendees; applications are available online, here. “Grace Farms began with the preservation of more than 80 acres of land, and we are expanding our commitment to environmental sustainability through our adoption of the U.N.’s SDGs in our daily operations and initiatives,” said Adam Thatcher, Director of Operations at Grace Farms Foundation. “There are many new ideas being pursued locally and we look forward to bringing these innovators together to focus on generating and exploring new strategies to address four SDGs: affordable and clean energy, sustainable cities, responsible consumption and production, and climate action.”

The day-long program, which will take place in Grace Farms’ LEED-certified River building, is modeled after the International Conference on Sustainable Development hosted at Columbia University by The Center for Sustainable Development, The Earth Institute, the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and Columbia University.

Ask Your Mama

Race & American Memory | The Langston Hughes Project

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Following our November Community Dinner, Grace Farms Foundation will present The Langston Hughes Project, a concert performance of “Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz”, one of Hughes’ literary masterworks. Led by trumpeter Ron McCurdy,  The Langston Hughes Project embodies the poet’s testimony to the struggle for artistic and social freedom at home and abroad at the beginning of the 1960s. Through this special event, Grace Farms Foundation joins in commemorating the 50th anniversary of Hughes’ death. Race & American Memory is an ongoing free series launched in 2015 examining race and its impact on American identity and moral integrity. Through the program, the foundation examines the ways in which Americans comprehend and recall U.S. history.

Community Organizations
Panelists economic justice Grace Foundation 09-09-17

Grace Farms Hosts Panel on Women’s Voices & Economic Justice in the U.S.

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Grace Farms Foundation will host a panel discussion exploring the roles of faith, gender, and race in questions of economic justice in America. The Rev. Dr. Katharine Rhodes Henderson, President of Auburn Seminary will moderate a panel featuring nationally renowned faith leaders and Auburn Senior Fellows Sister Simone Campbell, Executive Director of NETWORK, and the Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis, Senior Minister of Middle Collegiate Church. The event, which is free to the public, begins at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 15 at Grace Farms.

The Rev. Dr. Katharine Rhodes Henderson is the president of Auburn Seminary in New York, a multi-faith leadership development and research institute that equips bold and resilient leaders of faith and moral courage. Auburn Seminary helps its students build communities, bridge divides, pursue justice, and heal the world.

Grace Farms 2017

Race & American Memory | Stamped from the Beginning

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Race & American Memory programs at Grace Farms examine the ways in which Americans comprehend and recall national history, and seeks to revisit instances, ideas, and lives which have suffered negative revision or erasure. In 2017, Grace Farms Foundation will offer various touch points related to issues of race, its construction, and its sustained impact on American identity and moral integrity. Ibram X. Kendi | July 21st, Grace Farms Foundation will welcome the winner of the 2016 National Book Award for Non-Fiction, author and scholar, Ibram X. Kendi, to lecture on the subject of his acclaimed book, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. On November 17th, Ask Your Mama, a special live jazz and poetry performance of the Langston Hughes Project led by trumpeter Ron McCurdy, will commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Hughes’ death. Register for the July Community Dinner, which will immediately precede the lecture.

Grace Farms 2017

The Refugee Crisis and U.S. Response

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Learn about the important efforts surrounding the refugee crisis in the United States, and the inspiring response from organizations including UNHCR The U.N. Refugee Agency and The International Institute of Connecticut (IICONN), in a conversation moderated by Grace Farms Foundation Justice Initiative Director, Krishna Patel. The panel will include informative perspectives from Larry Yungk, UNHCR’s Senior Resettlement Officer, Claudia Connor, the President & CEO of IICONN, Aleksandr Y. Troyb, Esq., the Chair of the Executive Committee of the Connecticut Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, and Maha Karahamad, a recently resettled Syrian refugee and a Coordinator on the Strategic Foundation Partnerships Team for Save The Children here in Connecticut. UHCR has been committed to their work protecting and assisting refugees around the world since their establishment during the aftermath of the second world war in 1950. Today, they strive to ensure that everyone has the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another State, with the option to eventually return home, integrate or resettle. Since 1918, IICONN’s Refugee Services Program has assisted adults and families who have fled war and persecution in their home countries, and in many cases spent decades in refugee camps.

Grace Farms 2017

Interfaith Seder | From Darkness to Light

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Grace Farms Foundation and the Interfaith Council of Southwestern Connecticut invite you to join us for an Interfaith Seder led by Rabbi Joshua Hammerman of Temple Beth-El, Reverend Mark Lingle of St. Francis’ Episcopal Church, and Dr. Kareem Adeeb of the American Institute for Islamic and Arabic Studies. Participants will share in historic Seder traditions and explore how different faiths represent the journey from darkness to light. The Seder meal will be symbolic. Light refreshments will be served.

Grace Farms Events 2017

Winter Outing Hike | Winter Ecology

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Explore how plants and animals survive the winter with Grace Farms Foundation’s Nature Initiative Director, Mark Fowler, and Yale School of Forestry graduate, Nick Olson. Participants will hike through Grace Farms’ 80-acre preserve and learn how the flora, fauna, and wildlife that call the property home thrive in the winter months.

Corban Addison

Book Launch: Corban Addison’s ‘A Harvest of Thorns’

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Join us as international bestselling author, Corban Addison, launches his new book, A Harvest of Thorns, at Grace Farms.

A reading by Corban Addison will be followed by a discussion featuring Grace Farms Foundation Justice Initiative Director, Krishna Patel; Kilian Moote, Project Director for KnowTheChain at Humanity United; Ben Skinner, Principal and Founder of Transparentem; and Joseph Schmidt, CEO and Founder of Audacity Factory. The afternoon will introduce Grace Farms Foundation’s focus on supply chain transparency and its tie to human trafficking. Addison’s talk will help open a dialogue here in Connecticut on issues of modern-day slavery and how consumers and organizations can promote change in the system. About the Book

The book opens in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where a garment factory burns to the ground, claiming the lives of hundreds of workers, mostly young women. Amid the rubble, a bystander captures a heart-stopping photograph — a teenage girl lying in the dirt, her body broken by a multi-story fall, and over her mouth a mask of fabric bearing the label of one of America’s largest retailers, Presto Omnishops Corporation.