{"id":32002,"date":"2016-03-07T16:14:29","date_gmt":"2016-03-07T22:14:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=32002"},"modified":"2016-03-08T09:49:37","modified_gmt":"2016-03-08T15:49:37","slug":"the-mississippi-sustainable-agriculture-network-and-americorps-vista-open-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/the-mississippi-sustainable-agriculture-network-and-americorps-vista-open-house\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mississippi Sustainable Agriculture Network and AmeriCorps Vista Open House"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">In collaborative partnership with\u00a0<strong>The Mississippi Sustainable Agriculture Network<\/strong>\u00a0(MSAN) and\u00a0<strong>AmeriCorps* VISTA<\/strong>,\u00a0Mississippi Delta Service Corps AmeriCorps VISTAs will engage local community members of Lafayette County with a 3\u2010hour Open House event on Tuesday, March 8th from 3 p.m.\u20136 p.m. at the MSAN Office (68 County Road 334 Oxford, Miss. 38655). \u201cThe mission of the\u00a0<strong>Corporation for National Community Service<\/strong>\u00a0is to improve lives, strengthen\u00a0communities, and foster civic engagement through service and volunteering.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Through the informative Open House, AmeriCorps VISTA members will share the mission of AmeriCorps, while also articulating the AmeriCorps vision of poverty alleviation.\u00a0The Mississippi Sustainable Agriculture Network supports healthy farms and communities to develop economically and ecologically responsible local food systems throughout Mississippi. The Open House will share the respective MSAN projects being developed by current VISTAs <strong>(Sustainable Oxford<\/strong> &amp; <strong>The Farmland Stewardship Program<\/strong>).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">These presentations will include detailed explanations of how these developing programs will provide healthy futures for Lafayette County and share the knowledge of how how sustainable agriculture, local food system development, and sustainability are making a dynamic impact in alleviating poverty in our county. The Open House will also allow community members to be introduced to the new office location of the <strong>Mississippi Sustainable Agriculture Network<\/strong> (MSAN) and the many programs\/resources that already exist. There will also be information about the many national community service programs and affiliate non\u2010profit organizations that staff AmeriCorps members in the area, allowing community members to see the larger impact of AmeriCorps in the local community.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency that engages more than five million Americans in service through its AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, Social Innovation Fund, and Volunteer Generation Fund programs, is the federal agency that leads the annual MLK Day of Service, working with the King Center in Atlanta and thousands of nonprofit groups, faith\u2010based organizations, schools, and businesses nationwide. For more information about the AmeriCorps VISTA program in your local area, please visit the website at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalservice.gov\/\">www.cns.gov<\/a>\u00a0or contact <strong>Lakisha Butler<\/strong> at the Center for Community and Economic Development\/Delta State\u00a0University at\u00a0662\u2010846\u20104358.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>Shannon Curtis<\/strong>, an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer serving with MSAN and\u00a0Sustainable Oxford, explained, &#8220;The Sustainable Agriculture Network is a statewide nonprofit that works with farmers and local food systems to advocate for and provide resources to people who want to farm sustainably, and people who want to buy local food.&#8221; &#8220;AmeriCorps is the domestic Peace Corps. VISTA stands for &#8220;Volunteer In Service To America, and it is [AmeriCorp&#8217;s] anti-poverty program.&#8221; She explained that they should have two local farms in attendance,\u00a0<strong>7D Farm<\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>and<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>&#8220;Mr. Aldridge, who is always at the Farmer&#8217;s Market, will be here selling bread, and honey, and eggs, and talking to people about local farming and our local food system. It&#8217;s pretty laid back, just an informative event telling people what we do.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Again, the event is\u00a0\u00a0on Tuesday, March 8th from 3 p.m.\u20136 p.m. at the MSAN Office (68 County Road 334 Oxford, MS 38655).<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In collaborative partnership with\u00a0The Mississippi Sustainable Agriculture Network\u00a0(MSAN) and\u00a0AmeriCorps* VISTA,\u00a0Mississippi Delta Service Corps AmeriCorps VISTAs will engage local<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"featured_media":32003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[780],"tags":[7614,736],"class_list":["post-32002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-service-volunteerism","tag-americorps","tag-volunteerism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/MSAN-open-House_FEAT.jpg?fit=620%2C349&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}