2025 Legislative Education Day
WHEN: Tuesday, February 25, approx. 8:30AM - 3:30PM
WHERE: State Capitol building, Heritage Hall, 323 W Ottawa St, Lansing, MI 48933
REGISTRATION LINK: https://msu.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_beCD7GcE8vrHink
Join us at the 2025 Michigan Local Food Council Network Legislative Education Day (LED) on February 25, 2025 from approximately 8:30AM - 3:30PM!
“This event helped me understand the importance of connecting to our local legislators.I learned that collectively, we can find ways to move the 'needle' in the haystack. As community-connected individuals, we can adeptly convey the concerns and needs of our community to legislators. By closing this communication gap, we can work together to explore solutions and subsequently bring them back to our community for implementation.” - Julie Brunson, Education Representative of the Kent County Food Policy Council, attended her first Legislative Education Day in 2023
This event is an opportunity for food councils and stakeholders to come together for advocacy information, listen to speakers on food and agriculture policy, and meet with legislators or observe House/Senate hearings.
In addition to our traditional approach, we're incorporating a new opportunity to connect local food councils and other partners with common interests in Farm to School, Farm to ECE, healthy school meals, and similar issues to amplify our collective efforts to educate legislators on school food.
Basic Agenda
- Meeting in Heritage Hall
- Morning speakers
- Approximately 15 minutes to connect and strategize before meetings with legislators begin
- Lunch and Legislative meetings throughout the day
- Gathering at the end of the day to share back learnings
- Optional happy hour (location TBD)
Questions? Contact scaleral@msu.edu and bowsera7@msu.edu for more information.
The Issues:
This is a multi-issue event, so any and all food related issues your council is working on are welcome! That said, we know there's a lot of energy around school food in our networks so we want to use this as a platform and reason to increase coordination on school food advocacy across the state. Therefore, we are coordinating with a few groups working on related school food issues to encourage and strengthen connections within and across local food councils and other organizations.
Who should attend:
We encourage councils to bring multiple members to this event – to attend appointments as a group and have more than one person to bring their perspective to those conversations and their takeaways back to the full council. Please feel free to discuss with your full council!
Limited Space:
We hope to be able to admit all those who wish to participate, however we do have a limit on the number of individuals we can accommodate due to space and budget. This registration form has a cap at 40 people with a waiting list. If you get a waiting list message, we will be in touch with a confirmation of your participation by early February.
Legislative Meetings:
The Capitol Services team will schedule appointments with legislators with strategic importance from registered councils’ districts. We ask that you register early - no later than February 7, 2025 - to allow ample time for appointments to be set. Each individual must register separately. If your council members have any constraints or accessibility needs that would impact the schedule Capitol Services puts together, there is space to indicate that in the registration form.
Virtual Pre-Legislative Education Day Advocacy Workshop
Join us on February 20 from 10-11:30am as part of the monthly MLFCN Network Call. This meeting will provide information and resources for those planning to attend the Legislative Education Day on February 25.
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