SOS Food at the Sixth Street Community Center

Community volunteers and community supported agriculture (CSA) members joined forces in 1998 to form the "food safety arm" of the Sixth Street Community Center . SOS Food was formed in response to a proposal by the United States Department of Agriculture to allow organic farming to use irradiation, genetic engineering, factory farming, and other unsustainable and dangerous methods of farming.

Outside the Center, 6th St. between B&C

Many groups including SOS Food joined together and organized successfully and defeated the USDA's proposal. Genetic engineering, which poses an extremely serious threat to the world's food supply as well as our health, is the issue on which SOS Food places the majority of its focus. In general, the organization concentrates on issues involving conventional agriculture.

Inside the Center

Their current campaigns include a letter writing campaign to try to alert local restaurants to the threat of genetically engineered fish and to try to persuade these restaurants to sign a contract saying that they will not use GE fish in their establishments. SOS Food is also campaigning for supermarkets to at least label GE foods, although ideally the supermarkets would ban the selling of GE foods at their stores.

Howard, the director, with a CSA member

The bar in the Yoga room at the Center