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Green business shows strong growth, as Organic Islands Festival gears up for 5th annual event

Victoria BC, June 15, 2009 – By now many Southern Vancouver Island residents have heard of the Organic Islands Festival and Sustainability Expo. In less than five years, it has become Canada’s largest outdoor green festival “walking the talk” with its zero waste commitment and solar power usage, while showcasing green businesses and leaders in sustainability to over 15,000 people who come to learn how to green up their everyday lives....

Save the Date!
Fifth Annual Organic Islands Festival and Sustainability Expo set for July 4 and 5, 2009

Victoria BC, April 10, 2009 – Now Canada's largest outdoor environmental expo and Vancouver Island's most comprehensive eco-marketplace, the Organic Islands Festival and Sustainability Expo was established in 2005 by Victoria's Debra Morse. Since then, this solar-power, near zero waste, green community celebration has attracted over fifteen thousand...

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Organic Islands Festival
The Green Muze, June 17, 2009

For everyone who has ever doubted the power of one – meet Deb Morse. This Canadian mother took a small idea – to help organic farmers and green entrepreneurs connect with the community, and turned her idea into the largest outdoor green festival in Canada. Held each year on Vancouver Island in ten acres of conservation gardens, the Organic Islands Festival & Sustainability Expo is the hottest eco ticket in Canada. This year’s festival held on July 4th and 5th, with a theme of Reviving the Vancouver Island Diet, features more than 150 solar powered eco- exhibitors, an extensive farmers' market, local food cooking demonstrations, a zero waste policy and even a bio-diesel shuttle bus...

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A Weekend on Saanich Penninsula: Enjoy an eco-friendly escape to Vancouver Island
The Epoch Times, June 15, 2009

Vancouver Island in the summertime—if you’ve experienced it, you know. Everywhere, people are smiling as they bustle to and from farmers markets, festivals, kayaking trips, camping trips, winery visits, hiking, gardening, boating, bicycling, beachcombing and other outdoor activities. Vancouver Island was Voted Top North American Island by Conde Nast readers for eight consecutive years beginning in 1999. Travel and Leisure readers honoured it as the “Best Island in the Continental U.S. and Canada” in 2007...

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Going Green the Way of the Future
The Epoch Times, April 29, 2009

While some small “green” businesses have been around for decades, it was only about 15 years ago that a number of companies began greening their business practices in order to meet a strong consumer desire for businesses that operate in an environmentally sound manner. Businesses with a green focus and an emphasis on sustainability began sprouting up, and the sector has grown rapidly....

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Leaders in Sustainability series
The Epoch Times, April/May 2009

Each year during the first weekend in July thousands of visitors on Vancouver Island learn about how to integrate green living into their lives from leaders in sustainability at Canada's largest outdoor environmental expo. The organizations leading the way in sustainable practices offer their perspectives about what "sustainability" means and how they demonstrate it in the way they do business...

April 9 – Level Ground Trading: Download this article

April 16 – Dockside Green: Download this article

April 23 – Energy Alternatives: Download this article

April 30 – Elkington Forest: Download this article

To see these articles as they appear in the Epoch Times newspaper, click the link to The Epoch Times, then click on the date of the article. Visit the The Epoch Times.

Deb Morse: Living the Green Life
Women in Business, February, 2009

Deb Morse is best known in her southern Vancouver Island community as the driving force behind the “green living” festival which has become the largest outdoor eco-marketplace in Canada. Since she started the festival four years ago, it has showcased hundreds of green producers and sustainable companies to more than 15,000 people. "Back in 2005 I was inspired by the many forward-thinking businesses doing their part even before climate change was on the public radar," says Morse. "I wanted to do something constructive to help people understand the choices..."

Organic Islands Festival: Bigger, Better and Greener
Victoria News Green Edition, January 2009

With this year's Organic Islands Festival promising to be bigger, better and greener than ever, organizer Deb Morse is issuing the call to new exhibitors with amazing green products or services to share. The fifth annual festival and sustainability expo will be at Glendale Gardens and Woodland July 4 and 5, featuring food, fashion, home and garden items, children's products, pet food - anything to do with a healthy and sustainable lifestyle, Morse says. The only requirements? That products or services showcased fall under the categories of organic, natural, local and sustainable, healthy/allergy-free, and fairly traded/ethical. "Well show you how to live green..."

TV Coverage 2008

Organics Festival 2008 Swift Kick Computers

A Channel's Organics Festival 2008

Press 2008

CITY Style and Living/Summer 2008
Organic Food Festival

"There's nothing better than getting together with a group of people committed to an ideal. For the Organic Islands Festival and Sustainability Expo that ideal is green living..."

See article at: CITY Style and Living

By Andrea Hayley
Epoch Times/Vancouver: July 02, 2008
Organic Islands Creator Feels the Earth Beneath Her Feet

"The driving force behind the biggest outdoor green festival in Canada is Victoria's Deb Morse, director of Organic Islands Promotions. The upcoming 'Organic Islands Festival and Sustainability Expo' at the idyllic Glendale Gardens and Woodland in Victoria features over 125 exhibitors and is expected to attract over 7,000 people.

See article and photos at: EPOCH TIMES

By Andrea Rabinovitch
Aqua: Gulf Islands Living

CHEK NEWS commercial
With Ed Bain

Press 2007

By Grania Litwin
Times Colonist Staff

Lorna Sass says a big hurdle to inspiring people to eat more whole grains - aside from having them master new cooking and recipe skills - is getting them to chew more.

"I haven't exactly heard people complain about being tired at the end of a whole grains meal, or having a charley horse in their jaw," she joked in an interview from New York, but they do comment it's more work... Read or download article

Amy Dove
Saanich News Staff

Deb Morse, founder of the Organic Islands Festival poses in a hammock at Hangin Around/Green Mt. Hammocks. The company is one of the many that will have a display set up at this year's festival. Photo by Sharon Tiffin.

It can take a lot of work to live a sustainable organic lifestyle.

And it takes just as much work to run a festival dedicated to it, as co-ordinators of the third annual Organic Islands Festival are finding out.

Read entire article.

By Amanda Farrell
Monday Magazine staff

Musician turned organic farmer Mae Moore. Photo by Andrew Steinman.

Want proof the organic, localized food movement is gaining momentum? Just take a look at the Organic Islands Festival. In three short years, the weekend celebration of all things sustainable has doubled in size, says Deb Morse, the festival's founder and director.

"Originally I wanted to create a web resource tht would connect people with locally produced, organic products and services. I got working on that and started meeting some amazing people," she says... Read or download article

By Matt Orlesky
The Villager

In today's world, more and more people are realizing the impact we have on our environment. Every day we hear about the dangers of global warming and the importance of environmental sustainability. One person with a passion to do something about it is Debra Morse, director and co-founder of the Organic Islands Festival.

When asked where the inspiration came from to create Canada's largest outdoor "green" event, Deb relates a story from her past... Read or download article

By Matthew Gauk
Times Colonist staff

'Green' festival boasts growing appeal

The Organic Islands Festival is sprouting fast.

Deb Morse is director/founder of the Organic Islands Festival at 505 Quayle Rd. in Saanich. The food exhibitions and demonstrations continue today from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Photo by Ray Smith/Times Colonist.

Over 2,500 green-living buffs crowded the Glendale Gardens and Woodland in Saanich yesterday for the third annual weekend-long event.

Justine Langston and Joe Kraft were in town from Vancouver for a few days and happened to stumble onto the festival.

"I go to these little natural food fairs often, and this is one of the best ones I've ever been to, "said Langston, who is originally from California. "I like it being outside, the fact that it was in a garden was really lovely. Most of the time they're in conference halls, in airport motels and stuff."

Langston and Kraft walked out of the festival with big smiles and a tote-bag full of organic goodies.

Blueberries from nearby Ruby Red Farms were their choicest take, and they didn't mind sharing.

"This is like what blueberries are supposed to taste like," said Langston, between mouthfuls.

"That's the thing - all winter you wonder while you're eating them, why they don't taste like this," added Kraft.

Both Langston and Kraft appreciated the local flavour of the festival, as opposed to what they often see as "just big corporate health-nut people."

That's exactly what Debra Morse had in mind when she organized the first festival in 2005. She wanted to bring the local green community together in a way that hadn't been tried before, collecting farmers, horticulturalists, green retailers and organic restaurateurs all in one place.

"I was a mom, and I wanted to have my family eat healthy [and] live healthy," said Morse. "So I wanted to make this community more accessible to people who have full lives and find it hard to change."

Morse finds that the festival has finally been able to crack into the mainstream and said that many of the visitors so far this year haven't been "the converted." She credits this connection, which the event didn't have before, to an increase in the awareness of and concern for global climate change.

Morse isn't home-grown, but rather a transplant from Toronto. When she arrived in Victoria eight years ago, she was shocked to find a city not totally blocked off from rural life.

"When I came here I went 'wow, I'm on McKenzie Avenue and there's a horse and a cow in the middle of the city?'" said Morse.

"In other locations you just don't have that. I think this is ideal. People on Vancouver Island, according to the stats, have above-average levels for buying organic food and there are so many homegrown businesses here that are green and organic."

One of the biggest hits at the festival was Saltspring Island-based Hotties Hotdogs. The small food vendor sells natural hot dogs that use local organic meats and homemade condiments.

"I think one of the reasons it works so well is I'm always with my daughter or son and we work well together," said owner Gail Bryn-Jones as she and her daughter hustled out food to a long lineup of hungry festival-goers.

Brandy Gallagher, co-founder and executive director of Shawnigan Lake's O.U.R. Ecovillage, was on-hand with her crew doing cob-building demonstrations.

Students from their natural building program piled up clay mud with water and straw, and through some fancy stomping footwork, pounded the raw material together to create simple earthen barriers.

"There's a large groundswell or people wanting natural homes," said Gallagher, whose 25-acre ecovillage boasts an entire cob building.

"It's sort of a social justice thing, that we have a right to healthy and affordable homes that are quite beautiful as well."

Other festival vendors, of which there were over 100 in all, were sampling and selling everything from bison meat to hemp clothing, fair-trade soccer balls to natural gelatos and sorbettos.

There were vegetable oil-powered cars on display, cooking workshops, live music and plenty of children's activities.

The Organic Islands Festival continues today, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., at 505 Quayle Rd.

Highlights include a food demonstration at noon by Bruce Brennan, star of PBS's The Hippy Gourmet, and a 1 p.m. performance by Juno-nominated folk musician Mae Moore. Tickets are available at the door.

Press 2006

Victoria, BC - July 9, 2006

Organic is not just for food anymore.

That was the message Saturday at the second annual Organic Islands Festival as farmers, fair-trade merchants and other friends of the Earth converged on the Horticultural Centre of the Pacific in Saanich to celebrate all things organic.

For people like Laura Matthias, organic is a way of life.

"It's permeating every aspect of culture these days," she said. "It's not just about food, although that's the first thing that people think about when they hear organic. People are now thinking about where the food is coming from, how long it has to travel, and [about] pesticides"...

Read or download article.

Victoria, BC - July 6-12, 2007

Organic Therapy
What you eat could define how healthy you are

Worldwide, people are being diagnosed with cancer at rates unprecedented in recorded history. And after examining a staggering 10 million people over a 70-year period, a recent Swedish study found that cancers with "90 percent environmental in origin" - meaning the vast majority develop from exposure to toxins outside our bodies: radiation, tobacco smoke, alcohol, the sun, toxic chemicals, heavy metals, processed foods ... sadly, the list goes on (and on).

Fortunately, there's something we can do to help prevent cancer - according to local author Guy Dauncey... Read or download article

Victoria, BC - July 6, 2006

Islands festival growing along with organic movement

The organic food movement is growing by leaps and bounds, and this weekend's Organic Islands Festival is growing, too.

The second annual event, at the Glendale Gardens and Woodland in the Horticultural Centre of the Pacific, 505 Quayle Rd., is featuring more than 75 exhibitors, up almost 50 per cent from the number last year.

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Victoria, BC - June 30, 2006

While it may be early yet to see a convenient and fast food organic food outlet next to the local McDonald's, Vancouver Islander's can get the next best thing once a year at the Organic Islands Festival.

"I want to teach people how to live organically in a fast food world and part of that is connnecting them with the producer," sad Deb Morse, president of Organic Islands Promotions and festival founder.

Only in its second year, the July 8-9 festival is the largest of its kind in Canada...

Read or download article.

Press 2005

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Newspaper Article, "Times Colonist"
Victoria, BC - July 10, 2005

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Newspaper Article, "The Globe & Mail"
Victoria, BC - July 8, 2005

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Magazine Article, "Boulevard"
Victoria, BC - July/August 2005

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Magazine Article, "Island Tides"
Victoria, BC - June 30th - July 13th 2005