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Hot off the Press

By Andrea Hayley
Epoch Times Staff
Vancouver - Jul 02, 2008

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

Media Releases:

Organic Islands Festival & Sustainability Expo's inspiring program offers
visitors a green world of discovery and entertainment!

Victoria BC, June 21, 2008 - Thousands of island residents, tourists and green enthusiasts will gather this year at the 4th annual Organic Islands Festival and Sustainability Expo to rub shoulders with sustainability visionaries and green community leaders while enjoying fine organic foods, fair-trade beverages and a musical line-up that has contemporary music fans on Vancouver Island buzzing...

MEDIA RELEASE No. 2 - Download

Organic Islands Festival & Sustainability Expo gears up for largest year yet,
bringing Islanders good green fun!

Victoria BC, May 26, 2008 - Festival organizers are excited to announce this year's program which includes guest speakers and panelists who are visionaries in the green and sustainability movement, plus fantastic musical headlining guests, delicious organic food and tasty beverage demonstrations... 

MEDIA RELEASE No. 1 - Download

Organic Islands Festival growing strong
with more leading-edge exhibitors planned for this summer's festival

Victoria BC, April 22, 2008 - It's getting easier being green. That's the message Deb Morse, Director of the Organic Islands Festival and Sustainability Expo would like people on Vancouver Island to know... 

Event Listing for Media Calendars:

Or copy and paste text below:

Organic Islands Festival and Sustainability Expo
July 5 & 6, 2008, 10 am to 5 pm
Glendale Gardens and Woodland, 505 Quayle Road, Victoria, BC
Just north of Camosun College Interurban campus

Local, slow, natural, inspiring, hip, the Organic Islands Festival and Sustainability Expo is a rallying community-based event providing a look at the who's who in the green community. Canada's largest outdoor 'green' festival features: over 100 Exhibits, Interactive Displays, Presentations, Natural Food Demos, Entertainment, and Children's Activities. Sponsored by: CHEK News, Level Ground Trading and LifeStyle Markets. Live Green. Do Good. We'll show you how! For info: http://www.organicislands.ca, or call 250 658-8148.

Poster 2008:

Photos:

• Dance For Joy
• Hands full of strawberries
• Hands full of tomatoes
• Bite Me, I'm Organic
• Just another hat

Photo Credits: with permission, by Arthur Kikuchi

• Cherubic children in organic garden
• Cherubic children in wheelbarrow

Photo Credits: © Organic Islands Festival, by Maia Green

• Old Time Fiddle Kids!
• Facepainting & a Blue Balloon
• Cut tomatoes

Photo Credits: © Organic Islands Festival, by Shari McDonald

• Deb Morse (Festival Director)
• Deb Morse (Festival Director)

Other Photos: © Organic Islands Festival

• Raspberries
• Chard

Press 2008

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.

Read or download article

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

- Click here to read
Newspaper Article, "Times Colonist"
Victoria, BC - July 10, 2005

- Click here to read
Newspaper Article, "The Globe & Mail"
Victoria, BC - July 8, 2005

- Click here to read
Magazine Article, "Boulevard"
Victoria, BC - July/August 2005

- Click here to read
Magazine Article, "Island Tides"
Victoria, BC - June 30th - July 13th 2005

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