Lopez Community Land Trust’s annual Harvest Dinner has become an island tradition of breaking bread with neighbors on a brisk fall evening.
This year’s event, on Saturday, Oct. 25 from 5:30-8:30 p.m. at Lopez Center, will feature a special guest speaker. Rowan North, who grew up on Lopez, is now a 22-year-old prize-winning filmmaker.
Everyone is invited to bring their favorite local food dish for the “Lopez style” potluck. Prizes will be awarded based on the use of local ingredients, presentation, and color. Judging is at 6 p.m. and dinner will be served at 6:10 p.m. Please bring your own table settings as part of the event’s earth-friendly goals.
Rowan’s talk will touch briefly on the importance of providing and supporting local foods. “The talk will be mainly focused on the importance of the next generation. We live in transformative times. At this critical moment in history we are being demanded to reflect on our current situation and create a viable plan of action that will support and nourish us as we shift into new modes of living with one another and the planet,” said Rowan. “I will draw from a multitude of disciplines to help illustrate the imperative need for us to create a ‘Paradigm of Plasticity’ that is led by the boundless imagination of youth and guided by the diligent maturity of adulthood.”
Rowan is the son of Sorrel North, who lives in the Land Trust’s housing community of Innisfree, and Shantparv Roloff, who resides in the Coho community, also built by the LCLT. Rowan has faced personal challenges on Lopez only to emerge as an inspiration for our future. As a high school senior, Rowan’s film “A Story of my Life” was an Official Selection of the 2004 New York International Independent Film Festival. This past spring Rowan won first prize in the Institute of Noetic Sciences “One Minute Shift” contest with “METAPHORmosis.”
He is currently registered in the American Students’ Fund’s “Speak New Words” competition with his music video “Declare a Paradigm.” Rowan spent the summer producing short films for Peter Goldmark’s campaign, among other projects, and is on contract with Spring Street International School to produce a short promotional film. He is currently a film student at Evergreen State College.
