Pow Wow Nutrition Subsidy Toolkit encourages healthy food options at pow wows
By Rick Garrick
CHIPPEWAS OF THE THAMES — Chippewas of the Thames’ Chippewa Health Centre has partnered with the Anishinabek Nation to share her community’s Pow Wow Nutrition Subsidy Toolkit to encourage healthy food options at pow wows. The Chippewa Health Centre had previously created a pow wow nutrition subsidy of up to $100 off the food vendors fee for vendors who were selling fruit or vegetables at the Chippewas of the Thames Pow Wow in 2023 and 2024.
“The Anishinabek Nation has partnered with me to put together a toolkit so that other communities can also do this without having to recreate everything, but have the basic template for the vendor fee form,” says Marley Fisher, community dietitian and certified diabetes educator at the Chippewa Health Centre. “So that’s just easier for more communities to participate if they wish to do so and hopefully that will create more awareness.”
Fisher says she had shared her community’s success with their pow wow nutrition subsidy at the Anishinabek Nation’s Annual Diabetes Conference in March.
“There was a lot of good feedback from the presentation that I gave and people came up to me saying that they would like to do something similar to this in their community because they find that they have a similar situation where there’s maybe not as many nutritious options as there could be at pow wows,” Fisher says. “For those with chronic health conditions that really need to be more aware of what they’re eating, this is what can be helpful [for] relieving anxiety about going to these events and not having some options there that will in the case of diabetes help them manage their blood sugars.”
The Pow Wow 2025 Nutrition Subsidy Form Toolkit can be found online:
- Pow wow Food Vendor Subsidy Poster Example
- Pow wow Food Vendor Proposal Template
- Nutrition Subsidy Form Template
“They changed it into a template so others can just plug and play their information into the form,” Fisher says. “The whole reason behind this is to have more options that aren’t as high in fat, sugar, and salt, and more natural sugars if we are going to have sugars, like the local fruit.”
Fisher says a lot of food vendors participated in first year of the pow wow nutrition subsidy, which enabled them to get up to $100 off their food vendor fee, $50 off for serving a qualifying vegetable, and $50 off for serving a qualifying fruit. Some of the qualifying foods include apples, oranges, bananas, fruit cups with 100 per cent fruit juice, fruit kabobs, real fruit smoothies, green leafy salads, corn on the cob, raw or cooked vegetables, and baked potatoes.
“A lot of food vendors were happy that this was an option to do, they were excited to sell fruits and vegetables and have a subsidy on their fee,” Fisher says. “And there were pow wow goers who were like, ‘It was so nice to see that there are a variety of options to choose from at the pow wow.’”
Fisher says in an ideal world, Indigenous gatherings and pow wows would be filled with a variety of traditional foods that are nourishing for the participants’ minds, bodies, and spirit.
“But we know that today’s nutrition landscape has changed a bit and we enjoy foods that are often high in fat, sugar, and salt,” Fisher says. “It’s a fine line to kind of balance that healthy eating with that indulgence piece, especially at a fun event where people are maybe looking to indulge a little bit.”
Fisher says there are some traditional food options such as fry bread and corn soup that some Indigenous people don’t know how to make.
“When they come to pow wows, they enjoy that kind of as a luxury to have it,” Fisher says. “[We’re] not discouraging any of the other food that’s served at pow wows by doing this initiative, but again, just having more nutritious options for those that may have to pay more attention to what they eat.