Monthly Archives: March 2013

Alumni Spotlight: Ethan Viets-Vanlear

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We are now accepting applications to participate in our 2013 Summer of Solutions programs!  Apply here!

My name is Ethan Viets-Vanlear, I was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois where I am currently a student, activist, poet, and organizer. I started Summer of Solutions in the summer of 2012 through Let’s Go Chicago.

My initial motive for joining SoS was to spend more of my time outside building tangible solutions to some of the issues I noticed around me. I was also excited to spend my time growing food.  I think the biggest thing that I got from SoS was the notion that any problem has a solution that I can take part into making happen.  SoS really taught me a way to help a community without being part of various systems of oppression and control that dominate most organizations and institutions in our society. My favorite memories from SoS would have to be our various trips offsite to places like a farm, or spending time with all the participants around a campfire. 1

Some of last year’s Chicago team Continue reading →

Summer of Solutions: Ithaca, March update

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Summer of Solutions: Ithaca has hit the ground running from every angle. Program development and partnership work has succeeded tremendously in solidifying local allies, contributors, and educators, and in formulating program design for our 8-week program. Dynamic mechanisms of outreach have been employed to target potential participants, many of whom have gone on to apply to SoSI through our first round of applications.

We also just recently launched our Indiegogo site, full of comprehensive information and opportunities to donate, the link to which is below:

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/summer-of-solutions-ithaca

Additionally, we are very proud to announce that we have been awarded a $435 grant through Sustainable Tompkins, an organization that has been at the forefront of community organizing and sustainability in the area.

Our next steps include fundraising veraciously, processing our second round of applicants, continuing to reach out to local partners, and fine-tuning program details. Continue checking in for more exciting updates!

Middleton Launches an Indiegogo Campaign!

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GFS Middleton (aka Growing Food and Sustainability) just launched an Indiegogo campaign!  Learn more and donate on our Indiegogo page!

Indiegogo facebook profileOne of Growing Food and Sustainability’s core goals is to train and inspire a new generation of youth leaders to create their own solutions to the world’s challenges.  Our Indiegogo campaign is focused on raising money for stipends so that we can train youth through our summer internship program.  Last summer, two local college students participated in our internship.  This summer, we plan to select five interns to participate in this leadership development experience.  Interns learn through peer-lead trainings as well as by taking an active, hands-on role in our organization. They learn how to plan curriculum for the summer garden camp, serve as camp counselors, workshop leaders, and meeting facilitators, coordinate community workdays, harvest days, the weekly compost pick-up, and the weekly produce delivery, and will learn green entrepreneurship skills by helping to run our farmers’ market stand.   Our goal is to make sure that every graduate of our internship program leaves with the skills and knowledge to start an initiative of their own.

Though our experience has proven that young people of all ages do care about current social and environmental issues, we realize that summer jobs must often take precedence over unpaid programs. By providing stipends to interns, we will make sure that these opportunities for enrichment and growth are available to all.  Through our model of peer-to-peer training and collaboration, we believe that summer interns will develop leadership and organizational skills that will prepare them for the future as much or more as any summer job. Continue reading →

Hello from Elizabeth of the Twin Cities Program

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Hello all! My name is Elizabeth Kahn and I am currently one of the program leaders for the Twin Cities Summer of Solutions 2013 program. I was a part-time participant last summer and I am excited to continue my involvement with the program for this summer. I am excited once again to work in the Minneapolis area.  It is a great city with a lot of potential for sustainable development.

The Summer of Solutions program teams up with many different organizations and various people to get the word out about sustainability in the city. Last year I did research with an ARISE, an organization, that looked into implementing alternative energies into the abandoned Ford Power Plant site in St. Paul, MN. I also worked with a group of participants from Summer of Solutions last year creating a “farming business.” Or goal was to make a business installing urban gardens in people’s yards and teaching people how to can their food; because we had such a short amount of time to implement everything, we ended up creating cookbooks that we sold in the Minneapolis area with local recipes in it. We used the money funded towards the program.  Working with ARISE and the farm group was a great experience. We are planning on having the same organizations that participated for last years program to continue on this summer as well. Continue reading →

Alumni Spotlight: Brianna Besch

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We are now accepting applications to participate in our 2013 Summer of Solutions programs!  Apply here!

Hello!  My name is Brianna and I first got involved with Summer of Solutions the summer after my first year at Macalester College, in St. Paul, Minnesota. That summer my parents were moving from Cairo, Egypt, where I lived for my last three years of high school, to Bethesda, Maryland just outside of DC. I couldn’t really spend the summer ‘at home’ and wanted to do something more engaging than visiting relatives and cleaning the new house. I heard about SoS through my work with Cooperative Energy Futures, an energy efficiency co-op that was started by a lot of the same folks that SoS was founded by. I was already passionate about environmental issues both in the US and around the world, and excited to learn more about the Twin Cities. Given how much I respected the people I worked with in CEF, and how highly they spoke of the program, it seemed like a perfect opportunity.1

I still remember the first week of Summer of Solutions training as one of the most inspiring things I have ever done. Continue reading →

Working Collaboratively

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My reflection from last Friday’s gathering at Canterbury Elementary where a group of great people put hands on the land that we’ll all be tending for the season. I was very happy to have worked with those who showed up.

We came across a couple of teachers that showed interest in what we as a team of (7) were doing. The teachers asked questions like, “What school do you all go to?” and “Are you high school students?”  We answered that we were all members of the community, some in college etc. Teachers briefly shared ideas and included that they too had worked hard in the garden but that there were to many bugs that were no good for gardening and did not continue. Challenges will come about and part of creating some lube for those challenges will be through communication and meetings.

The following are my thoughts on working in a collaborative manner. Continue reading →

DC Seeks a Program Leader!

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Exciting news!! The leadership team of Cultivating Intergenerational Leaders (the Washington DC program) is in the process of looking for an additional program leader!  We are looking for a college student who has an interest in food and environmental justice as well as a passion for working with youth. We currently are reviewing the applications and starting our first interviews.  In order to apply, applicants can visit:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dERMRkpZXy11UlFLdXFDTUFLcUFjYnc6MQ#gid=0

While Josephine and I have helped jump-start the program, we look forward to welcoming a new program leader to our team to help our efforts and will post a follow-up blog announcing our new program leader very soon!

– Jeremiah

Race and class in Little Rock

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Outreach team at work!

Outreach team at work!

Though the Little Rock team has not done any specific anti-oppression work yet, issues of race and class have begun to surface.  In particular, our plans for community events and fundraisers have sparked some interesting conversations.  After our March meeting, a few folks stuck around to talk informally.  One participant posed a question regarding an upcoming door knocking session: how will the majority Black, low-income community where we work respond to the diversity of our group? Several people told vivid and fresh stories illustrating a lack of acceptance for racial mixing from both white and Black people in our community. Little Rock, like the rest of the South (and the rest of the U.S., for that matter), has not found its way to racial healing or equity despite incessant talk about our role in the civil rights era with the Little Rock Nine, Daisy Bates, the Freedom Riders, etc.

Continue reading →

Alumni Spotlight: Cecelia Watkins

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We are now accepting applications to participate in our 2013 Summer of Solutions programs!  Apply here!

My name is Cecelia Watkins, and I am a proud Summer of Solutions alum. This is my SoS story.

After four years in a liberal arts college and many more years spent desperately wondering how to funnel my passions and skills into making a difference in this crazy, suffering world, I found myself at somewhat of a loss. I was a second semester senior in college, and despite an incredible amount of growth and community support, I found myself looking into my future with a deep and unrelenting anxiety. First off, I struggled to determine what I wanted to do in the next year (not to mention the much larger perceived struggle of deciding what I wanted to do with my life). Secondly, I felt a deep fear that even if I miraculously decided what I wanted to do, there was no way I’d ever be able to get paid a living wage to do it (let alone a student-debt-alleviating wage).4

While at the PowerShift convention in Washington DC that spring, I ran into two young men standing behind a table with the banner “Summer of Solutions.” A few lengthy conversations later, and I decided to sign on to the SoS program based in the Twin Cities—the land where I grew up, where I’d hardly been since leaving for school four years prior. Why did I sign up? It neatly filled a gap of time between my graduation and a work exchange I had set up starting in late August. It sounded cool. And it would fulfill my guilt-driven longing to bring my new passions and energy back to my neglected hometown. Continue reading →

Sofia’s Better Idea for EU Funds

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“In 2012, the CEE Bankwatch Network, in cooperation with its partnering organizations from Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Macedonia, Poland and Slovakia organized a series of contests for best citizens’ sustainable project proposals: ‘Better Ideas for EU Funds’.”

Our Sofia, Bulgaria, program’s project “Bees in the City Park” was selected as one of these projects! 

“The project – settling of a bee colony – will be implemented on the roof of a public building in one of the many parks in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia. Workshops for both children and adults will be run by professional beekeepers, biology teachers and volunteers. Children will be given the opportunity to produce some honey themselves.”

Check out this short video clip of program leader Elena being interviewed at the event!