Summer of Solutions is an incomplete name.  Summer ended a while ago, but Hartford’s growing season has a long ways to go, and so do we.  Our summer training program may be over, but Summer of Solutions Hartford is still busy.  Part I of our Autumn Update Series is all about the gardens, and the plants in them.

Harvest

Our late-season crops are finally ready, and we have a second round of short-season crops coming in too.  We have beans, tomatoes, peppers, greens, eggplant, and more.

We also have a nice variety of flowers- flowers that attract beneficial insects, other flowers that repel pests, and some flowers that just look really pretty.

Our team has been harvesting a lot of the produce for our Garden Stand and for our After-School program (see below), but our garden members have also been taking home fresh fruits and vegetables.

We hope to take advantage of September and October harvests to generate a lot of interest in our community gardens.  It’s hard to imagine how much food can grow in a small raised bed without seeing the long-term results at the end of the season.  We intend to use our fall publicity, garden stands, and lots of pictures to bring new members to our community gardens next year.  Our work this summer and fall proved how productive small plots of land can be over an entire year.

From Summer of Solutions Hartford in Hartford, CT.

By Twin Cities Summer of Solutions participant Lee Samuelson

On the second to last day of Lynne Mayo’s permaculture project, we had the special privilege of meeting with Karen Clark, the state representative from the neighborhood.

She did not originally intend to run for office, but has gotten elected every 2 years since 1980. She has been an activist in the anti-war movement, anti-nuclear, and pro-affordable housing movements.

The central theme of the legislation Karen Clark presented was people’s “right to know” about the presence of toxic chemicals.

Rep. Clark helped pass a workers’ right to know bill. As a result of her efforts, material safety data sheets have to be posted in workplaces. Now, numerous states have copied the bill. When union members at a facility were found to be sterile, it motivated grassroots pressure to overcome resistance from the chemical companies.

In addition to workers, families also have a right to know. They had to take Bisphenol A out of baby bottles because it was an endocrine disruptor. She talked a lot about public health and childhood lead poisoning. Even dust from paint in old houses cause irreversible damage. Kids are also in danger from arsenic.

Karen Clark wears more hats than the legislative one. She is a central volunteer for the Women’s Environmental Institute and teaches Holistic Health at St Kate’s. Wearing both her legislative hat and Women’s Environmental Institute hats, she mapped out the toxic sites in Phillips.

What they found was that there was a closed pesticide plant in East Phillips that was releasing chemical pollutants all the way to the aquifer. Residents had been dealing with the cumulative health effects of the lead, mercury and arsenic. These included hypertension, asthma and heart disease.

Soil tests are required when lead and arsenic poisoning are found. Soil tests used to be state subsidized. But, in the name of cutting costs, we have to pay for it now. Our host Lynne Mayo wanted to get the soil from the city compost pile tested and it would cost $82. It is an injustice to ask low-income people to pay for the service. For example, the Hmong farmers needed soil testing but it was prohibitively expensive. Rep. Clark has also done some soil remediation on her 100 year old home.

Rep Clark’s perspectives do not come out of a vacuum but draw a lot from her personal experience. She promoted getting alternative medicine subsidized because she is a cancer survivor. Karen Clark’s parents were sharecroppers for rich but stingy California Landlord, which “taught her a lot about who runs things”.

(Title borrowed from SoS Twin Cities!)

I just got back to the Pioneer Valley from a week in Hartford, CT at the Grand Aspirations National Gathering.

Spending the past week in Hartford, CT with 50 other young leaders in the transition to a sustaining economy was re-affirming and joyful. I feel more connected than ever to other people across the country who are refusing to accept the standards options laid out for youth and community progress. While we all faced struggles and doubts during our summer programs, coming together this past week proved to me that collectively we are more powerful, knowledgeable and hold more potential than I can imagine.

A few of my highlights from the week:

1. We’re learning our to sustain ourselves. I’m a food person. At gatherings I tend to take on some responsibility for making sure everyone gets feed well. This gathering had the biggest outpouring of food donations of any I have attended (short of Occupy Wall Street’s kitchen!). We brought bags and bags of veggies from our farm in Greenfield, Mass. The Hartford team had preserved vegetables for us all summer. Sarah Murphy (formerly of the Detroit program) brought boxes and boxes of vegetables from her farm in New Hampshire. We talk a lot about growing our own food and sustaining ourselves. I’m excited to say we’re actually doing that.
2. We’re building our identity as a national organization. This week we got to review, discuss and revise the Strategic Plan for Grand Aspirations. This afforded the opportunity to discuss what the purpose, role and vision of our group are. People who first heard of GA this summer, and those who helped found it five years ago (and those of us in between), came together and sought built our collective understanding and direction.
3. Our struggles are bound up in each other. We all know that it’s not enough to just act in our local communities. The issues which effect our neighborhoods also act on national and international scales. That’s why I’m so excited that we talked about how to support new programs in an accessible way, how to learn from the struggles other communities face and value the connections we build across geography and culture.
4. We’re getting some serious stuff done (but having lots of fun). Listening to presentations and conversations this past week, I learned about so many successful strategies and projects. From the new Bike and Walk Center opening in S. Minneapolis, to the hundreds of pounds of compost diverted from the waste stream in Middleton, to the hundreds of homes canvassed for energy efficiency in Iowa City, to the solar installation training going on in Highland Park, to the Yard Sharing network in Chicago, to the… okay you get the idea. We are achieving results.

Some of the best advice I got this summer came from a farmer named Ricky in Orange, MA. He encouraged me to always be thinking about what comes next, and to prepare for my next project before getting too burnt out on my current endeavors. He farms full time, but felt burn-out on the horizon. So he started devoting one day a week to his wood working practice.  There is always more to be done on the farm, but he chose for himself to set that boundary, and grow in a new direction.

For me, that’s what the GA national community is about. Every time I feel discouraged or doubtful, I hear about something new that inspires and motivates. I can shift what I’m doing to better meet my needs, and lean on the people around me for help. Spaces like the National Gathering can help us become agile and resilient individually and collectively. It’s those spaces which keep me coming back for more.

Yeah, it was that fun. Photo: Leo Qin.