By: Joe Gorman
Location: West Virginia
A hundred and fifty years can seem like a long time. But today, on West Virginia’s sesquicentennial, I met a young farmer who moved away to Seattle for 25 years to study horticulture and surround herself with plants, a full sixth of the state’s history. Continue reading
Program Location: Middleton, WI
By: Colin Higgins
For Growing Food and Sustainability (GFS), our training week signified the end of a successful journey through our first year or so, and the fresh start of a second year. Unlike the first training week though, this one witnessed the continuation and growth of existing programs and the beginning of even more! Likewise, this training week had more participants attending, and caused the same amount of (if not more) giddy excitement and inspiration that last year’s did.
One of the most exciting areas of growth for me to witness was that of our farmers market stand. Last year we had a booth at the farmers market with ample kids activities – we reached many new families with them, but did not sell any produce. This year during training week there was time for our team to plan out what we wanted the market stand to look like, with focuses on selling produce and increasing attendance at the market. I found it especially exciting that we focused on this in our training week, as it is a way to get participants involved directly with the revenue generation aspect of our program and a way to ensure a successful farmers market stand. In our discussion we built on the rough plans to have an event promoting the market. We decided to have a Summer Season Farmers Market Kickoff which happened yesterday, Tuesday 6/18.
Written by Katherine Dennis, a Nashville native and the Little Rock SoS Garden Manager!
This past week has been our orientation & training week for the Little Rock Summer of Solutions team. We have gone through a myriad of trainings including community organizing, conflict resolution, and social entrepreneurship.
One of the most meaningful trainings in which we participated was focused around environmental justice. I have studied this topic academically, and I understand what it generally means: how the environmental and people interact, and is it just. That is a really naive definition, and so I googled it to find out a little more about what it means. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, Environmental justice is “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, sex, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.” Okay, this is another academic definition, and I’m going to try and break it down a bit. Are people being treated fairly, regardless of their income, race, etc., in terms of the development and policies that are affecting them? I can think of national examples: The Exxon oil spill in Mayflower, AR on March 29, 2013 that killed flora and fauna. Another example are the oil operations in Niger that have spilled oil slowly over the past twenty years, thus, destroying their precious ecosystems. I understand environmental justice on the global scale, but how does it affect singular neighborhoods in the US?
By: Sara Marquez
Location: Middleton, WI
Hello, and happy summer! What a perfect combination of sunshine and rain we’ve been having; all the better to gear Growing Food and Sustainability and all of our summer campers to get into the garden this season! I’m Sara, a participant with GFS and a summer intern for our youth garden programs. This summer will mark my first with GFS, as well as my first working with younger kids, as most of the work I’ve done so far has been with the high schoolers at Clark Street Community School. I must say, I can’t wait to meet all the new campers; being a part of this program is as important and educational for me as I hope it will be for all of the gardeners-to-be. I am even more excited because our Growing Food and Sustainability family just keeps growing!
Last week, our new summer interns and volunteers, along with our program leaders, participated in a training week to gear us up for the summer garden camps we will lead together. Instead of doing push ups and garden obstacle courses, we focused on reflective activities as well as team/community building activities and brainstorms–though we did fit a bit of running around and laughing our heads off into a session or two. Continue reading
Late last month, we teamed up with independent filmmaker Brendan Brown to produce this short video about our work building up the green economy in Chicago. The video was made for our online fundraising campaign on the FunderHut website, but also tells our story in general for those who are curious.
Watch the video and help us spread the word by sharing the links below on Facebook, Twitter and other Social Media. Here’s some suggested Facebook messages:
Check out this new video about solutionary green economy work taking place in Chicago and pass it on to friends in your networks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0O43X1tFQQ
Watch the video and support the work of young Chicago solutionaries taking back the economy with gardens, storm-water solutions, and a worker co-op in the making: http://funderhut.com/projects/view/donate-to-summer-of-solutions-2013-with-lets-go-chicago
Graduation season has ended and school is wrapping up which means one thing for the Twin Cities Team, we held our first in person meeting since January Gathering. Patricia, Elizabeth, and I met at Ruby and Timothy’s house early last week to discuss our Training Week Schedule. It was good to see everyone back in Minneapolis again (except Aly who couldn’t make it). Plus, meetings in person are just so much more fun and productive than Skype meetings.
Some of the TC Team planning training week!
From Left: Patricia, Elizabeth, Timothy, and Maddie Continue reading
By: Eli Shepherd from Iowa City Summer of Solutions
The end of fall marked the rekindling of planning and organization. Winter came and plans were made, the leadership team organized. January rolled around and said team journeyed to Chicago for several days of intensive and enlightening training. Spring brought both metaphorical April showers and May flowers as plans and programs were dreamed up, debated, shot down, and solidified. Participant applications and grants alike came sporadically. Now it all comes down to summer.
The turning of the calendar to June marks the start of the Summer of Solutions. So, while program leaders like myself, Nick, and Kate (our 2013 leadership team) are scrambling to master our trainings and tie down the loose ends before our June 10 start date here in sunny, flooded Iowa City, I thought I would share an anecdote and a recipe from here in Iowa City! Continue reading
The Community Strategic Framework Planning Sessions of NE Detroit lays down foundation for the future.
Reflections by Dortheã E. Thomas
As a lifetime resident of Northeast Detroit, I personally believe that it’s important for our community to start bridging together for the benefit of our future.
Actually, for the first time in history residents, associations, and Nonprofits like Hope for GREEN DETROIT came together as a community with faith leaders, neighborhood groups, and local businesses to help create the first strategic framework plan to envision what we want the future of Northeast Detroit to reflect.
For every project, it started off as a vision with a plan.
As the youngest form of involvement Hope for GREEN Detroit knows it’s important that we have more young adults and youth representation at the table to help with the decision-making. With innovative ideas such as solar energy, wind farms, and green sustainable practices Detroit will surely rise again into a new economy.
The entire community should have their own active input on what our community should look like 10 to 20 years from now; this includes the young. Without the voice of the youth, there is no future.
The future of Northeast Detroit is bright.
Over the past few weeks in Arleta, we have been prepping for a Summer of Solutions where our focus will be community involvement in the city of Arleta and the surrounding cities (Pacoima, Panorama City, Van Nuys.) We have been reaching out to parents, students, and teachers at the garden where we have received support.
We are reminded that the garden would not have been possible without the help from the 10 volunteers and the 80 hours that we all have dedicated. We only hope for anyone who eyes the garden to think briefly that people in the community care and want to create a space for children to visually see the beauty, and the gifts that this earth continues to bless us with. Kids are asking questions about the garden and if they can help watering the garden. That is enough to keep the children engaged in something that can show them about how nature works. Continue reading
This post is from Little Rock Summer of Solutions!
One of my personal sheroes, the 97-year-old Detroit activist Grace Lee Boggs, talks often about the importance of keeping an “ear to the ground, ” or understanding deeply the evolution and current struggles of the community within which one is working. But staying grounded and aware can be difficult, especially as a Summer of Solutions program coordinator responsible for logistical planning that leaves me with less time than I would like to be out directly engaging with community members and surveying the social/physical/economic/political environment.
Several recent occurrences have been jolting reminders of the importance of remaining grounded. One realization was thanks to a friend who came to our April 27th garden work day and imparted some of her knowledge of Permaculture design. She was helping us to build a lasagna bed, which basically incorporates layers of green material (nitrogen-rich) and brown material (carbon-rich) over a layer of weed block (pictures below!). I was lamenting the fact that we hadn’t bought mulch or synthetic weed block, but she said, “what do you mean? It’s all around us for free!” She sent a team down the alley behind the garden and they returned with wheelbarrows full of fallen leaves, which made excellent mulch. We raided recycle bins nearby for discarded newspaper and snipped overgrown bushes and vines in an empty lot next door for green material. The world is brimming with ample and free resources, if only we can open our eyes and our minds enough to SEE! Continue reading
Solutionaries 