NOV 9th – Will Allen coming to NC, Raleigh & Goldsboro!

WILL ALLEN, Founder & CEO of Growing Power, Inc. & MacArthur Foundation genius award winner

SAVE THE DATE:
Monday, Nov. 9th, 2009

Goldsboro: Community Lecture
“Big Change in Small Spaces: Growing Food Security, Food Justice and Future Leaders”
10:45 a.m. to 12:00 noon
Wayne School of Engineering at Goldsboro High School (auditorium), 700 N. Herman St., Goldsboro, NC 27530

This event is free and open to the public.

Raleigh: Sustainable Agriculture Reception
5:30 to 6:45 p.m.
E. Carroll Joyner Visitor Center, NCSU, 1210 Varsity Drive, Raleigh, NC 27695
As an expression of our gratitude, Friends of CEFS members who have joined at the Guardian Level and higher will receive an invitation (for the member plus one guest) to attend a special reception honoring Will Allen.  The Sustainable Agriculture Lecture will be held immediately following the reception (see below for lecture details). The reception will be catered by Zely & Ritz. CEFS is very appreciative of our Reception Sponsor: NC A&T State University Cooperative Extension Service.

Raleigh: Sustainable Agriculture Lecture
“Steps to Successful Urban Farming”
7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
McKimmon Center, NCSU, 1101 Gorman St., Raleigh, NC 27695
This event is free and open to the public, but open seating will be limited. Reserved seating is available to all Friends of CEFS members. To
learn how to become a Friend of CEFS please visit the Friends of CEFS Web page at http://www.cefs.ncsu.edu/friends.htm.

In 1995, while assisting neighborhood children with a gardening project, Allen began developing the farming methods and educational programs that are now the hallmark of the non-profit organization Growing Power. Guiding all is his efforts is the recognition that the unhealthy diets of low-income, urban populations, and such related health problems as obesity and diabetes, largely are attributable to limited access to safe and affordable fresh fruits and vegetables.

In the world of urban “food deserts” – areas with limited access to fresh, affordable foods – convenience stores, fast-food chains and liquor stores reign supreme. The two-acre Growing Power farm in downtown Milwaukee is truly an oasis. In the early 1990s, Allen envisioned a farm using low-input, sustainable practices and staffed by area teens who needed a place to work. Through the years, this community partnership has grown to include the young, the elderly, farmers, producers and other professionals ranging from USDA personnel to urban planners. Today, Growing Power raises 159 varieties of food, including fruits, vegetables, animal forages, goats, ducks, bees, turkeys and – in an aquaponic system designed and built by Allen – tilapia and Great Lakes perch.

In 2008, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation recognized Allen for his work, naming him a 2008 MacArthur Fellow
(http://tiny.cc/vWoeO) and describing him as an urban farmer “transforming the cultivation, production, and delivery of healthy foods to underserved urban populations through a novel synthesis of low-cost farming technologies” (“Meet the 2008 Fellows,” http://tiny.cc/jRjDn). The MacArthur Fellowships are often referred to as “Genius Grants.” Allen was featured in a July 2009 New York Times Magazine article, “Street Farmer” (http://tiny.cc/uV3ca) and in a February 2009 YES! Magazine article, “Growing Power in an Urban Food Desert” (http://tiny.cc/7Gz6W).

Visit our Friends of CEFS Membership Benefits Web page at
http://www.cefs.ncsu.edu/friendsbenefits.htm or call (919) 513-3924 for
information on reserved lecture seating or attending a “meet the speaker”
reception prior to the evening lecture.

Sponsorship opportunities are still available for these events. Please
contact Nancy Creamer at nancy_creamer@ncsu.edu or (919) 515-9447.
Growing Power is a national nonprofit organization and land trust
supporting people from diverse backgrounds, and the environments in which
they live, by helping to provide equal access to healthy, high-quality,
safe and affordable food for people in all communities. Growing Power
implements this mission by providing hands-on training, on-the-ground
demonstration, outreach, and technical assistance through the development
of Community Food Systems that help people grow, process, market and
distribute food in a sustainable manner. http://www.growingpower.org

The Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS) was established in
1994 by North Carolina State University and North Carolina A&T State
University with the North Carolina Department of Agriculture & Consumer
Services. These partners work closely with state and federal agencies,
non-governmental organizations, farmers and citizens to provide
agricultural research, extension, and education for North Carolina and
beyond. The development of CEFS is a national model for partnership,
innovation, and interdisciplinary cooperation. http://www.cefs.ncsu.edu

CEFS would like to thank Burt’s Bees, our Lead Sponsor for the Will Allen events.

Community Potluck, Dillard Academy, Tues, Sept 1st, 5:30pm

Community Potluck

bring a dish to share and learn about WFI’s current work!

Dillard Academy, 504 W Elm St, Goldsboro

Tuesday, Sept 1st, 5:30-7:30

Want to get involved?  We need volunteers!

School Garden at Dillard Academy, Garden Workday

Wednesday, September 2^nd, 4:30-6:30pm

504 W Elm St, Goldsboro

contact: Cheryl Alston

calston9@nc.rr.com

919-270-7262

Community Garden at Wayne County Public Library, Garden Workday

in honor of the National Day of Service

Saturday, September 11^th, 9am-noon

1001 Ash St., Goldsboro

weeding, watering, planting & prepping for the fall planting season: celebrating the spirit of community service with you in memory of our fallen heroes

contact: Shorlette Ammons

shorlette.stephens@waynegov.com,

919-735-1824 ext. 5105

Planting soon! In-town Farm project

watch website for details or call Tes for future workdays!

contact: Tes Thraves

tes_thraves@ncsu.edu

919-619-8897

Kids day at the Farmers Market

Wayne County Public Library summer program kids at Health Department Farmers Market, July 2009

On Wed, a gaggle of students were running around at the farmers’ market in Goldsboro elbows deep in fresh fruits and vegetables.

While I was taking photos of the kids–who were interviewing farmers, taking photos of veggies, identifying parts of plants, and running a pretend farm stand of their own–I eve’s dropped, and heard astounding knowledge out of the mouths of babes: “That watermelon was just picked this morning but a grocery store watermelon could have been picked a week ago.  And they spray them with gas to make them ripe since they weren’t ripe yet when they picked them.  And here [at the farmers market] I get to talk right to the farmer who grew it.”  It was a sweet day.  See the full gallery of pictures of the event.

This event is keystone to what WFI is all about–connecting organizational efforts to create more opportunities for kids to access healthy, locally grown food.  CEFS has summer interns working on all aspects of the research farm, and one particularly who works with community groups in Goldsboro.  Laura Stroud coordinated the day by connecting two WFI partner’s good work.

Karen Padgett, with the County Health Department, organizes the Mini Mobile Farmer’s Market which works on two fronts: 1.) providing a market opportunity for local farmers to sell their produce and flowers while 2.) simultaneously making it simpler for employees at the health department, mothers and children clients on Wednesday, and ANY local residents to buy fresh, healthy, locally grown produce.

Shorlette Ammons-Stephens educates kids and provides hands on growing opportunities through her summer gardening program at the WCPL.

The Market is open every Wednesday mid-April through October from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Health Department parking lot on the corner of Lionel St. and Ash St.

CASTLES kids making chowchow

Usually the CASTLES “Seeds to Sales” kids are selling produce from their garden at the farmers market, but money is tight and they’ve not had enough support to make that happen this year.  They are growing, and making chow chow, but need money and volunteers to bring their program to it’s full potential!

Laura has also organized a fundraiser for the CASTLES K-4 gardening program.

Monday, July 27th,

from 11-2

at Pupetta’s Bar and Grill on Center St.

join us for lunch!! and support the good things that grow when you put children in a garden!

Pupetta’s will donate a portion of all proceeds to the CASTLES children’s current gardening and canning projects.

Growing stuff in May

have you seen The Future of Food?  watch it for free on-lin: http://www.hulu.com/watch/67878/the-future-of-food

FARMERS’ MARKET now open, every WED, 10:30-4:00!!  Local & Fresh; come support your community farmers! corner of Lionel and Ash, at Health Department parking lot.

WCPL garden and public workshop series developed in 2006 by Shorlette Ammons-Stephens

May 9th, Library Garden Workday! 10am. Come plant!!

May 16th we have a Food Works 101 workshop for youth and others, focusing on gardens and cooking businesses, at the Community Crisis Center in Goldsboro.  10am-5:30 and a COMMUNITY POTLUCK with music after.  Come join us and bring your favorite dish, and chairs or a blanket!

May 26th is the next WFI meeting, Wayne County Public Library, again working on Organizational Development with Good Works.

CASTLES Kids in CA! Next meeting . . .

The CASTLES kiDs, from Dillard Academy,  opened the National Food & Society.

They did you PROUD Wayne County!!!

Next Meeting – Tuesday, April 28th

from 10am-12noon,

Wyane Co. Public Library, Ash Street, Goldsboro.

Org Development assistance from Good Work

Also:  Please complete this WFI partner survey
https://justgrow.wufoo.com/forms/farm-to-fork-contact-form-1/

Growing Local Food in Goldsboro

Welcome to not-quite-yet Spring but more and more Local Food Options

• Food Locator: Local Harvest
• Farmers Market: corner of Lionel and Ashe in Goldsboro, Health Department Parking lot, Wednesdays, 10am-4:30pm, NC produce and farmer-grown produce only, starting again for 2009 on April 15th
• Public Community Garden: Wayne County Public Library, Ash Street in Goldsboro; come plant, come weed, come harvest anytime and organized workdays on Thursday afternoons.
• Neighborhood Gardens: Devereaux Street; let WFI know if you want to start a neighborhood garden!  After May 16th, we’ll have teens for hire that will get you started!
• coming soon: The Veggie Bus, making the rounds to neighborhoods across Wayne County with fresh produce on board!

coming events to help us celebrate, grow, and learn together:

APriL 15th, Wed 2pm-4pm for kids of all ages gardening/art/wormworkshop at the Wayne County Public Library <http://www.wcpl.org/>  for our…
Turning Garden Garbage into Gold Youth Workshop!

Tim Norris, “the Worm Guy” will offer some hands on tips and techniques for working with worms to turn waste into soil.  Participants will take home their own composting bin!  We’ll also use wood scraps to make artistic garden signs for our Community Garden!  We’ll close the day with a brief garden workday.  Don’t miss the fun!

Due to limited space, pre-registration is required.  Please call the Children’s Department at (919) 735-1824 ext. 5105.
This program is weather permitting.

Growing Gardens & next WFI meeting

Next WFI meeting:

Wayne County Public Library, Ash Street, Goldsboro,

TUES, March 31st, 10am-noon

come learn what is growing at WFI

and read this article about the White House Lawn garden–which is sized for average family and cost them $200 to put in!

Why the White House garden matters

The Obamas’ new vegetable patch is a symbol of what is wrong with our lawns and how we can fix them. It doesn’t take much.  BY Fritz Haeg

Has one vegetable garden ever generated so much excitement or debate? A few details about the new White House vegetable garden caught my attention.

It is 1,100 square feet. This is a garden sized for a family. In my experience of removing front lawns and planting Edible Estate prototype gardens
across the country, the Obama garden is about the size of the average
American front lawn. Most Americans should be able to imagine
themselves planting something about this size in front of their house
over a weekend with the help of some friends and neighbours.

Of course I would have preferred that they remove the entire South Lawn of
the White House. I imagine a combination of fruit tree orchards, wild
berry patches and edible flower and grass meadows. But since this new
first family garden should be a model to inspire every American family,
perhaps a modest 1,100 square feet is the best way to start the
revolution.

There will be tomatillos and cilantro, but no beets. The Obamas love Mexican food, and Barack does not like beets.
This is a garden planted for the personal tastes of the family that
will be eating from it. It is not just a pretty garden, or an empty
symbol, but a place for a family to grow the food that they like to
eat, on the land that is around them.

They have selected 55 varieties of vegetables and herbs according to their tastes, and every American family can inspect that list and imagine what they would plant
instead. Where are the tomatoes? Why so much spinach? Can I grow
blueberries where I live? The lawns surrounding our homes are all the
same, in denial of our diverse climates and cultures. Neighbourhood
streets lined with edible gardens like the Obamas’ would all be
different, celebrating our diverse tastes.

It will be visible from E Street.
Will tourists linger at the South Lawn fence hoping to catch a glimpse
of Sasha and Malia weeding? We will all be able to watch it grow
through the seasons and evolve over the years. This is a vegetable and
herb garden in front of the house, and meant to be seen.

Since the late 1940s the sterile industrial landscape of the lawn has come to
dominate our streets. This divisive and repressive aesthetic has been
sold to us as the only acceptable surface to present to our neighbours.
But our ideas of beauty are always shifting, and soon the front lawn
will be considered an ugly vestige of an ignorant time. Why did they
water, weed, mow, fertilise and pollute for a ceremonial space they
never even used? With the Obamas giving us an organic vegetable garden
to look at, we are taking steps toward a more thoughtful, beautiful,
healthy and productive landscape.

Fifth-graders from Bancroft Elementary School helped plant it.
Many American children today do not see evidence that food comes out of
the ground or experience the pleasure of eating food fresh from plants.
Instead their diet is causing epidemic childhood illness.
The introduction of a food-producing garden into their early lives is
our best hope for changing the situation in a meaningful way.

In my on-the-street garden-planting experiences from Austin to London, it
is always the children who are the first ones on the scene, and the
most excited to help out. They tend to be the least sceptical, and the
most hopeful about the future prospects for the garden. We should have
a garden like the Obamas’ everywhere there are children.

A beekeeper will tend two hives for honey, and ladybugs and praying mantises will help control harmful bugs. Fully sanctioned and welcome critters at the White House! I think this is perhaps more exciting than the garden itself.

We know that the lawn is essentially ecological genocide. Everything but
those precious blades of grass must die in the name of that luxurious
green carpet. Pesticides indiscriminately decimate the bugs that are
pests, and any other form of life that gets in the way.

An organic garden is not an island, even if it is surrounded by a lawn. It
is encouraging to see this acknowledged with the welcoming of these
partner animals that will make pollination, pest control and the
production of food possible without chemicals.

Planting beds will be fertilised with White House compost and crab meal from the Chesapeake Bay. I love local details. That’s what make gardens special, and lawns boring. So the thought of crab meal from the local bay coming to the South Lawn is a thrilling development.

The rest of us can read about that and ask what local resource we could tap
into to feed our garden. Seaweed from the coast? Manure from the farm?
And what about the first family compost pile? We need to see images of
that, and find out where it will be located.

I would advocate for a very visible and privileged location, perhaps at the ceremonial south entrance to the White House, where Barack can show off the rich pile of decomposing banana peals and coffee grinds to visiting heads of state.

As any gardener knows, the compost pile is the engine of the garden, the
place where yesterdays “waste” becomes tomorrows fertility. What better
message for us today?

The total cost is $200.
They could have planted a very elaborate and expensive garden that
might have been more worthy of what we would expect in front of the
White House, but I am so pleased that they planted something modest and
cheap. Sales of vegetable plants and seeds are soaring along with the
cost of food. Americans are rediscovering the economic benefits and
perhaps even the daily pleasure of being outside and growing food where
they live.

Of course there are probably some buried expenses not
included in the $200 price tag, and some people will argue that you
need to spend a small fortune and most of your time on such a garden.
But an important message has been sent: Here is something anyone should
be able to afford to do at home.

Is this too much hyperbole for one little garden? Am I placing too much significance on such a simple act? In the face of trillion-dollar deficits and billion-dollar
bailouts, perhaps it is exactly the modesty of the gesture that makes
this message so welcome right now.

What’s Growing at WFI

 

NEXT MEETING: 

Tuesday, March 31st from 10-12 

at the Wayne County Public Library on Ash St.

Come hear about all of the Wayne Food Initiative’ GROWING projects and find out what you can do to help!  

Veggie Bus . . . New Community Garden . . . Emerging Leaders Program

* * *

And THIS weekend, SAT 21st, is our first full-day, 10am-3pm, WCPLibrary

YOUTH (12-25) workshop: Food Justice 101

with guest’s from the Durham Inner-city Gardners (DIG kids from SEEDS), and speakers and musicians Tahz Walker and Justin Robinson!  Lunch provided for all teens.  Come learn, share, eat, and act!  If you’re not between 12-25, bring a bag lunch and a blanket and come join us at noon for live music by the Library Garden!

FooD JusticE . . . SustainabilitY . . . the FooD SysteM . . . GooD FooD AccesS

Tahz Walker speaking at Durham's Everybody Eats

Maya Wiley speaks on food system

A short Columbia University lecture by Maya Wiley discussing structural racism in the food system. She talks about system/structures, rural and urban connections, and economic possibilities that could be game changers. Most importantly perhaps, she talks about networks and how we do these things together.

click here to watch video

Touring Wayne Foods Initiative–Nov 3rd

We don’t have a lot of physical sites to “tour”: the library garden is a beautiful design, the kids’ farm at Dillard Academy is mindblowing, the farmers market on Wednesdays makes me smile inside out, and we may have a new growing site soon, but that is about it on the physical space side.

That said, we did a tour for the national Politics of Food conference in Sept, and we’re going to host a few visiting and city official folks on a similar tour again on Nov 3rd to talk about what we do, and what WE CAN do. If you’d like to join us, contact Shorlette Ammons-Stephens by calling the Wayne Public Library and asking for her at the Children’s Desk. Monday, noon-2.

As Shorlette at the Library is organizing that and busy busy doing so, made me recall that I’d only posted half the blurb that Andrea Gram kindly sent us of her perspective of the tour. Here is her whole blurb on the WFI tour and a link to her whole conference review is on the PoF post.

“Later that afternoon we were handed our lunches and loaded up on buses for selected field trips; I chose the Wayne County Community Foods System Initiative. Our first stop was a gorgeous community garden that was designed, planted, and is maintained by the public library including local citizens and youth from their various programs there. Here we met some pretty incredible women including Shorlette Stephens, the warm and inviting Head of Children’s Services there at the library who casually described a very gracious philosophy of trusting folks to take what they need, in which she revealed a precious and rare faith in humanity. We also met Danielle Baptiste, coordinator at Dillard Academy, who spoke to us about the CASTLES down to earth gardening curriculum and the improvements made by the youth involved in the program. Ms. Baptiste then introduced Ms. Cheryl Alston, a school teacher who decided she was up to the SOL challenge and its restrictive guidelines and so created a remedial educational program using sustainable gardening studies at the elementary school in Wayne County. Ms. Baptiste proudly reported that over 90% of the students who participated in the program, students who had below average grades, had exceeded their grade level by the following year as a result of her down to earth teaching strategies – wow, what an accomplishment! Finally Tes Thraves, a consultant from the Center for Environmental Farming Systems, touched on some of her true and tested organizing methods stressing the importance of taking stock of existing community assets in an effort to start building from the ground up, an approach that appears to be a wildly successful and one that I won’t soon forget.

“After hearing about these interconnected environmental disciplines, we departed for the elementary school in Wayne County where we were greeted by a host of teachers, aids, and community members who had gathered together to commemorate the achievements of the children involved in the gardening project. What came next nearly brought everyone in the room to tears: the children gathered around their music teacher and keyboardist to present two very creative and powerful music ensembles that they had created – not to tote the values of a MTV music culture but to celebrate the joys of fresh vegetables and healthy eating habits! It was the most heart-warming experience I’d had in a long time, all the while munching on the delicious pear preserves and biscuits they had prepared especially for us. The moments of vulnerability, hope, and pride that flickered across their faces as these children strutted their stuff before our teary-eyed audience was a powerfully moving experience. In fact, it left my cheeks sore from permagrin and the incalculable joy of it all. Now that was some real Southern hospitality!”

by Andrea Gram

 

Check out what Andrea is up to at GreenRight http://quasicreator.com/greenright/greenright.html ! Yo CASTLES kids–did you see you are someone else’s site, not just ours!! Amazing stuff Andrea is doing and I have to say that being on the bus going and coming from Wayne that day was such a pleasure and an honor–I love the endless faith that people working in food have for each other and the world. As Ms Cheryl is busy trying to get water at a site that’s been donated, and we make collective decisions about plans we have made and realities that tweak those, and as we develop working groups to start our emerging leaders project with Heifer funding, as Shorlette begins the plans for the community reads project, as Carol is finalizing the SARE funding for our farmers to go to Southern SAWG conference in Jan and Carolyn makes plans to go to CFSA with Travis this weekend, I’m awed and inspired that daily life brings new possibilities. It is good to step back and take a tour now and then of the big picture. And then get back to diggin in the little piece of dirt right in front of you.

 

Someone else is going to blog soon, right Shorlette?

so thanks . . . tes