The last week of camp

This is Brenna once again with a slightly belated post from Hiram House Camp. The camp actually ended this week, so next week I'll be cleaning and tying up some loose ends.
Our last week was a lot of fun. For the classes with campers-I had 3-5 each day- we cooked stew over a fire using quinoa and adding chives, basil, lettuce, zucchini and squash blossoms from the garden. Some groups were also totally resourceful and picked wild ramps and mint to add to the stew. Although it wasn't always the finest tasting dish it was really enjoyable to watch the kids engage themselves and get excited about the stew; most likely it was the first time a lot of them have cooked for themselves.

We also visited the animals at the farmstead with a few classes, and the last day, I tried playing a game with some classes that is meant to help them understand how wealth is distributed in the world. Playing the game involves setting up a mock banquet and distributing some kind of food, I used pretzels, proportionately to the distribution in of wealth in the world. In other words, one kid gets a fat stack of pretzels and most of the others recieve crumbs. Typically the kids react confused and angry at first, but after a small conversation and some thoughtful remarks they start to see the intended purpose of the game.

This is what we do in our free time...break wagons and create box creatures haha!

Pics (as promised)

Reaction to Barbara Kingsolver

This is Autumn and Laura coming to you live from Marietta College. We had some interesting views on the Barbara Kingsolver video. We understood many of the points she was making about the benefits of local eating. However, we felt her approach wasn't very realistic in that it is only feasible for certain groups, such as the upper class. For example, two working parents, or even one single parent, could not likely afford to maintain a garden while also caring for their children. A single parent, especially, may be to exhausted at the end of a long shift to even cook. Her approach was very elitist in this way.
From a political standpoint, Kingsolver suggests that the Farm Bill needs to be changed, but she does not provide suggestions for this change. Also, she mentions China and Argentina as sources of our food. China owns the majority of U.S. debt so putting tariffs or other protection measures against Chinese food products would likely be infeasible at this time. (Laura).

Week 7 at Mount!

I can't believe we only have one week of this left. It feels like we've been doing this for a year but that we still have lots more to go. We told the kids at Maple Beach Park this week that next thursday is our last official day and they seemed pretty sad about that. Cali and I said we'd visit though a couple times before school starts up again!

This was actually a pretty eventful week. We've had the most number of kids everyday at lunch this week than we ever have before! I believe our numbers went something like 29, 41, 28, 38 and 44! (I may be wrong about monday's number) I can't believe we had 44 kids today! Yesterday we had the bug nets again and the kids went crazy catching butterflies and dragonflies. Today we made our own stickers which turned out to be pretty fun.

Yesterday was our lovely site visit from the OCC supervisors. We showed them all around the Alliance Homeless Shelter, Maple Beach Park, and Feed My Sheep Ministries. We had a wild time at FMSM last night. We ended up losing the van keys (which we later found on top of the van). Then Cali took me for a wild ride in Glenna's wagon and I skinned my toe. Then Glenna pulled me in the wagon again and a wheel broke off so we bought a replacement for her and while dropping our home supervisor off at her car, we were flipped off by some angry people.

We finished the gardens at the Homeless Shelter with the help of the OCC supervisors. We were also able to drop off about a dozen cucumbers and a bucket full of peppers and tomatoes there today. We're so happy because one of the residents said she goes out and waters the gardens! We were so afraid that no one was taking intiative with them but it seems they are.

I've been slacking with posting pictures so I will try and do that later tonight. But for now, that's pretty much it. I'm still in awe that we only have a week left! We've accomplished so much however and I hope next year's VISTAs will pick up where we left off!

Branden and Nicole from Springfield

We have been busy this week planning our Garden Celebration on August 21st. We have a new VISTA that will be coming in to work with the garden. The celebration will be a great way for him to meet everyone in the neighborhood and to end the summer on a great note! We have food, music, a salsa contest, a raffle, and kids crafts planned as well as representatives from the Health district, OBB, and police department. This is going to be a great party and thanks to the OSU extension office, we have plenty of prizes to raffle off and a great gift for the winner of the salsa contest!

Over our 8 weeks working at the garden we have accomplished much more than we imagined......

Over 100 pounds donated to the food bank and food pantry
Formed a Neighborhood Association
Formed a Neighborhood Watch
Formed a Garden Committee
Planned a Garden/Harvest Celebration
Additions to the garden: picnic table umbrella, 300 feet of hose, rain barrels, 4 beautiful flower beds, lavender flowers around the fence, and a compost pile (soon to be compost bin)
Feature on the Wittenberg University Website
Article in the Habitat for Humanity newsletter
Set up a garden website
Participated in the America in Bloom Contest


The biggest impact that the garden has had is bringing the community together. We had two neighbors that mentioned that they had never spoken to any of the other neighbors around besides each other. Now they have met many of their community members and are much more connected. One woman said that the garden was the best thing she seen happen to the neighbor and loves to enjoy the beautiful view now across the street. The Neighborhood Association is also an integral impact the project has had on the neighborhood. It can now reach out to the city in a positive light to get the assistance and support the neighborhood so desperately needs.

The garden project has changed the community out here in such a positive way. There is definitely more hope for the future and belief that change can actually happen. A true community has formed in a neighborhood were transitional families are the extreme majority. A new sense of security and safety has begun and the changes are just beginning. There is great hope for this community.

Mike in Cleveland

This week was the biggest harvest so far by a long shot at the farm. We had a lot of herbs, squash, and lettuce. The next few weeks should really see a rise in production of pumpkins, squash and zucchini. At the farm I have helped to increase capacity for next year and beyond by tilling new land, building fences, and helping to improve the soil. I also have helped with volunteer programs to get more students involved at the farm to learn about local food production. I want to visit next year to see how my efforts from this year have taken hold.

I was at the farm this morning and we had visitors from Oberlin. They came to check out our progress and give us their thoughts on our new food program. They have been growing food for a decade already so they had some good tips to offer. It was nice to share what we have been doing all summer and talk to people that had the same interest. The occ students from Oberlin did not come but there were about 8 students that did so it was a nice break from the daily gardening work.

We are going to start harvesting collard greens and peppers tomorrow at NuGarden so the kids will get to see the outcome of their hard work over the past month. They have become better workers and picked up job skills for the future at NuGarden which was part of the goal of the program. They complain less and work harder. Hopefully this experience will stay with them in their future and make them more successful adults.

Ethics of Eating - Catherine at JCU

I really enjoyed listening to Barbara Kingsolver discuss her book and her year of growing her own food with her family. She had some really good insights about nutrition, cooking, and the importance of buying locally if you are going to buy at all. I liked how she said that they stopped thinking about what food they were giving up and started thinking about what food they had available. Also, in order to truly eat nutritional food, one must be willing to cook. However, many people don't have time to cook or don't enjoy it. Therefore, as Kingsolver mentioned, thinking about cooking as family time and as entertainment makes it a much more enjoyable and a seemingly less time consuming activity.

Ethics of Eating

This is Brenna from Hiram House Camp. I had a few thoughts after listening to Barbara Kingsolver's conversation on "the Ethics of Eating." I think it was very ambitious and pretty brave for her to take on the task of feeding her family solely from what they could produce, in a year, by hand. Her ambitions and views seem to center on the idea that, as a culture, we have no sense of how wasteful our consumption is and that "if we can afford it it's ok to buy it" and the solution to this is to become aware of what we do, what it really costs, and to change how we, on a small scale, live.
I agree with her on a lot of counts; that we've "forgotten" to ask where our food comes from, and that food production is better, ideally, on a local scale, and thus less wasteful. She seemed to remark that it's also a cultural affliction (no regional sense of food culture, like India, Italy, Mexico. Is that so?) However I often find myself caught in a debate over whether systemic change can truly be affected by individual lifestyle choice; in other words, is growing your own food going to substitute for direct political action? I think what we as VISTAS are doing certainly goes into a larger than individual scale, and into the political sphere, so this is an interesting read. From Orion magazine: http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/4801/.

End of week 6 at Mount!

Cali and Bonnie and I just finished listening to the podcast about Barbara's year of life eating locally grown and homegrown food.

The author and interviewer bring up some good points about people's mentality about farmers' market and organic products. A lot of people think this is reserved for the elite. This mentality is true and we even see it in Alliance. They moved the farmers' market downtown so that the folks on that side of town could also have access to locally grown produce. Instead, the normal frequenters of the old location have just adapted to coming down to the other side of town.

I guess a lot of this podcast had a lot to do with human mentality and how it affects what and how they eat and consume products.

In one part she talks about "harvesting" the animals on her farm and how that term has become less harsh for her. Harvesting, slaughtering, butchering...it doesn't matter what term you use, it means the same thing. A majority of the animals on this planet are meant to be consumed in some way. All three of us agree with the whole dignity part of an animal's life. However, she cannot know for a fact that a turkey doesn't want to live til 100 and know its grandchilden. Perhaps its not their mentality, but its not really her place to decide what an animal is thinking.

Another good idea she mentions is the vegetable bookmobile that goes around low income neighborhoods. This would be a good idea to implement in more urban communities.

She talks about government and its involvement in this whole food buying and selling process. She says that we are the government and that we have the laws in this country that we allow. Without making this too political, I personally don't agree with that. The way this voting system works...yeah the minority hardly has any say in anything.

Also, there is no way we could just turn to locally grown food alone and not also buy food grown overseas. If we would do that then should other countries do the same with us and tur away food we send to underprivileged areas? Perhaps there should be more of a balance between locally grown food and imported products, but we cannot just not buy any imports at all.

This county does pride itself in wastefulness, its true. Its been a long process of getting to this point however. The development of bigger and better things turned the world into a material place. Everyone wants bigger and better and doesn't think about the little person any more. This includes the local farmers and business owners.

The main thing to remember about this book is that it is a story. She even says it herself. She picked and chose what she put into the book, so therefore we aren't getting a whole picture of what life would be like with this lifestyle. Perhaps it would have been more appropriate if she kept a year-long journal.

Nicole - Springfield

Today we listened to "The Ethics of Eating" which I found to really interesting. It was great to hear that the author spent a year eating only locally grown food, some of which she grew in her own backyard. It's very inspiring for those interested in making similar life changes. I was very surprised at how easy she found the transition. She said that they didn't actually miss anything. They switched from thinking about what foods they were losing, to what foods they had available. It's great to see that changing to local foods is possible if you change the way you think about food.

This week we spent alot of time in the office creating manuals for the next generation of leaders when we leave. We also sent out some much deserved thankyou notes and compiled alot of the contacts we have made for the new VISTA that will be taking over soon. It's been great to see how much we've accomplished and how much we've learned.

Hi Everyone! Sorry I'm a little late in responding to the blogs. I found some of the information in this article to be interesting as it expounded a lot on what has seemed to be a large topic of conversation between the other two vistas that are working at the college and I. Before this summer, I wouldn't of have thought that efforts to produce mass amounts of industrial food was a major problem, but I read an article this past week that two researchers from John Hopkins University predicted some time ago that by 2015 75% of Americans would be either obese or overweight. Also, another article in the New York Times said that this up and coming generation is the first generation that they're expected to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents because of the food that they're eating. Unfortunately, I think it might take something this impactful to lead us to pay more attention to what we're putting into our bodies.

War and Peas

Thanks to everyone who shared their "Activities for Kids" ideas. We will certainly be putting them to use.

Bad News this morning. We recently advertised "Free Produce" on a flyer for a community meeting at the garden. What we meant was 'free produce at the meeting.' However, many members of the community have interpreted this as 'free produce anytime' and have been harvesting from the garden as they please.

Aside from the relatively insignificant concern of having undocumented harvests, much of the food is being plundered from personal plots. We know that a similar problem sealed the fate of a previous community garden not far from our own. We are currently working on a way to assure the community that their plots are safe without becoming fascists e.g., barbwire, guard dogs, etc.

Anyhow, I found the article fascinating. It addresses the perhaps unforeseen problem of liking one's president too much. Part of the problem facing organic farmers right now is their reluctance to be too critical of a president that they ostensibly support. This makes them an even smaller pea on the president's already crowded plate. If Washington is going to lend an ear, liberal-minded farmers have to realize that Obama is not their personal friend. He doesn't have the time or the resources to do favors. They have to grow their teeth back.

Kids' Activities

Well,Cali already pretty much said it all for last week. And I agree, we didn't really get the article. BUT, to answer the other question as to kids' activities...

We've had a lot of successful days with the kids. On the hot days we play water games with sponge races. The one day the kids decided to wash our van! And then proceeded to get both Cali and I soaked. We've also done crafts with them using pipe cleaners, handprints, painting, and friday we used a whole bunch of foam stickers.

We've done relay races and obstacle courses. We also had a nature scavenger hunt this past week and then Cali brought out her bug collections and we drew bugs! We also had a day where we made noisemakers that sound like bees when you spin them in the air.

We have done rock painting at the farmers' market so that could be a fun activity too. This past saturday we also had face painting. The kids like being creative. Organized games don't go so well sometimes because they like to argue and make fun of each other TOO much.

Hope you can use some of those ideas!

Hiram Farm Living and Learning Community

Hello, everyone. This is India from Hiram College. I am working at Hiram Farm Living and Learning Community (hiramfarm.org), an organic farm and nonprofit organization that provides meaningful work and community support for adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder. I spend my mornings and most of my afternoons working with farm participants, primarily in the vegetable garden. When we begin harvesting (we’re a bit behind…), I will be helping participants assemble baskets of produce that will be donated on a weekly basis to a local food pantry. The remainder of our produce will be sold at a roadside stand, becoming a source of organic food for the local community.

I am also helping to organize and facilitate a gardening program for children and youth in the area. There are currently seven kids ranging in ages 2 to 11 (which makes engaging all of them a bit difficult) growing gardens on a portion of Hiram Farm land designated to community garden plots. We meet every Tuesday and Thursday from 2 p.m. until 4 p.m., spending most of our time gardening and the remainder engaged in educational activities revolving around nutrition, food cultivation and distribution, as well as exploring nature and spending time with/learning about animals and their purposes on the farm. My hopes are that this experience will allow those involved to develop a deepened respect for and recognition of earth/the environment as source of our nourishment, while providing them with knowledge to cultivate food for themselves and others.

I apologize for my lack of involvement with this blog (I am not inclined to spending much time in front of a computer!). I enjoy reading about everyone’s experiences and hope to share photographs of my own soon.

Nicole - Springfield

This week at the Springfield garden was full of mixed news. We started with disappointment that we may have to relocate next season as the owners of the land want us to start paying for the taxes on the property (which we of course can not afford), but we have some great new locations in mind if the move needs happen. We also had a community meeting this week in which ourselves and Habitat For Humanity recruited interest for putting a Neighborhood Assocation, Neighborhood Watch, and Garden Committee into place within the next few weeks. We had a GREAT turnout and got lots of interested community members! We got to meet many new neighbors as well! We were able to hand out some of the produce from the garden to everyone that came to the meeting as well as donating about another 10 pounds to the local food pantry. Today we volunteered at the pantry to get a better idea of how the produce is distributed.

I found the article interesting as I do think it's so true that local growers need more support than the big guys, but I also thought the article was a bit lengthy. It took me a few sittings to get through it. It didn't influence my opinions as much as things such as the Food Inc video, but continually reading about these issues each week does ingrain the thoughts in my mind and really encourages me to support local farms and markets.

week 5 at Mt. Union

Cali here. I can't really say much about the article. I found it difficult to concentrate on. from what I understand from the article is that farms are having a har time making money but what else is new.
the past week at maple Beech Park was a lot of fun. One kid that causes the most problems was not there all week, so there were no fights breaking out. Katy and I focused a lot on insects this week. thursday i brought in two of my insect collections. the kids were a little freaked out but they all thought it was really sweet. they were asking questions and picking them up, and a few of the kids wanted to take some of the bugs home. one of the kids brought me a moth that they caught in there home. I was very excited about this because they thought of me instead of killing it.
the community gardens are doing great. Glenna, the garden watch dog, is doing great maintance on them. we are harvsting tomatos, cucumbers, radishes, carrots, lettuce, and a ton of marigolds. Katy and I are still working on the raised beds at te homless shelter. after we get some more soil in them we will be able to start planting.

Mike in Cleveland

After reading the article for this week I came away with mixed feelings. I agree with a lot of what the author is saying but can't get past a few of the points. The author explains how expensize and labor intensive organic farming is but does not provide any reasons for how to overcome this. If organic farming is going to boom in popularity this issue will have to be addressed. I think organic farming is important and delicious but I feel more passionate about local foods. Some organic farming operations still use a lot of fossil fuels because of farm equipment and long distance transportation costs. I would rather see a backyard or community garden that uses fertilizer than an industrial organic farm. The local food movement is more about people being connected to their food and taking part in its production. Backyard and community gardens are also more democratic because they take much less of a monetary investment than buying organic produce grown by someone else. No low income people in Cleveland are going to buy a dozen eggs for $14. The author still makes a valid point about farm subsidies.

This past week I built a fence to keep rabbits and deer out of one of the new beds we created. The squash I planted a few weeks ago are doing awesome!!! The stuff at newgarden is almost ready to harvest and we built a new planter for some tomato plants.

Mason - Shawnee

I thought the article was interesting. The author does a nice job showing how small-scale farmers are not getting the kind of support you would expect with all the recent focus on local food and sustainability. She does confuse the issue a little bit, making it seem that small-scale and organic agriculture are synonymous, in opposition to industrial and conventional agriculture. In reality, there are industrial organic farms and small-scale conventional farms. Meanwhile, the subsidies she talks about aren't given specifically to conventional or industrial farms - they are given to any farmer who grows wheat, corn, soybeans, or several other crops...whether they do it organically or conventionally. Either way, the article does point out the difficult position that small-scale farmers find themselves in.

Week 5 @ Shawnee

Sarah here. The garden is flourishing these days. The squash and melons are doing so well that they have begun encroaching on the walking paths and have started to grow into the rows of corn. We harvested on Monday and again on Wednesday. In one single harvest we had 105 lbs of produce. It was exciting!

The people who come to the pantry each week to get their usual rations always seem very thankful for the vegetables we bring. And when the kids that come in with their parents rush to our table and point at tomatoes, it makes me want to give them all we have. It's just nice to see young people who are excited about vegetables. We offer an open invitation for people who come to the pantry to come down to the garden to help out but as yet have not seen many familiar faces. We worry that they might show up when we aren't there and pick vegetables from the adjacent community garden as opposed to our pantry garden, or that people will simply take more than their fair share. Our location makes it difficult to be secure, but we do have one community gardener who has become something of a mascot for us who spends most of his day in the garden and enforces the rules on anyone who might come with bad intentions.

In a previous post, we mentioned that we were planning an end of summer dinner party. Plans are coming along smoothly. We have procured a great location at a local home and garden shop. We have a menu planned out. We have posters and tickets made and several people have promised to attend. With any luck, the dinner will go splendidly and keeping the garden going next year will be possible.

Slowed Food Revolution- Laura in Marietta

This article was pretty interesting when combined with the Brazil article. The city in Brazil solved hunger by supporting local farmers, while the US feeds its children through programs such as the Summer Food Service Program. This program gives money to individual sites that then purchase the food themselves. Ely Chapman, where I am doing my service, is one such site. We purchase our food from large distributors such as Sam's Club. Needless to say, this is supporting large industrial farming. The limited amount supplied by the federal government through feeding programs combined with limited state funding for education leaves schools in a difficult spot. I spoke with the executive director about the nutritious value of the food we serve, some of which includes pizza and chicken nuggets which have been frozen. She explained to me that these were kid friendly foods and with her limited budget she prefers to get USDA approved "healthy" food that kids will eat rather than waste more nutritious, more expensive food that is more fresh. It seems to be an accepted cultural norm that Americans should feed their children pre-frozen food that does not even resemble fresh food. Large scale industrial farms help promote this attitude. The 'renegade lunch lady', Ann Cooper, discusses how children think chicken should come in shapes such as stars and hearts. Americans teach their children that this processed version of food is the norm. It's not really surprising that we have a problem with obesity when we don't teach our children how to prepare fresh, healthy food. It is said that you can judge a culture's values by observing what they are willing to spend their money on. Honestly, as a college student, I grab the cheapest food possible when I go grocery shopping. Yet I'm willing to drop a couple hundred dollars every semester for my sorority dues. I feel that the American people need a food culture make-over before agricultural change can occur. Growing food organically is less efficient and therefore more expensive than growing food industrially. Until Americans are willing to pay extra and stop forfeiting nutritional value, agricultural change cannot truly occur.

Youth Involvement: Ely Chapman runs a summer camp. I've done a few different activities with them. One is the milk challenge, in which we measure the amount of milk the kids throw away every meal. It's a competition to see if they can limit their milk waste. The kids love a competition! Another activity is doing fun snacks with healthy foods, such as fruits and vegetables. One thing we did was give the kids an assortment of vegetables and have them make food art (aka pictures). This was great with a younger group.

Week 4 at Mount Union

I think the heat made everyone a little crazy this past week. The kids at our lunch site were crankier than ever! As an experiment, more or less, we decided not to do our activity chart this past week which probably did not help in keeping order. Those kids like earning stickers...they know we're giving away something big at the end!

Hopefully this week will go a little better at Maple Beach; we're planning on doing a nature scavenger hunt today if the rain holds off.

The gardens at Feed My Sheep are still coming along nicely. Along with all of the marigolds littering the beds, we have lettuce, cucumbers, zucchini, radishes, and carrots. Hopefully these will all be ready to harvest soon!

We also weeded garden beds at the homeless shelter this past week and will probably go back sometime this week to put in fresh topsoil. These are smaller garden beds but they already have 3 volunteer tomato plants!

Let's hope this is a better week for Maple Beach and a bountiful one at Feed My Sheep!

Laura in Marietta

Preparing lunch!

The new food pyramid

Autumn and I working with the kids to make recipe cards

This is Laura checking in from Marietta! Things have been going pretty well at Ely Chapman where I'm doing my service. I have been keeping track of the meals we serve as a part of the Summer Food Service Program. We serve about 600 meals per week. Most of the people who receive the meals are kids attending Ely's Sensational Summer Camp. We really haven't had anyone off the street come in to eat. I think this is one of our biggest challenges at this point. It's important to ensure the kids are being well fed, but I wonder why we don't have anyone off the street. I have done a fair amount of advertising by hanging posters. However, it seems that lower income people who could benefit from programs such as SFSP hear about these programs by word of mouth. This can be quite a challenge as homeless populations are often nomadic and hard to track. I also wonder if there is a strongly perceived need that maybe isn't quite accurate. I would really like to be able to collect more data about the needs in this area. Autumn is currently doing a feasibility study for Harvest of Hope, so I hope this will shed some light on this matter.

The next issue is the actual nature of the food. Amanda (Autumn's and my supervisor) provided a video for us to reflect upon. (http://yesmagazine.org/happiness/school-lunch-is-a-social-justice-issue) The food purchased is USDA certified as "healthy" food. However, most of it is typical cafeteria food, in that it's frozen and then heated up. It's food such as chicken nuggets and pizza. I'm not essentially against these foods, but this article got me thinking about teaching children to feed themselves properly. I feel that more fresh food that doesn't look so mass produced might be beneficial to the children. However, that is a cultural battle. When I broached the subject with the woman in charge of Ely Chapman she said that she preferred to spend money on food the kids are willing to eat. This was a good point. Anywho, I'm babbling but I thought it was good food for thought!
As far as the projects I've been working on, I finished my outreach program (advertising). Autumn and I also worked with two classes to make recipe cards for the food pantry. I have the recipes if anyone working on a similar idea would like them! This coming week we will be measuring the milk the kids waste every day at breakfast and lunch to make them more aware of that issue. Hope everything is going well for everyone!

Hey its Cali from Mount Union. Katy and I had a busy weekend and a stressful week. Last friday we had a community picnic at Maple Beach Park. Usually we only serve kids but we had adults come and eat too. Our supervisor got a volunteer firefighter to come out and show the kids the fire truck. Munchy the mascot was there and the kids loved him! We served 61 kids and 16 adults that day. Saturday we were at the farmers' market in downtown Alliance. It was a lot of fun. We had kids paint rocks to look like bees and lady bugs. I also brought my bug collection and our supervisor brought some of her honey bees. This really got people's attention. One family stopped and said that they found a huge beetle on the sidewalk by the market and they took me over to get it. It was a huge red-brown stag beetle. On the fourth, Katy and I were at Silver Park with our supervisor doing a nature scavenger hunt with kids and adults. 75 people did this! We had a lot of fun. On monday the summer meals program was not serving because of the holiday. This week with the kids at Maple Beach was rough. They were extremely mean to Katy and I and to each other. Thursday, we went to the homeless shelter in Alliance to work on the two raised garden beds that were built there a few years ago. They were overgrown with weeds and it took about an hour to finish them. We also went to Feed My Sheep Ministries after and worked in the gardens there as well. We will soon have red tomatoes and cucumbers ready to eat in a few days. In our mid week evaluation, Katy and I crunched all the numbers of people we have interacted with in the past four weeks. Our total number was 1343 (give or take a few numbers)!!!! woohoo!!

This is Nicole from Springfield/Wittenberg.

This week we worked very hard to prepare for the America in Bloom judging which went very well this morning! The judges were very impressed to see the transformation from an empty plot in May to the very productive garden we have set up now. We have been able to donate more than 20 lbs of produce to the local food bank and food pantry. We can't wait for the tomatoes and peppers to be ready for harvest.

Our biggest challenge like many other gardens is sustainability when we're gone. Next week, we have a community meeting set up where we would like to start a garden committee and recruit more involvement. We are also working to build our compost system as soon as we hear back from Home Depot and are planning to raise funds to construct a more reasonable size shed (We don't have enough room to store our water hose).

The Dirt

Branden from Wittenberg

Judges from America in Bloom came by the garden this morning. Everything looked great despite the rain. Think they were genuinely impressed.

Before our term is up I would like to:
a.) Establish a neighborhood-based garden committee
b.) Erect a proper shed
c.) Build a functional composting system.

The ball is already rolling on all of these but nothing is certain (especially since we don't own the land). Nevertheless, it is all very exciting.

Catherine at JCU

Our garden is coming along. We haven't been able to pick anything from it yet, but within the next couple weeks there should be a lot. Outside of the garden, I am currently working on a few little projects. One project is researching and gathering data pertaining to food access in Cuyahoga County. Most of the information we have on hand is geared toward all of Cleveland or all of Ohio, but we are looking for more specific data. In a couple months, the information will be used as a teaching tool for JCU students volunteering at various sights across Cuyahoga County so they can have a better idea about who exactly they are interacting with throughout their service experience.

With that said, my summer goals are going really well so far. Everything is coming along as planned. I would like to move along a little bit quicker on the manuel for our garden, but I think a lot of what I put in the manuel will have to come from trial and error in the garden this summer.

Mike in Cleveland

I never responded to the article from last week so I would like to start off there. I think the Brazilian program shows a lot of promise and while it may not work in America exactly the same as it has been implemented in Brazil it shows promise for connecting people to their food. The United States Government currently helps and subsidizes big agriculture and if they instead helped small farmers and local food producers it might help a lot more.

This past week has been a good one with the rest of the kids finally arriving at my community garden. We now have 11 kids so I am starting to plan lunchtime activities for them to learn more about the food that they are growing. I would like to improve the educational aspect of the urban garden program in the future so that is an area for me to work on. I will try to add more later in teh week and maybe even some pictures!

Shawnee

Coming to you from Portsmouth. Some issues for improvement:

We could do a better job organizing our volunteers and court-appointed workers; we need to keep up on harvest (we've been handing out dauchsund-sized summer squash), and we've got some big issues looming (how to continue this next year and how to coordinate harvests once our summer term has ended) that need to be addressed.

Overall, however, we are achieving our goals. We've already handed out over 100 lbs of produce, hosted a bunch of volunteers, and raised a little bit of money for next year. Okay, hope all is well in your corners of the state.

Belo

The story of Belo Horizonte really fascinated me. I had to ask myself, why is this, fundamentally, not occurring in places of similar stress in the states? What are the features, whether governmental, societal, or personal that prevent good food access to people who need it? I feel like this could be possible in the US, but it would require some kind of governmental overhaul, or, as they did in Brazil, a reconfiguration of the food system and redefinition of food access as a right.

There are so many community garden projects that have sprung up around the states, like the one shown in the South Bronx video, to Growing Power in Milwaukee, to the community gardens of LA exhibited in "The Garden." However how do we ensure the longevity of the projects, and how do we expand them to include the whole population instead of a voluntary or sometimes only priveleged audience? I was inspired by the article. My work seems to relate on a very basic level, and that is educating kids about where food comes from so they can understand it in a holistic sense. I feel that a lot of work and large-scale organizing could make something like Belo's program happen in the states.

Hey Everyone!  This is Autumn Partlow from Marietta College.  I found both the article and the video to be very interesting and inspiring.  I love that these things are happening!  I would love to see what is happening in Belo happen in the US, but I definitely think the government would have to do some explaining and convincing to us Americans.  

The program I'm working with called Harvest of Hope was somewhat similar to the program that we saw in the video.  Harvest of Hope does community gardens and they're starting a farmer's market for people in low income areas.  However, this market will only take donations rather than putting set prices on the produce.  Another major difference is that we're in a rural area whereas the program in the video was in the Bronx.

News from Shawnee's Pantry Garden

In addition to the video and article response, we wanted to give an update with some pictures. We had our first harvest and pantry distribution on Wednesday: summer squash, cucumbers, and cherry tomatoes.

We have been making plans for an end-of-summer fundraiser dinner to provide some garden funds for next year; a gourmet 5-course meal featuring garden vegetables, and maybe a local group for dinner music. If anybody has advice or suggestions let us know.

Week 3 in Pictures @ Shawnee State

Lettuce









In the rows of summer squash









Our first harvest to take to the pantry









Squash and Cucumbers









God's Pantry at Second Presbyterian









Our table at the pantry









Hoe Hoe Hoe









The hottest radishes ever









We'll see you on the Radio

Article and video respone from Sarah Bachman @SSU

What do I believe?
I was really impressed that the city of Belo Horizonte took the initiative to fight hunger in a way that most other large cities have shied away from in that it’s not a system of hand-outs but a system that makes it possible for people of all income levels to participate in the market. I also liked how the farmers benefited from the initiative. Farmers in the U.S. have been moved to the bottom of the food chain right behind the consumer while big industry have taken the largest slice of the monetary pie. By removing the distributors and keeping the exchange between farmers and consumers, both parties benefit.

Can this happen in the US?
While I thought that this approach was really exciting and effective, I have doubts that it could take off in the U.S. There are a lot of big box grocery stores that would feel threatened by price controls such as they have in the Belo Horizonte system. There are also a lot of Americans who favor our Capitalist system just as it is and would not want to see such a large scale move to something that seems Socialist on the surface. There was a quote from the article however, that I think made an excellent point about the Belo Horizonte system…

“We’re showing that the state doesn’t have to provide everything, it can
facilitate. It can create channels for people to find solutions themselves.”

I believe that in a smaller city, an approach like this might work, but in an area as big as Belo Horizonte, there would be crushing opposition.

How is our program similar to the one in the video?
Our program is similar in some ways and very dissimilar in others. We are similar in that we do work in an area with a lot of poverty; around 21%. And we are similar in that we bring fresh healthy produce to people in need, but we are dissimilar in that we do not sell our produce. We give it to people in need. We also are in a rural community, so it isn’t like NYC where people do not have access to green space of their own to grow fresh foods.

to Comment

in Watching the video on the South Bronx, i could relate to it in a sense that we too are providing the same type of service in some aspects and it is nice to see that these SERVICES are being implemented else where throughout the country if not the world. It is encouraging and somewhat satisfactory to not only be able to relate to such services but to be a part of it in our own way, a way that provides and raises social awareness to the Point at hand, before our very eyes...all in a matter of equal time

Mason Bradbury - Shawnee; Week #3

Hey Everybody,
To answer the questions Melissa sent, I think that communities in the US can implement programs similar to the one in Belo Horizonte, but maybe not on the same scale. There are already school districts that buy food for lunches from local farms, and we have programs like WIC and the Senior's Nutrition Program, but I don't think (though I'm not sure about this) that our commerce laws would allow for such extensive involvement by local, state, and federal government in the buying and selling of food, setting prices, etc.

Nicole Niese

This is Nicole from the Grand Ave South Garden in Springfield. We've had a very productive week harvesting 10 pounds of green beens, planting a flat of donated lavender, unloading a third donation of mulch, and weeding like crazy. With the America in Bloom contest around the corner, we are rushing to get everything looking pristine! In our little freetime, we are also organizing a community meeting to set up a neighborhood association, neighborhood watch, and garden commitee as well as a huge end-of-the-summer Nieghborhood Celebration. There is a lot of work to do, but we're slowly chipping away at our list.

The video clip this week did not play on our computers, but I was able to read the article. The project going on in Belo Horizonte seems like an amazing idea and has clearly had some fantastic results. For a project like that to start up in the US would be great, but I have to agree with other bloggers that it seems really difficult to get large amounts of involvement. I think the biggest problem with the food crisis is the common belief that there is no real solution. Belief in a cause is a hard thing to come by and is definately the downfall to many great projects. Of course, I'm sure the people in Belo didn't think the project would turn out this great at the beggining either and look at what they have been able to do!

Week 3 at JCU

I can't believe we are already finished with our third week! We have a few green and banana peppers that look like they may be ready to pick in a short time. It is exciting to finally see some vegetables begin to form. At the emergency food center this week, we were very busy. We served over 100 individuals, many of which had families of 4 or more - one was even 11 people. I can't imagine how difficult it must be to feed 11 mouths off of food stamps and emergency food.

I thought the article and the video were good. The article is inspiring because it shows just how much can be accomplished when people really care about one another and work together toward a common goal. It made me think about hunger in terms of health care. Our country spends so much money on health care every year, but if people had more education about nutrition and put more money into producing and eating healthy foods, health care costs would probably be greatly reduced.

Hey all Cali here from Mount. this week has had its ups and downs with the weather which had an impact on the number of kids that came to the park. but on wed. Katy and I served 35 kids a meal and alot of parents were there as well which is great! thursday, we served 27 kids and about 20 stuck around after to play games with us. we all really had a good time. at Feed My Sheep last night, Katy and I served meals to the people and we also maintained our three garden beds there. at the nature center this past week we picked lettuce that is grown in the gardens that the commuinty has helped with, and we gave it to a few families at Maple Beach Park. I have been trying to get nature involed every day while at the park with the kids. this week the kids found two frogs which we named Jobin and Jobin the Second. yesterday was an exciting day for me and the bugs! one of the kids found a Cecropia moth under a picnic table. I grabbed it before it flew away and I showed all the kids and told them all about it. After the moth lays her eggs, I am going to add her to my bug collection! Katy put up a picture of the parde last saturday. I have never been in a parde before so it was really exciting for me. we all had a lot of fun.

As for the video I think that it is really great that people can get good food for little cost. it would be great for this to happen around the country, but I dont think that to many farmers or people would be willing to work or sell for little money. this is kind of like what we are doing wiht the communty gardens. allowing people to take fresh grown crops home. The Belo program is very interseting and is very benifical. I dont think that it will work in the US though. it all goes back to how willing people are.

Week 3!!

Hi! I have been so impressed with all the work all the Summer Associate VISTAs are doing. This week OCC has asked them to read the article below, watch the video posted below and share their thoughts.

http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/food-for-everyone/the-city-that-ended-hunger


http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/06/22/dining/1247468103416/getting-fresh-in-the-south-bronx.html

Keep up the great work!!
OCC