VGI Blog

Its seems that Milwaukee is really catching on!  Even our own Mayor has made commitments to increasing access to land for growing food in the recent announcement of the Home Gr/Own project – a neighborhood development scheme rooted in land dispositioning for the purpose of growing food. 

What we want to do… LOUD and CLEAR, is thank all of our partners for this years BLITZ, for we know we could not do it without you:

Organizational Partners include:

Habitat for Humanity:  That you for bringing your homeowners into the food movement.  Thank you for organizing volunteers. Thank you for letting us use your space.  Thank you thank you thank.  H4H we love you.

Layton Blvd West Neighborhood Association:  Thank you LBWN association for working with us to bring gardens to the neighborhood you serve.  We hope we can continue to expand what we offer to your people!

MGIC:  Thanks for bringing your people together to grow food with the gardens we install.

Funding Partners include:

Case Construction:  Once again Case Construction has been the major sponsor for the BLITZ, giving us enough support to install 100 Gardens to low-income folks! In Milwaukee  This is remarkable!   Not only have they put their money where their mouth is, they are sending a team of volunteers, they are lending us a skid steer loader, AND they have made hundreds of “Move Grass.  Grow Food.”  yard signs.  Watch for these signs all over Milwaukee!

Habitat for Humanity:  This year, we hooked up with Habitat for Humanity on several levels.  We are installing 100 gardens for their home owners.  Their volunteer pool will be supporting the installation efforts.  AND, the head quarters this year will be at the H4H headquarters at 3726 N. Booth Avenue.

Baird:  Baird is sending their financial support and several teams of volunteers.. thank you Baird!

Purple Cow Organics:  Once again we are proud to offer you the best compost east of the Mississippi for your garden beds.  Purple Cow Organics generously donated enough soil for 100 gardens this year.  

Bliffert Lumber:  Bliffert… we “heart” you - our local lumber company.  We appreciate your support.  We like knowing you are our ally towards creating a local food system.

Gorman & Company:  Thank you Gorman for caring enough about your community development projects to help the residents grow their own food there. 

Women’s Club of Wisconsin:  Thank you for bringing your culture of philanthropy to Victory Garden Initiative.

GreenMan Landscaping:  Thank you GreenMan for MOVING the food movement forward.  Literally… with the use of your trucks to move 500 yards of soil all over the place. 

Milwaukee Tools:  Thanks for the rockin’ hardware Milwaukee tools!  We will not be short on drills like we were last year.  We love the new impact drivers that you chose as the perfect tool for the job.  Thank you!

NIDC:  Thank you to the City of Milwaukee’s NIDC organization for once again weighing the importance of creating a new food system in the neighborhoods you serve.

Zilber Family Foundation:  Thank you Zilber for taking such good care of the Layton Blvd West Neighborhood.  We hope we can continue to work with you to create a healthy community there by helping them grow their own food!

Outpost:  Thanks for helping some families in Milwaukee have access to fresh veggies by gardening in their space!

Jeff has secure thousands of dollars in donations for new gardens and equipment. He has connected us to Habitat for Humanity, so we can install 100 gardens to their homeowners.  He has single-handedly organized the installation of an 88-plot project at Nu Genesis Farm.  And probably most importantly he has operationalized the BLITZ to a much more stream-line process giving us the kind of plan we need to actually install, without too many huge hiccups, 500 hundred gardens!  This is no small under-taking, I assure you. 

Jeff lives in a beautiful home on Wahl Avenue overlooking the lake.  This home that he earned working hard at a desk job,  took a toll on him, as he reached 220 pounds. His health suffered due to the sitting and poor diet.  

Then, five years ago, Jeff tragically lost one of his twin boys.  Since this loss, Jeff has had a long slow process of healing.  Part of this process has been to get his hands in the earth, “as much as I could.  Everyday, all day. It helped me feel closer to him somehow.”  When Jeff met our founding board president, Erik Lindberg, and Executive Director, Gretchen Mead, his passion for getting his hands in the soil began to take on many purposes. 

Jeff is a member of Emanuel Presbyterian Church, the oldest church in Milwaukee.  He has seen the value in bringing the “grow your own food” movement to his congregation.  They also want to help, and they believe in the work he is doing with Victory Garden Initiative.

He says, “The garden is like syrup for bees, except that it draws people.  They are simply drawn here... garbage men, passer-bys, police officers... everyone wants to know what int he world is going on here.  Neighborhood children come over and harvest and ask questions.  I had no idea that so many wonderful people would enter my life,  if I simply spent time in my front yard growing food!  It has been the unplanned gift I have received from this garden.”  Sometimes, Jeff gives away entire grocery bags of food to whomever happens to come by at harvest time.

Several years later, his entire lawn is edible.  His wife tells him,  “You are growing too much food for us!”  If you drive by Lake Park, you might see Jeff outside, shirtless, with a bandana on his head, devotedly working his soil.  He would love it if you stopped by to say hello.

One of my favorite Annie Dillard quotes is so simple, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.” Annie says it so well, so often.  Of course, how we spend our days is how we spend our lives!  Its so simple, yet, when considered, has deep implications.

Lately, I don’t know what it is, but, I have increasingly felt like time is an illusion.  My days spin by without any real sense that time is passing. Then, it is night, and I snuggle my babies to sleep, and suddenly a new day comes… then a new year, and then a new decade.   

About the time that we launched Victory Garden Initiative a few years ago, my realization about time passing began to take on a different meaning.  I found a new sense of urgency about how I wanted to spend my one wild and precious life, and this urgency was and is in part, the founding energy of this organization.   I hope you will agree that Victory Garden Initiative has gotten a lot of results out of that urgency!

Dillard’s passage continues on: “A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and orderundefinedwilled, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.”

This in part, sums up what the BLITZ offers so many people in Milwaukee.  Stay with me here… I truly am going somewhere.

You see… Victory Garden Initiative’s vision is, well, frankly, not achievable in our lifetime.  It’s huge.  We envision a food system that is socially just, nutritious, ecologically based, secure and sovereign.  This food system is local and home made.  It is based in part, in a barter economy.  It is owned by the people who EAT the Food… the community of eaters.   

Now go back to Ms. Dillard.  The BLITZ is like a schedule.  It creates a part of a framework, a schedule for making sense out of that vast, endless vision that we all want to create.  

We take the chaos of a huge vision, in our crazy day to day lives, in the illusion of time and we say, “Here Milwaukee:  Grow your own food.  Install this garden in your yard.  It’s not too much money.  It doesn’t take too much effort.  Help others do the same.”  Victory Garden Initiative is creating this scheduled opportunity for you to take back the way you spend your time…. And then your life, by growing your own food, building community, saving some money, living with less. Feeling better. Being connected to the earth.

We do this in the spring, when it makes good sense for folks to get started.  We have developed a very functional schedule, delivery route, and trained force of volunteers. 

But… we cannot do it all by ourselves.  We are nothing with out you, continuing to grow this movement.  We can’t spread the word without you. And, we cannot install more gardens unless you volunteer, donate and/or purchase your own garden.

There are just two weeks left until the BLITZ begins… for our 5^th ANNUAL BLITZ, we have set a goal to install 500 Gardens! FIVE HUNDRED! FIVE – ZERO – ZERO.  That is something.  For 15 days, we will build gardens all over the city… and we need your help to do it.

If you would like to expand your garden space, consider having us install a second or third bed this year.  If your neighbor is interested, please spread the word.  Invite your friends on facebook… this really works! So, even if you can’t be more involved, please take the time to pass our info to your on-line networks.  Spend a day volunteering your time, so that 100 Habitat for Humanity homeowners can receive gardens to increase their access to fresh produce. 

Spend your days, and your life, changing the food system with us. 

See you bright and early on the 11^th for the BLITZ Kick-Off.  Join the rally, support the work, and then eat, drink and be merry at the party on the 25^th.

~gretchen

Paradigm Shift

By Jazz Glastra

This May, Victory Garden Initiative will complete its 5^th Annual Victory Garden Blitz. It started as a group of friends and neighbors who came together to see what they could accomplish in a dayundefinedhow many people could they get started growing food? How many raised gardens could they build?

That first year, they built 40 raised beds. Four years later, that group of friends and neighbors has grown to become an established nonprofit organization with a goal of building 500 raised bed gardens during the Victory Garden Blitz. Half of these will be for low income families. We’re still just a group of friends and neighbors, though. Last year, about 170 volunteers from all over Milwaukee came together to help each other start growing food in the city. Nearly 2,000 hours of volunteer labor were contributed to this cause in only 8 days. We conservatively estimate that the dollar value of the produce grown in Blitz gardens last year topped $22,000.

What does this tell us? It tells us that Milwaukee is a city on the verge of a paradigm shift. Milwaukeeans are no longer satisfied with a food system that can put a bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos in the hands of a child at every meal, yet cannot provide that same child with a single daily serving of fresh fruits and vegetables. We are done letting multinational corporations dictate what we eat and how our food is produced. We’re fed up with pollution to our air, water, and land caused by unsafe and unsustainable growing practices. But most of allundefinedwe’re ready to change all of it by growing our own food, right here and right now.

Are you a paradigm shifter? Have you started growing your own food? Have you stood up to help your neighbor grow food? Here is your opportunity. Help us build 500 gardens in the Greater Milwaukee area this May 11-25^th. Here’s how:

-Purchase a garden (full installation and organic soil from Purple Cow Organics included)

-Volunteer to install gardens for your neighbor

-Share your knowledge by mentoring a new gardener

-Donate: $150 buys a garden for a family in need

-Tell your friends and neighbors!

Together, as a community, we can change the food system in Milwaukee. 

Lessons Learned from Eating Locally

Ann Hippensteel

Ann is a longtime gardener and brand-new Victory Garden Initiative volunteer. We’ll be publishing a segment of her experiences during her amazing year of eating locally over the next few months.

When I first began to examine the challenge I had accepted to eat for an entire year only local foods, that is, foods raised and processed within 100 miles of my home, I panicked.  “We’re going to starve!” I thought.  What would I use to replace the olive oil and balsamic vinegar that we appreciate on our salads?  What about rice and pasta?  What about olives and raisins and lentils and peanut butter and a multitude of other loved foodstuffs?

But commit myself I did, and not being one to pass up such an intriguing challenge, I forged ahead.  There were factors in my favor.  The challenge year began July 1^st, so gardening and farmers’ market seasons were upon us.   I had developed food preservation skills.  I had agreed to blog about my experience so felt the pressure of the scrutiny of others.  I was not averse to doing research, something I immediately saw would be necessary to identify sources of food in my region.  Most importantly, my 14 year old daughter had made the commitment with me, and I wanted to set a positive, determined example for her.  As an engaged mother, I had provided Sally with locally produced, nutritious, and delicious food since she was a breastfed baby.  It seemed I only needed to ramp that effort up a bit to make it an exclusive endeavor.

THE CHALLENGE

The challenge had been made by a nonprofit organization devoted to assisting other organizations, businesses, governments, and individuals to change to more sustainable practices.  The challenge was to last four complete seasons.  Participants agreed they would increase sourcing their meals from growers and providers within a 100 mile radius of their homes.  Some participants chose to increase their local eating by one meal a week for the entire year.  Some chose to eat exclusively local foods during the months that the farmers’ markets were open.  Some, such as myself, chose to eat as close to 100% local foods as possible for the year.  The parameters of each individual's commitment were self-determined, and needed only to represent a personal challenge and increase the incidence and/or duration of local foods consumption.

I excluded salt and leavening agents such as yeast and baking powder from our locavore diet.  I also continued to take and provided for my daughter, multivitamins – not technically food, but something to reassure me that we wouldn’t suffer from malnutrition before the challenge was over.  (I needn’t have worried, as it turns out.  Local foods can provide all the necessary nutrients for a healthful diet.)

A month or two before the challenge began I started researching.  I called local dairies, grain purveyors, and meat producers.   Not only did the ice cream or the flour or the sausage need to be processed locally, but all the ingredients needed to be locally sourced as well.  I often found myself making calls up the supply chain in order to be certain that the food was truly local.  I ran into many disappointing dead ends but was gratified on numerous occasions as well.

COMMUNITY

Eating locally supports community.  This concept I understood to mean that local farmers and food producers are supported by the effort, which in turn enhances the local economy.  As individuals begin to purchase their food from Community Supported Agriculture and other farms, they learn more about and become friendly with not only the individuals who grow their produce but with the other subscribers and customers as well.  Saturday morning at the farmers’ market is a social event.

An aspect of community building that I hadn’t realized at the beginning of the challenge year but was keenly and appreciatively aware of before long, was the personal network of friends who were to support my efforts.  Some of these were other locavores who traded food with me, but some were just enthusiastic about the 100 mile challenge though not in a position to participate themselves, and helped find foodstuffs that would work for us.  These items often included things I wasn’t even looking for: flavor enhancers such as herbs and spices and greenhouse grown items that I wouldn’t have considered possible such as lemons and kumquats.  One couple offered to pickle cucumbers for me if I provided the produce and some vinegar I had managed to produce from local apple cider.  Another man brought me a pound of shelled hickory nuts in time for Christmas baking.  

These were gifts of both the material and the spiritual kinds.

To be continued…

Ann is a longtime gardener and brand-new Victory Garden Initiative volunteer. We’ll be publishing a segment of her experiences during her amazing year of eating locally over the next few months.

Farmer, Educator, Optimist

By Katie Hassemer

A little personal history about me: at this time last year I was packing up my belongings, wrapping up a management job that I had for over 4 years, and utterly nervous and excited about the big leap I was about to take. I was about to move from Milwaukee to Burlington, Vermont to begin my hands-on education in sustainable agriculture. Clarity entered my life about 6 months earlier, when I put all the right pieces together and discovered I was meant to build community through food experiences, and learn how to farm while doing so.

Fast-forward from there to 6 months ago, and I was just about to graduate from the University of Vermont's Farmer Training Program. I was in love with working out in the fields every day, and totally blissed out by the community of people that I had spent a wonderful growing season with. But the time was coming to get back to Wisconsin, and I wanted to keep working with my hands and body, and keep building community around food experiences in my adoptive hometown of Milwaukee. And then one of those moments happened, where Victory Garden Initiative posted an opportunity about farming in the city at Concordia Gardens just at the perfect time, and it became an opportunity I intended to fully seize.

I moved back to Milwaukee knowing that I was going to be a Farmer (yes, with a capital F!) and an Educator, and a Community Organizer. I don't know what more I could have asked for coming right out of an intensive training program that was majorly assisting me in my new career move. 

As winter has left its imprint into these early, teasing days of spring, I spend a lot of time thinking about the uncertainties of the growing season ahead. When will we get to install a new underground rainwater harvesting system at Concordia Gardens? What all will we need to do to get the soil ready to be planted in? Will our seedlings be ready on time? Will I remember all the names of the fruit and nut trees that are already on site? How much food will we be able to grow, and where will it all end up going? Who is going to roll up their sleeves alongside us? These are all questions we at VGI are working hard to try and answer every day. And while I am absolutely honored to have gotten the position of Farmer and Garden Educator with VGI, I am also reminding myself to be those job attributes one doesn't often put on their business card: Patient, Relentless, Researcher, Listener, Collaborator, Student, Change-maker, Optimist. And for all the hats I'm going to be wearing with VGI, I truly believe it's going to be a spectacular season!

Starting Seeds

By Charlie Uihlein

This past two weeks the Victory Garden Clubs have started to garden.  After weeks of learning about fruits, vegetables and what does it mean to be healthy, the students are finally planting their seeds into the soil.  For the educators, we see it as a transformative experience.  The students hypothesized about what their plants were going to look like when the plant became an adult (the students were given seeds without knowing the specific plant) and what the students needed to do ensure their seeds became healthy and successful adult plants?

A man who calls himself the Guerilla Gardener said, ‘kids who grow kale, eat kale’.  When kale was first introduced to the students in the vegetable lesson it was met with, “it looks like greens”, “it smells like grass” and “this tastes nasty”.  However, by the end of the lesson, there were believers in the club that tasted the baked kale and said, “can I have some more”?  For those lovers of fresh kale, it seems to be an acquired taste that most students wanted more of just to show off their ability to consume this weird plant.  Yet, transformation takes time and if we get more and more believers each day then the club is becoming successful.

The idea of starting seeds is to see this transformational process take place.  Albeit, some of the transformation you cannot see because the transformation takes place underground or when you are not looking but you can see success by the fruit that it bears.  The metaphor for starting seeds is appropriate for our club because by September’s time, we believe both plants and students will be successful.  We will determine this success by student’s knowledge of gardening and nutrition and surveys of eating habits and ideas about health.  Besides this formal assessment we will be able to observe, are the plants healthy and mature and are the students stepping right up to these plants and happily taking a huge bite?  

As Soon As Soil Can Be Worked

When I’m teaching my gardening classes, I often point out, if you read the back of your seed packages, you have probably seen this phrase “As soon as the soil can be worked”.  I enjoy pointing to this phrase both because new gardeners don’t really know what it means and because I want to emphasize: “Yes! Plant them as SOON as you can work your soil.  For real!  Do it!  We can’t wait until Memorial Day to start our gardening season.  We’re in Wisconsin people.  Get in the dirt.  Day light’s a-wastin’.” 

We have the pervasive misconception that gardening starts when the weather becomes lovely and ends when the lovely weather goes away.  This month’s newsletter is a little challenge to the notion that we need to wait to participate in gardening.

Recently, I ran into a friend I haven’t seen since last fall. I smiled, “Hey!  How are you?”  With a hint of shame in his voice, he didn’t say the usual, “Good”. Rather, he said, “I dunno, this winter is like a battering ram.  I’m not dealing very well.  I keep thinking that spring is going to come, but it’s like February just wont go away.”

 I’m certain you are not surprised to hear about my friend in late February -  when people are looking puffy, feeling tired, having yet another bad cold, worn down by the darkness -  winter can be a true challenge to the seasonal gardeners of Milwaukee.  And, to make matters worse, it’s APRIL!

We so often go to this dark place in winter... waiting, waiting, waiting for something to happen, for the world to change so we can too.  The famous folk singer Dar Williams uses an extended metaphor about winter to describe her experience with depression.  She sings, “It feels like a winter machine that you go through. And then, you catch your breath and winter starts again. And everyone else is spring bound.”

I’d like to suggest, that perhaps, we are underutilizing our passion for gardening as a source of pleasure and spiritual satisfaction.  We are missing our opportunity for gardening to work the soil of our SOUL, right now and in the darkest moments of winter.

At this year’s Wisconsin Local Food Summit I had the chance to hear the Bad River Tribal Chair and activist, Mike Wiggins, give the keynote speech.  He most profoundly noted, “It is common to think that we are the gardener and we are creating the garden that is completely dependent on us.”  He goes on to ask, “I cannot help but think that we should be asking if a gardener and a garden are in fact at all separable.”

We do, after all, share the days and nights.  The cold and warmth.  We share water and drought, fertility and toxicity, scarcity and abundance.  Even more specifically, there is no gardener, without a garden.  If we are going to pick sides, I’d say perhaps it is the GARDEN that could be in control here.

Mary Oliver, the poet who seems to most understand the need for people to connect to the earth, for their own spiritual and emotional growth writes, “Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”  What if, this long winter is one box full of darkness? - the one that teaches us our own need to stay connected to the garden all year round, not just as a fair-weather friend.

This year feel yourself as the garden and the gardener - one continuous dance with our planet earth.  Expand the breadth of your experiences to live as the gardener, who is working the soil, all year round.  Let it permeate your thoughts and actions as you brave through a very long winter, on-going, everyday.  The garden lives in the way you reflect before a meal, the way you shop, the way you conserve resources.  It’s in the way you wear more clothes rather than turn up the heat.  It’s in the way that you expend your personal energy, spend your money, and build community.

One of the aspirations that we have at Victory Garden Initiative is to help you along by educating about the ecology of gardening, installing gardens for you during the BLITZ, finding you a mentor, helping you organize your community and, of course, eating good food with you.

Let’s not wait to work the soils of the soul.  Let’s get started now.

~gretchen

LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR

Holy Big Deals Batman

I sometimes suggest that the small Midwestern town where I grew up has a deep-seated forced humilityintertwined in its culture that allows people to rise barely above mild depression.  One cannot get too proud nor excited about the good things in one's life for fear of being “eye-rolled”.  Then, ironically, we trek to the nearest bookstore to purchase self-affirmation books; we hang inspiration calendars, we joke, “I’m smart enough.  I’m strong enough. I’m pretty enough.  And doggoned people like me,” after the famous Saturday Night Live, Stuart Smalley skit.

The other day I walked in on my little guy, Wolfe Otto, and caught him jumping on his trampoline, saying to an imaginary audience, “That jump was awesome.” “Otto is amazing.”  “He is a superhero!” “Incredible!” “Otto can fly!”  In his mind, he is nothing short of a super hero.  After having two girls, I now understand that boys have an innate tendency to believe they are superheros.  It’s rather fascinating, and the social cultural implications are many, but for now, we’ll keep it narrow and hope he grows up to be a super hero in the food movement.

This week's newsletter is a shout out to 1) my four year-old Wolfe Otto (not that he needs it) for his dedication to unfiltered self-affirmation. Hopefully one day Wolfe Otto will use his super hero powers for the food movement too.  And 2) several superheros that are dedicated to the food movement.  Where your Midwestern sensibilities won't stop feeding you humble pie, let VGI give you an ego boost.

Super Nuts:  Johnson's Nursery has been a super supporter of this year’s Fruity Nutty Campaign.  With help from their brilliant staff person, and our dedicated volunteer, Michaela Molter, they have sourced all our trees for the Fruity Nutty Five Neighborhood orchard giveaway.  They have also donated their OWN hazelnut trees.  As we have come to know Johnson’s we have learned that their staff is SUPER knowledgeable, and very much in support of sustainable food systems in Milwaukee.  Thank you to Johnson’s Nursery.  And join us at the Fruity Nutty Affair to see who wins the Five Neighborhood orchards we are giving away this year during our Fruity Nutty Campaign.  See you on February 16th at Turner Hall Ballroom!

Super Supporters:  Three years ago, I received an email from Ken Leinbach, Executive Director of the Urban Ecology Center (UEC) that simply said, “I heard about the good work you are doing. Let’s talk about it sometime.”  Thus began the relationship that would take Victory Garden Initiative from its formative radical stages to now -  we have 5 staff and a rotating group of interns that... drum roll please... operates under our own 501(c)3 non-profit status!  That’s right folks, after three years of operating under the wing of the UEC, Victory Garden Initiative is now official!”

VGI is one of the dozens of ecology-based efforts that have been incubated under the UEC’s auspices. Our deepest heartfelt thank you to the UEC for their support, leadership, wisdom, partnering and friendship.  Ginger Duiven, Beth Heller, Judy Krause, Ken Leinbach, Jamie Fershinger, Lindy Meer, Willie Karidis, and so many other UEC staff - THANK YOU!  We will miss you UEC, but, can we still get together for the occasional potluck?

Super Donor: Faster than a speeding bullet. Strong enough to spearhead the multi-institution Institute of Urban Agriculture and Nutrition.  Able to write MOU’s with a single pen. AND Victory Garden Initiative’s top donor for 2013.  Thank you to everyone who contributed to our 2012 Annual Campaign, but special thanks to Stan Stojkovic, Dean of my alma mater, the UWM Helen Bader School of Social Welfare, for putting us over the top with our first Annual Appeal.  We reached our $10,000 goal because of you!”

Super Undertaking:  For those of you who have been around since the beginnings of VGI, you know that it has taken an enormous amount of blood, sweat, and tears from the original handful of people, especially myself, and our founding board president, Erik Lindberg.  From this original vision, we are now seeing the signs of a very healthy, structured, smoothly operating non-profit organization.  We have our new board president, Becky Grandone, to thank for much of this infrastructure.  Becky is a nonprofit management expert of sorts, and, thankfully, she is leading this organization from “Woah” to “WOW!”  From creating contracts, to developing board committees, to strategic planning, to writing budgets, to geez, pretty much anything that makes an organization fly, Becky is involved.  We are so lucky to have her as our new Board President.

Super Promotion: A little more than a year ago, we brought Jazz Glastra on as an unpaid intern.  Soon, she became a paid BLITZ coordinator, then, a program coordinator, and now, just a little more than a year later, Jazz is our program manager.  She has made herself critical to the functioning of VGI, by being a steady, thoughtful, creative, and driven Super Hero of the food system.

Let me give you a little insight into the leap of faith Jazz took to get here. Two years ago, I found Jazz online while emailing to a national food related list-serve.  I learned she was looking for a job as she moved from Washington state to Milwaukee, and though I could not offer her a paid position, I could offer her a flexible internship so she could work a different job for money.  We set up an interview.  On the day of the interview, I went for a run, then quickly came home, changed clothes and got on Skype.  We talked. I liked her.  She thought it would work for her.  Yay!  She was on her way to Milwaukee and would intern with VGI!

Months later, as our confidence in working together has settled in, she told our small staff a story:

“Remember that day you interviewed me on Skype? You had just come home from a run and you were running late.  Well, apparently, you changed your clothes, and didn’t put on any pants, because during the interview, you moved around to adjust your computer and flashed me your underwear.”  Ummm...  Un...com...fort...able.  During the next five second pause, which seemed like 5 minutes, I turned fifty shades of red. Holy Under Blunders Batgirl!  Only could a modern day Skype interview allow for such a colossal super-goof.  Even without my superwoman funderwear on, Jazz showed up to intern with us.  And, she has been moving up every since.

Thanks to all our Super Food Heros!  We will see you all at the Fruity Nutty Affair on February 16th.  Sign up to win a neighborhood orchard.  Sign up for our Edible Gardening for Sustainability Series.

~ gretchen

As a teenager, I was utterly incorrigible. If I wanted something, I bugged my parents about it until they ‘caved’.  For hours, or days, or weeks, I’d ask “Why?” or “Why not?” or “Then, when?” and insisted that nothing was fair or based in reason. I would pinpoint the most miniscule sign of weakness or indecision in their voices, until I swung the pendulum one tiny bit closer to my way of thinking.  It was painstakingly annoying, but strangely, I was mostly unaware of this. 

This incorrigible passion of our youth subsides, and we give way to better listening, greater ability to compromise, and increase ability for intellectual discernment - we find comfort in and even embrace complexity. 

Somewhere in the depths of human development, there lies a question related to our work in the food movement.   When might it be useful to re-embrace the incorrigibility and idealism of our youth?  When do we want to become uncompromising in our approach to making change?  Where do we put our foot down? Stand our ground? Draw a line in the sand? Fight?

The answer is, I think, both now AND never. 

This weekend we launched our second annual Food Leader Certification Program retreat.  It was held at the beautiful Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, and let me tell you something...  in spite of the severity of the issues we face (lets not sugar coat anything folks, we know we are in a mess), I left feeling deeply inspired.  The quality of people and their level of commitment is impressive and convincing.  It brought out some old school incorrigibility in all of us.  We proclaim to be idle no more.  Take a stand. Take no prisoners.  It fosters commitment, when we experience, what I call EMOTIONAL AROUSAL, or an emotional response that makes us cross that line into action.

The danger here of course, is that we risk alienating those people who are not quite so ‘gung ho’.  These folks who more likely to garden quietly, without need to tip any scales.  Or perhaps we give up our chance to become allies with those who are not, YET, thinking the way are.

Famous thinker and writer, Donella Meadows, once wrote:

Between me and not-me there is surely a line, a clear distinction, or so it seems. But, now that I look, where is that line?

This fresh apple, still cold and crisp from the morning dew, is not-me only until I eat it. When I eat, I eat the soil that nourished the apple. When I drink, the waters of the earth become me. With every breath I take in I draw in not-me and make it me. With every breath out I exhale me into not-me.

The key to it all, I might suggest, is for us to muster every bit of incorrigibility that we can possibly find.  Never give up.  Stay the course.  All the while recognizing, that there is no line between you and I, me and you, us and them, she and we. To rule out, shut down, shut off, become numb, ignore any one entity of our food system as if it is the “OTHER”, will make all of the incorrigibility we can muster be responded to with equal incorrigibility in a different direction.  Making change requires a new action, not a reaction to the existing.

This is when I invite you to embrace, donate and participate in the creation of a new food system.  This system involves our community in growing its own food, right here in Milwaukee.

BLITZ time is upon us.  Consider ordering another garden. Consider helping your school get a garden.  Consider donating a garden to someone less fortunate. 

This year we need you more than ever to reach our goal of installing 500 gardens. Share us on your facebook page.  Invite your friends ton volunteer with you.  Forward this newsletter to ten of your friends.  Get the word out that OUR food system is changing for the better. 

Thank you to 2013 Food Leader Class for carrying the flame.

~g