Progress 09/01/13 to 08/31/14
Outputs
Target Audience: Our target audience is residents of the Phillips Community in and around Hope Community in south Minneapolis. Hope is located in the Phillips neighborhood, one of the most economically challenged and racially diverse in Minneapolis, a mile south of downtown. The neighborhood has 20,000 residents, 32% are children. About 80% are people of color compared to 24% for the metro area. The median income in Hope properties is $25,000 for a family of three, only 1/3 that of the entire metro area. Illegal drug trade, violence and disinvestment in the 1980s-90s devastated this community. Because of challenges related to transportation, financial resources, limited access and perceived lack of options, healthy food is a major issue. Higher income people are moving downtown. With physical development and community engagement, Hope works to create an alternative to gentrification with diverse people engaged in the future of their community. Over 450 people live in Hope's 173 rental units. Hope works with diverse people from the broader neighborhood as well. About 500 adults and youth are involved in Hope's community engagement work annually. Participants in this project come from intersecting circles that include tenants, participants in other Hope activities, and people from the broader neighborhood. Hope residents and the project participants reflect the Phillips neighborhood: low-income and working poor, racially and ethnically diverse, primarily renters. Racism and stereotypes impact residents. Studies show the Minneapolis area to have one of the highest economic disparities between races in the country. Residents are challenged by poverty, isolation, poor educational climate, exposure to violence and low perceived chances for success in life. Almost half of Hope's tenant population is children. The neighborhood population is young and nearly 41% of the children in the neighborhood live below the poverty line. Many people in the neighborhood tell us they know how important good food is, and how difficult it is to find healthy, food that they can afford on a consistent basis. Although we began with a fairly tight focus on the areas right around Hope Community throughout the project we have moved around the entire neighborhood, especially with our Listening Session engagement strategy. Changes/Problems: During the process of convening working meetings of LSP rural farmer members and Hope garden leaders to establish urban/rural relationships, share skills, and build a leadership team to make decisions for the new gardens at Hope, it became evident that may we need to clarify key terms in this work. The challenge was in the context of using the term "production agricultural". In the lexicon of our rural farmers this had a different meeting than what this meant to our urban growers. In the Hope lexicon "production agricultural" meant increasing our growing and agriculture output through our expanding space and increasing knowledge of soil health. It means being active producers, not passive consumers. This increasedagricultural production will be grown in community, by community, and consumed in community to address the current lack of access to local, healthy, affordable, cultural appropriate foods in the neighborhood.This food is grown in a community and cultural space that is multicultural, multigenerational, and multiuse (education, meeting space, and production). To rural farmers production agriculture is an agriculture that maximizes production of a small number of commodity crops. It is important to remember as we work to build bridges between rural and urban translation might be required. Towards the end of our second community meeting of Hope leaders and LSP farmers an LSP farmer (Jason Montgomery-Reiss) shared a comment regarding the challenge, " Learning about the gardening and increased "production agricultural" that we are doing here at Hope, it is clear that your best crop is the community you are growing." The Hope leaders clearly articulated how important this increased "production agricultural" at Hope is to build community and increase healthy local food access. Further, the Hope leaders clearly articulated how important it is that this increased "production agricultural" at Hope growing more food stays in the community. The Hope leaders have a vision and passion for growing food and justice in our community and the LSP farmers learned more about what this looks like and how they can help and support. Hope gardeners and leaders have not fully embraced the idea of marketing the food they grow for money. Although some interest is expressed in the possibility of occasional sales at "pop-up markets", especially involving youth most of the garden leaders are more interested in how the food can be distributed in a way that enriches and builds community. Obviously, this still requires planning, food safety, post-harvest handling skills. The current Hope facility has a community kitchen this project has pressed into service. Some residents have expressed interest in exploring the feasibility of using that kitchen for further processing and preparation for storage. Much will have to be learned about licensing, equipment and food safety before we can move forward with this in the next phase of the food project. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Much of the training and development of leaders takes place in the context of one to one or small group relationships with emerging leaders. For example, when the opportunity to speak to the Minneapolis Park Board about including racial equity in their park use policies, 10 Hope leaders met with LSP and Hope Organizers to strategize, develop a message, and create the tools to bring that message forward. Similarly, when Hope residents want to step up to take a leadership role in a meeting or sifting through notes from the Community Listening Sessions to document what we are hearing at those meetings a one to one conversation about how to do that with LSP Organizer Dylan Bradford Kesti and/or Hope Staff, Kristy Clemons is first to continue leadership development and to build this relationship. The meetings of organized and dedicated leaders are built through one-to-one relational organizing in community with residents: showing-up and supporting residents, having time to learn about one-another, and work alongside one-another in the gardens at Hope are all integral to the success of this project. Additionally, specific gardening skills are built through participation of experienced gardeners like Mercedes Signa, Omari Chatman, and Taya Schulte. Also, LSP/Hope have partnered with the Hennepin County Master Gardeners to offer a season long training called "In The Garden" where Hope residents and leaders learn from the master gardeners in demos and skills workshops and have time to work alongside the master gardeners once a week for the entire growing season as a garden mentor program. Further, LSP board member and former farmer Rhys Williams has served with the project as a gardening mentor and has just finished up the three years he committed to fulfilling that role. There is a training component to the tours of rural LSP member farms as these more experienced market gardeners talk about how they do what they do. And, we have sent five of the Hope gardeners and LSP staff person Dylan Bradford Kesti to a two day Growing Power training at the Women's Environmental Institute where they received high quality hands on training on a variety of skills needed to grow community ad grow a community garden. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Project staff participates in meetings with other NGO's working in Minneapolis urban agriculture. Much interest in the project has been generated through this type of activity and we receive many requests to make presentations about what we are doing to other groups. Presentations about the project were made to three area churches with an emphasis on social concerns and to a civic group. In August of 2014 we participated in "Open Streets Franklin Avenue". On a sunny Sunday over a mile of a major commercial avenue that runs the length of the Phillips neighborhood was closed for a public information and resource fair. The project helped sponsor a pop-up famers market and distributed free coupons for the markets to dozens of people who stopped in our information booth to talk about their experience of the food environment in the Phillips Neighborhood and what we were doing at Hope to address some of the concerns and gaps. On the other end of the street a Land Stewardship Project Organizer Dylan Bradford Kesti was set up behind an ironing board to talk with passers by about the community gardens at Hope. Information about what people who participated in the Listening Sessions and various surveys are saying about their experience of the food system and what they want the garden to be was presented to food project leaders at the two fall planning events. Former Land Stewardship Project Organizer Anna Cioffi presented the project at the Minnesota Food Summit to about 50 food activists in Duluth in August 2013. The focus of the Summit was improving access to low income communities of color through community gardens, WIC and SNAP participation at Farmers Markets and healthier offerings in food shelves. Two articles were published in the Land Stewardship Letter: (http://landstewardshipproject.org/about/landstewardshipletter/no12014landstewardshipletter) and (http://landstewardshipproject.org/repository/1/869/lsl_no_2_2013.pdf on page 23) and a blog (http://landstewardshipproject.org/posts/blog/5180) was published. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Project complete
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
We have made significant progress on both of these goals positioning our project and project partners extremely well for the next phase of our community food work. Strengthen, deepen and expand leadership for community food systems change in the Hope and surrounding Phillips neighborhood. About 100 residents have participated in facilitated discussions helping them identify how they experience systemic food system issues they would like to address such as zoning barriers, availability of fresh foods. In addition to participation on the leadership team individuals and smaller groups of people have identified and pursued food systems issues. Activities resulting from this include a Cooking, Culture and Community class, Garden Dinners, participating on Homegrown Minneapolis' Advisory Board, and persuading the Minneapolis Park Board to include racial equity considerations in their policies about growing food on public parkland. We have developed a leadership team for the project that includes approximately 12 members of Hope and surrounding Phillips community members. Potential leaders were identified through entry-level activities such as cooking classes, garden work nights and events and through relational one to one conversations. This team has assisted throughout the year in planning and leading events, engaging with other residents through community listening sessions and recruiting new participants. The leadership team has participated in two meetings with Land Stewardship Project rural farmers laying work plans and decision-making processes for future years in the large garden. College student/Intern Maria Russo conducted research into organizational and decision making models for Community Gardens in North America and presented the results of her research at the second meeting. A blog by Maria about her experience with Hope can be found here. Eight of these leaders participated in a tour of two Land Stewardship Project member leaders market garden farms. The various experience of being involved in this community food project has a profound impact on people and on the community. In the process of getting community input in the design of the future 4800 square foot garden, The Rose, many food project participants talked about the importance of the garden being a public space that welcomes and involves community members, "not walled to keep people out." A Hope Garden leader said of her experience in the project "Before being involved with (this project), I didn't think I had a voice, didn't think my opinion mattered. I didn't see that I could be a role model, a creator, powerful." Another gentleman who has been appointed to Homegrown Minneapolis' Advisory Board and is a Hope Food Justice Leader said, "I'm learning to involve people instead of going the route of just doing it myself. Anything I do in the future with agriculture, I want it to be about people. I want my community involved." Community members value the gardens now and in the future as "spaces and opportunity to connect with other people." For many participants in the food project, building community is crucial for food systems change in their neighborhood. Take the physical infrastructure to a new place that embraces community involvement is sustainable production and marketing of healthy food. Much of the activity around infrastructure planning and development has already been said in the "Strengthen, Deepen, and Expand Leadership" section because that is how we go about doing everything that we do. Much of our work in this arena has been outreach and engagement with people, identifying passions and helping them find their voice to take leadership roles in planning processes. We have developed a concept drawing of the new garden, The Rose. We will e-mail that after filing this report. While the actual drawing was done with other funds, activities supported by our Community Food Security Planning grant provided much of the context and input. At the meetings with LSP member farmers and Hope Food Project leaders infrastructure needs (waters, access, tools, etc.) were identified. Much of that is now in the planning process with Hope, Inc staff and the developer. We also identified what we need to move forward with production, beginning in the fall of 2015 with a soil remediating cover crop and subsequent plans for production in 2016. We identified sets of tasks needed throughout the season and decision making processes that must be developed through as we move forward. Farmer and farmer leading training have occurred throughout the past year and will continue with tours and participation in the future. Through the convening's of LSP member farmers and Hope Food Project leaders we have started the process and built the framework for this 2015 season to have more farmer and farmer leading trainings to build upon the leader teams exciting skills and build urban and rural relationships. In the 2014 growing season Hope Food Project Participants and LSP Organizer Dylan Bradford Kesti attended a training offered by Growing Power through the Women's Environmental Institute in the Twin Cities northern suburbs. Residents were given hands on training on Hoop House building, composting, aquaponics, urban mushroom system, and goring micro-green for market. Residents also had the opportunity to meet Will Allen and build strong connections with other urban growers that we will be able to collaborate with this season. These new connections are building community and cultural bridges in the Phillips neighborhood around growing healthy, local, culturally appropriate foods together. In 2014 we were able to do one garden work share day and potluck and through these new connections we plan on doing more garden workshare days where Hope invites neighbor garden to join us and where we will join neighbor community garden to share in work, skill building, and food to build a healthy vibrant community. Marketing planning is still underway and this will be addressed in more detail in the "Changes/Problems" section. Hope participants are not primarily interested at this point in marketing product for money at this point. While we are not ruling it out in the future, right now their interest is in distributing the food to project participants and residents who can put it to good use, using the food for community meals and potlucks, and developing some plans for further processing down the road. Obviously, this still requires a marketing (distribution) plan and training including post harvest handling, storage, transport and distribution. Right now an existing community kitchen at Hope is a key part of those plans. The following outputs were produced: Concept map of "The Rose", the 4800 sq ft garden at Hope. 100+ Additional engaged residents 5 areas of resident interest in improving immediate food system I.D.ed. City Zoning Policy City Food Access Policy (City Staple Food Ordinance) Park Board land use policy State of MN Urban Agriculture Bills Education Planning The Rose Five residents participated in two day skill building sessions. Infrastructure needs identified and articulated. Building design team is aware of farm infrastructure needs through regular meetings Hope staff and Land Stewardship Project Organizer. Leadership Team/Steering Committee identified engaged in planning production and distribution of food. Leadership Team/Steering Committee taking ownership of project in actively engaging outreach to neighbors, planning events, and leading on 2015 season growing plan. Russo, Maria. "Community Garden Management Models" LSP Report, December 10, 2014
Publications
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Progress 09/01/13 to 08/31/14
Outputs
Target Audience: Our target audience is residence of the Phillips Community in and around Hope Community in south Minneapolis. Hope is located in the Phillips neighborhood, one of the most economically challenged and diverse in Minneapolis, a mile south of downtown. The neighborhood has 20,000 residents, 32% are children. About 80% are people of color compared to 24% for the metro area. The median income in Hope properties is $25,000 for a family of three, only 1/3 that of the metro area. Illegal drug trade, violence and disinvestment in the 1980s-90s devastated this community. Because of challenges related to transportation, financial resources, limited access and perceived lack of options, healthy food is a major issue. Higher income people are moving downtown. With physical development and community engagement, Hope works to create an alternative to gentrification with diverse people engaged in the future of their community. Over 450 people live in Hope's 173 rental units. Hope works with diverse people from the broader neighborhood as well. About 500 adults and youth are involved in Hope's community engagement work annually. Participants in this project come from intersecting circles that include tenants, participants in other Hope activities, and people from the broader neighborhood. Hope residents and the project participants reflect the Phillips neighborhood: low-income and working poor, racially and ethnically diverse, primarily renters. Racism and stereotypes impact residents. Studies show the Minneapolis area to have one of the highest economic disparities between races in the country. Residents are challenged by poverty, isolation, poor educational climate, exposure to violence and low perceived chances for success in life. Almost half of Hope's tenant population is children. The neighborhood population is young and nearly 41% of the children in the neighborhood live below the poverty line. Many people in the neighborhood tell us they know how important good food is, and how difficult it is to find healthy, food that they can afford on a consistent basis. Although we began with a fairly tight focus on the areas right around Hope Community throughout the project we have moved around the entire neighborhood, especially with out Listening Session engagement strategy. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? About 50 1-1's and face to face personal meetings were held with interested residents. Growing Power's training was attended by five gardeners and a staff provided hands on gardening training. The garden planning meeting provided opportunity for people to identify what needs to happen in the new garden and work through communication and decision making process. The Event planning meeting provided opportunity to particpate in event planning, organizing and leadership development straegy. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Presentations were made to three area churches and civic groups. Staff participation in meetings with other NGO's working in Minneapolis urban agriculture. In August of 2014 we participated in "Open Streets Frankline Avenue". On a sunny Sunday over a mile of a major street was closed for a public information and resource fair. The project helped sponsor a pop-up famers market and distributed free coupons for the markets to dozens of people who stopped in our information booth to talk about their experience of the food environment in the Phillips Neighborhood and what we were doing at Hope to address some of the concerns and gaps. On the other end of the street an LSP stff was set up behind an ironing board to talk with passers by about the community gardens at Hope. Information about what people who participated in the Listening Sessions and various surveys were saying about their experience of the food system and what they want the garden to be was presented to food project leaders at the two fall planning events. Staff organizer Anna Cioffi presented the project at the Minnesota Food Summit to about 50 food activists in Duluth in August 2013. Two articles in the Land Stewardship Letter (http://landstewardshipproject.org/about/landstewardshipletter/no12014landstewardshipletter) and (http://landstewardshipproject.org/repository/1/869/lsl_no_2_2013.pdf on page 23) and a blog (http://landstewardshipproject.org/posts/blog/5180) was published. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Project ended.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
1. Strengthening, deepening and expanding leadership for community food systems change A Leadershp Team for the food project was identified, recruited and developed. Leaders were identified and recruited through 1-1 relational conversations and assisted throughout the season in planning and leading events, recruiting participants. Gardeners and leaders were also recuited through garden work nights, Listening Sessions throughout the community, a garden journal, communal garden get togethers, garden vision surveys, trainins, cooking clases, Wellness Wednesday events. Spring garden planning for 2014 season for gardening in existing community garden space. In August of 2014 we held a Garden Planning meeting focusing specifically on the upcoming larger garden that will be developed with the new residential building (The Rose). We built a foundational team inlcuding gardeners, members of the leadership team and rural LSP farmers to begin planning the process and structure for the Rose. 15 participants toured the space, walked through prelimnary plans for the layout, clarified what they want the garden to be and their own commitments to participate. We began talking about how communication and decison making will happen in The Rose. We also identified the various tasks that team members would need to take to start The Rose communal garden in 2015. A followup meeting was planned for November. Fall of 2014 an LSP Staff and fice Food Program leaders attended the Growing Power Training at the Women's Enviornmental Institute north of the Twin CIties. Participants had hands on experiential training in Hoop House Building, composting, aquaponics and growing micro-greens. In Fall of 2014 a canning/food preserving workshop was held. The slasa that we canned was served at the Garden Planning meeting in August. College student volunteer Maria Russo participated in the Fall Planning meeting and presented results of research into operation plans and farm managment models in successful urban farms elsewhere in North America. Physical Infrastructure to a place that embraes community involvement is healthy food. Engagement of community members. Ovder 200 residents were reached through Lstening Sessions throughout the neghborhood and over 50 1-1 and face to face conversations were held giving people opportunity to talk about what food means to them, how they get it, prepare it and consume it and what they would like to change about the food system in their neighborhood. Particpation in various aspects of the food project, skills training, gardening, cooking and food preservation was made available through these conversations. At an event planning meeting held early this fall, 15 leaders took on leadership roles in planning Food Project work around food and agriculture for winter of 2014-15 and spring, 2015. A meeting with LSP rural farmers and Hope urban gardeners built urban rural connections and a foundation for a team to lead on the next stages of planning and implementing The Rose. Individual leadership skills and gardening skills development also happened through staffed garden work nights.
Publications
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