Progress 09/01/17 to 08/31/18
Outputs
Target Audience:Target Audience: Our target audience is residents of the Phillips Community especially those 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. 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, one to one outreach, and engagement with other organizations. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Opportunities for Training Green Zones 101, mentioned above, gave participants opportunity to grow their skills in engaging with and influencing city policy. Knife handling, knife safety in the kitchen training was lead by Rosa DeCorsy, a cooking class participant who is a chef at a local restaurant. A workshop on safe harvesting and handling procedures was led by former Food Fellow Pablo Garcia Project participants and FLC staff attended the annual statewide Food Access Summit. Participants include Public Health officials, NGO staff, Tribal leaders, educators and citizens coming together to advance safe, affordable, healthy food and learn from each other's lived experience. An indigenous farmer from Oaxaca Mexico who connected with a delegation of LSP farmers on a Witness for Peace trip to the region shared food experiences with some of the program participants at Hope. Beyond these specific events and opportunities much of the learning about soil, gardening, nutrition, health and leadership skills took place between the rows as beginning gardeners worked the soil with more experienced gardeners and FLC staff. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?How have the results been disseminated? LSP's Podcast, Ear to the Ground-"An Urban Gardener's Ripple Effects" Land Stewardship Letter 2018 #2 "Seeding Social Capital via Urban Ag" Land Stewardship Letter 2017 #4 "Putting Down Roots: A 'Farm Fellow' Reflection on Raising Food in the City. The project was featured at the annual LSP Earth Day breakfasts with about 70 LSP members and supporters in attendance at the Red Stag Supper club in Minneapolis. The project's was featured in an article in two issues of Land Stewardship Letter. Fall Harvest festival brought stories from the gardeners and those involved in the cooking classes to a broader audience of Hope residents. This project was featured at Land Stewardship Project's annual cook-out bringing 216 supporters from around the Twin Cities area together in 2017 and 2018. Hope gardeners participated in Land Stewardship Project's summer cookout with a presentation about the work at Hope to 200 LSP members and supporters in July, 2018. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Objective 1 All 3 garden spaces were in full use including the Garden at The Rose, a youth garden, and in a nearby residential area. Two of the gardens are managed and worked by participants as communal gardens, the other is a more traditional community garden with individual plots. At the start of the season 7 gardening leaders met at a retreat to plan what would be grown, processes for getting the work done and sharing knowledge, and varieties of produce to grow. Every Tuesday evening, April through October, gardeners, leaders and staff gathered at the Rose, developed a task list, formed teams to amend soil, plant, water, weed, harvest, and clean up. Cooking and food preservation classes and activities were held in a Community Kitchen and in a grilling/picnicking space installed near the Garden at the Rose. Forty-two adults and 36 youth participated in the communal gardens, 9 in the community gardens and 14 participated in cooking and food preservation classes. Much of the physical infrastructure was put in place in years one and two. The water retention system collects rainfall off the roof of the residential building and stores it underground for future watering use is in place, is being used by gardeners and is an excellent tool for teaching principles of water stewardship, what happens to urban runoff and why we should care. Phillips is a community of predominantly people of color and, increasingly, a landing place for immigrants and refugees. We have created welcome signs, garden maps and harvest log books in three languages to broaden our welcome to the entire community to participate in our growing/gardening project. Last year we added tables and a grilling area that was used during the 2018 growing season to demonstrate grilling techniques for produce. Grilled "fruits of their labor" were then provided to hungry gardeners. A safe harvesting and handling workshop was held in early May at Frogtown Farm in St. Paul by Pablo Garcia, farm manager. Pablo was involved with the Hope gardening project in 2015 and became a garden leader in 2016. Objective 2 We are in our third year of composting organics. We have a composting demonstration project that informs gardeners about the process and value of home composting. Currently we compost food scraps from Hope, Inc offices, the learning kitchen, the Garden at the Rose and Youth Garden. This year Taya Schulte of Growing Lots farm held a composting demonstration for gardeners at a skill share session. She is a 2018 graduate of Land Stewardship Project's "Farm Dreams", a course designed to lead people in self-assessment as to whether or not they are ready to embark on the full year Farm Beginnings curriculum. Objective 3 Eight other skill-shares were led by community leaders about safe knife handling, amending soil with compost, soil health, pollination, medicinal use of herbs, baking with sourdough, safe harvesting and handling of garden produce and care of perennial fruit trees and shrubs. Taya's session on composting also included information on soil monitoring and assessing the health of soil by hearing what the your plants are telling you. During Harvest, 2018 Farm Fellow Charlene Harper held "Harvest Lunches with Charlene" involving 45 residents in communal meals and produce distribution. In 2017, with additional funding support from Blue Cross Blue Shield's Center for Prevention, staff and community leaders had the opportunity to participate with a number of organizations in the community including Native American Community Development Institute, Voices for Racial Justice, and Good Food Purchasing Program Coalition in an initiative to generate a Southside Minneapolis "People's Food Platform" as a foundation for the kind of food and nutrition policies we want in our communities. The document includes recommendations to City Council and to the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board such as education around food including food justice, indigenous perspective and community leadership; adopt good food purchasing standards for all publicly funded institutions, Allow gardeners to purchase lots rented from the City at the end of the lease term, Hire staff to oversee urban agriculture activities; subsidize greenhouse purchase and installation to support year round growing activities. Objective 4 The gardening, cooking and peer learning activities at the foundation of this project provide an effective portal for participants to broaden and deepen their involvement in building the networks to advance "food as health". It starts with people naming their grievances, their difficulty in accessing healthy food and how that impacts them. They begin to understand it has less to do with then as individuals and more to do with how the system in which they live impacts them. That is when people can begin to identify similar circumstance of other people. For some, staying there involved in the seminal gardening, cooking peer to peer learning activity is what they need to find the path forward Others want to mobilize, to come together, develop leaders and strategies for addressing the complex intersectionality of safety, health, food in their neighborhood. In 2012, the Center for Earth Energy and Democracy (CEED), a Minneapolis based organization founded by a group of researchers, educators and community activists who saw the need to affirm and revitalize principles of democracy, social justice in energy and environmental policy, guided their environmental justice working group to recommend Green Zones through the Minneapolis Climate Action Plan. Hope and LSP were early participants in the process of leading a community health impact assessment. In the fall of 2017, community members and city staff formed the Southside Green Zone Task Force to advance a Green Zones Southside agenda. The Hope/LSP Food Land and Community Team (FLC) were leaders in building community and community engagement in the Green Zones process. Food Fellow in this project, Nimo Mohamed and FLC staff Abe Levine are members of the Steering Committee and one of their engagement events, Green Zones 101, was held at Hope with cooking and garden program participants in attendance. Green Zone 101 is an informal community learning space, which provided community members with information about the Green Zones initiative and how to get more deeply involved, and opportunity for community members to give feedback to the task force and the wider community. Objective 5 While the efforts to advance Green Zone policy in the City of Minneapolis with authentic and powerful community participation continues, opportunity for community members with roots and leadership skills nurtured in gardening and cooking projects to bring their voices to the table also continues. Priorities named by community leaders start with well-defined and centered anti-displacement, and equity. They want better neighborhoods with the same neighbors and communities of color at the center. With that foundation, they want green jobs and healthy food access, healthy air, water and soil. They also want ongoing engagement with planning and implementation. Another initiative that has been advanced by Hope staff and organizers is a result of an effort to bring urban agriculture to the Minneapolis Park system in a way that addresses the racial disparity currently enshrined in the Park Board and park system in the city. The Urban Ag Activity Plan recently adopted provides for community gardens in all parks, organic production only, with priority given to low-income gardeners and people of color. When the gardening activity in Peavey Park just a couple of blocks from Hope next year, this project's gardeners will be ready to take part in activities that are transforming this historically under utilized, under developed and under funded park into a space that will serve the community's need for green space, a transformation some of them helped make happen.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/15 to 08/31/18
Outputs
Target Audience:Target Audience: Our target audience is residents of the Phillips Community especially those 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. 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, one to one outreach, and engagement with other organizations. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Training, workshops and skill shares around gardening, cooking and preserving food were fundamental throughout the project and have been enumerated in annual progress report. Skill shares and hands on workshops on the care of fruit trees and shrubs, tool maintenance, building healthy soil, water retention and use, how to remediate toxic soil were held regularly. Perennial Polyculture Institute led five hands on workshop on fruit tree care. Heart of Heartland, a food systems program from Carlton College led a presentations and discussion on environmental justice, food and nutrition in urban and rural Minnesota with nine project participants. Green Zones 101, mentioned above, gave participants opportunity to grow their skills in engaging with and influencing city policy. Project participants and FLC staff attended the annual statewide Food Access Summit. Participants include Public Health officials, NGO staff, Tribal leaders, educators and citizens coming together to advance safe, affordable, healthy food and learn from each other's lived experience. An indigenous farmer from Oaxaca Mexico who connected with a delegation of LSP farmers on a Witness for Peace trip to the region shared food experiences with some of the program participants at Hope. Beyond these specific events and opportunities much of the learning about soil, gardening, nutrition, health and leadership skills took place between the rows as beginning gardeners worked the soil with more experienced gardeners and FLC staff. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? LSP's Podcast, Ear to the Ground-"An Urban Gardener's Ripple Effects" A Star Tribune articles about our urban soil health work and the Hope food project's involvement in it was published in 2016: http://www.startribune.com/community-gardens-more-than-triple-in-twin-cities/392254821/#1 Land Stewardship Letter 2016, "The Hard Truth about City Soils" Land Stewardship Letter, 2016, #4, The Community and The Garden" Land Stewardship Letter 2018 #2 "Seeding Social Capital via Urban Ag" Land Stewardship Letter 2017 #4 "Putting Down Roots: A 'Farm Fellow' Reflection on Raising Food in the City. The project was featured at three annual LSP Earth Day breakfasts with a total of 225 LSP members and supporters in attendance at the Red Stag Supper club in Minneapolis. Fall Harvest festival brought stories from the gardeners and those involved in the cooking classes to a broader audience of Hope residents. This project was featured at the 2017 and 2018 Land Stewardship Project annual cook-out bringing over 200 supporters each year from around the Twin Cities area together in 2017 and in 2018. Franklin Avenue Open Streets: The Project was showcased in 2016 and in 2017. More than 5,000 people participated in the 4th Annual Franklin Avenue Open Streets event. In addition to hosting on-street activities during the event, Hope staff hosted and facilitated multiple sessions with a community-based planning team to prepare for the event. The LSP/Hope garden/food project team was involved in the activities reaching out to residents about opportunities to participate. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Objective 1: Infrastructure The 3 years saw full use of the 2 garden spaces, a youth garden next to Hope's office building and in a nearby residential area and, in the first year, the development of the Garden at the Rose. The youth garden and the Garden at the Rose are managed and worked by participants as communal, teaching gardens. The other is a traditional community garden with individual plots. Before each season began, gardening leaders met at a retreat to plan what would be grown, processes for getting the work done and sharing knowledge. On a designated evening at least once each week, April through October, gardeners, leaders, and Food Land and Community (FLC) staff team gathered at the Rose, developed a task list and formed teams to amend soil, plant, water, weed, harvest, and clean up. Cooking & food preservation classes and activities were held in a Community Kitchen and in the third year at a grilling/picnicking space installed near the Garden at the Rose. Over 150 people participated in learning activities in the kitchen and/or the garden over the 3-year period. The physical infrastructure at the Garden at the Rose including the garden, signage, the fence, the toolshed and the water retention system were put in place in years one and two. The water retention system that collects rainfall off the roof of the residential building and stores it underground for future watering use is in place and being used by gardeners. It provides an excellent backdrop to talk with gardeners about water quality and use as well as soil health. The Cooking, Community and Culture project takes place in Hope's community kitchen and in an outdoor grilling space in the Garden at The Rose. Forty-three people participated, some becoming leaders of the class in subsequent sessions/seasons. Cooking classes focus on products from the garden, healthy eating, and traditional recipes. In addition to a learning kitchen the space serves as a "home-base" for potlucks, garden cooking events and celebrations including the spring planting kickoff, plant swap and harvest celebration. Objective 2: Building community capacity to create elements of a local food system We met our targets for this objective. Each gardening season included instructions, workshops and skill shares on growing organically, soil health, building soil, pollination, safe harvest and handling processes, cover crops, soil remediation, care of perennials, tool handling and care, water quality, and composting. We collectively crafted a set of norms for working in the gardens, safe harvesting practices and food distribution. The stage was set early for community building and peer-to-peer education. Community members taught each other in areas in which they had skills. Skill shares in the garden were lead primarily by gardeners about topics the participants identified as important. This capacity building for naming, understanding and beginning to address issues around food security within community was the focus of much of years one and two. Objective Three: Educate to Action Early in the project we took a deep dive into soil health in the youth garden and the Garden at The Rose, connecting to the compost demonstration project that was being developed. Workshops and ripple effect sessions were held on the relationship between healthy soil, clean water and nutritious food. Participants learned about green infrastructure to create healthier urban environments. Seeing, naming, and drawing out the connections between food, health and the environment helped people recognize their own and their community's food story. Objective 4: Develop multi sector networks to strengthen local food systems While maintaining strong entry-level gardening, cooking and food preservation activities, building community networks has intensified. In 2017, with funding support from BCBS Center for Prevention staff and community leaders participated with a number of organizations in the community including Native American Community Development Institute, Voices for Racial Justice, and Good Food Purchasing Program Coalition in an initiative lead by Waite House, to generate a Southside Minneapolis "People's Food Platform" as a foundation for the kind of food and nutrition policies we want in our communities. The document includes recommendations to City Council and to the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board for activity around food that includes; Food justice; Indigenous perspective; Adopt good food purchasing standards for all publicly funded institutions; Allow gardeners to purchase lots rented from the City; Subsidize greenhouses to support year round growing. The activities at the foundation of this project are an effective portal for participants to broaden their involvement in building the networks to advance "food as health". It starts with people naming their difficulty in accessing healthy food and how that impacts them. They begin to understand it has more to do with how the system in which they live impacts them. Then people begin to identify similar circumstance of others around them. For some, staying there, actively involved in the gardening, cooking, and peer-to-peer learning activity is their path. Others want to mobilize, develop strategies for addressing the intersectionality of safety, health, and food in their community. We strive to provide space for both approaches. In 2012, the Center for Earth Energy and Democracy, an organization of researchers, educators and activists who saw the need to revitalize principles of democracy and social justice in energy and environmental policy, guided their environmental justice working group to recommend Green Zones through the Minneapolis Climate Action Plan. Hope and LSP were early participants in the process of leading a community Health Impact Assessment. In 2017, community members and city staff formed the Southside Green Zone Task Force to advance a southside agenda. The FLC Team who also guides this food systems project were leaders in building community and community engagement in the Green Zones process. Food Fellow Nimo Mohamed and FLC staff Abe Levine are members of the Steering Committee and one of their engagement events, Green Zones 101, was held at Hope with several gardeners participating. This community learning space provides people with information about the Green Zones initiative and how to get involved. Objective 5 While the work to advance Green Zone policy in the city with authentic community participation continues, opportunity for Hope community members with leadership skills nurtured in the gardening project to bring their voices to the table is growing. The priorities named by leaders start with well-defined anti-displacement, and equity. They want better neighborhoods, with the same neighbors and communities of color at the center: green jobs and healthy food access; healthy air, water and soil: rain gardens with indigenous plants; corner stores that provide healthy food; and wage growth to support purchase of better quality food. They also want ongoing engagement with planning and implementation at the City level. Another initiative that has been advanced by Hope staff and organizers is a result of a long and powerful effort to bring urban agriculture to the Minneapolis Park system in a way that is rooted in racial equity and addresses the racial disparity enshrined in the city's Park Board and park system. The Urban Ag Activity Plan recently adopted provides for community gardens in all parks, organic production only with priority given to low-income gardeners and people of color. When the gardening activity in Peavey Park near Hope next year, project gardeners will be ready to take part in activities that are transforming this historically under utilized, under funded park into a green space that will serve the community's needs, a transformation some of them helped make happen.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/16 to 08/31/17
Outputs
Target Audience:Target Audience: Our target audience is residents of the Phillips Community especially those 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. 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, one to one outreach, and engagement with other organizations. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? A workshop on injury prevention was held. Six project participants attended the Food Access Summit in Duluth. The conference included educators, Tribal leaders, public health staff with a goal of bringing together people working to advance reliable access to safe, affordable, healthy food, learn from each other's lived experiences & stories, build connections across sector, cultural perspectives, and geography and cultivate alignment and momentum toward collaborative action. Perennial Polyculture Institute led five hands on fruit tree care and maintenance workshops. Heart of Heartland, a food systems program from Carlton College in Minnesota led a presentation and discussion on environmental justice, food and nutrition in urban and rural Minnesota with nine project participants. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Bringing the story of the Hope gardens and food project to other organizations involved in nutrition, healthy living and racial equity work in the region is constant. Here are some of the ways that has happened in the last 12 months. The project was featured at an LSP Earth Day breakfast with about 80 LSP members and supporters in attendance at the Red Stag Supper club in Minneapolis. The project's was featured in an article in two issues of Land Stewardship Letter. Fall Harvest festival brought stories from the gardeners and those involved in the cooking classes to a broader audience of Hope residents. This project was featured at Land Stewardship Project's annual cook-out bringing 216 supporters from around the Twin Cities area together. Franklin Avenue Open Streets: more than 5,000 people participated in the 4th Annual Franklin Avenue Open Streets event. In addition to hosting on-street activities during the event, Hope staff hosted and facilitated multiple sessions with a community-based planning team to prepare for the event. The LSP/Hope garden/food project team was involved in the activities reaching out to residents about opportunities to participate. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Under the guidance of a consultant evaluator, an evaluation team is being formed including both project co-directors, one operations staff and three Hope gardening residents. The committee will outline the work to be evaluated including goals, impacts and timeline, and help identify resources and challenges and report results to the community. We are excited about this opportunity to involve project participants more deeply in the work, and also to drill down into network development and evaluation of their impact. The gardening season of 2017 will include exploration to more multi-sector opportunities in the food system through connection to and dialogue with rural LSP farmers. Next year we will explore entrepreneurial activities presented by a wellness garden.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Objective one Much of the physical infrastructure was put in place in year one although there are a few additional pieces to report. The water retention system collects rainfall off the roof of the residential building and stores it underground for future watering use is in place and fully operational. Phillips is a community of predominantly people of color and, increasingly, a landing place for immigrants and refugees. We have created welcome signs, garden maps and harvest log books in three languages to broaden our welcome to the entire community to participate in our growing/gardening project. We have also added tables, benches and a grilling area. We are in our second year of composting organics. We do not have sufficient space to offer composting to all residents but we do have a demonstration composting project that informs gardeners about the process and value of home composting. Currently we compost food scraps from Hope, Inc office, the learning kitchen, the Garden at the Rose and Youth Garden. We held ten skill-shares led by community leaders about safe harvesting and handling of garden produce and collectively crafted a set of community norms for the gardens and for harvesting practices. A second round of "serve-safe" courses is being explored. Bi-weekly "walk-throughs" and five professional workshops were held on the care of fruit trees. Our activity in the learning kitchen, in addition to teaching participants about preserving and cooking, is a foundation for many of the project events. We hold community planning sessions there, the kitchen is "home-base" for potlucks and garden cooking events including the spring kickoff, Plant Swap, youth action research celebrations, Twenty-three Cooking in Community nights were held and seven Community in Culture nights at which residents explore the relationship between environment and health and the concept of environmental justice. Maryan Abdinur who has a seat on the Mn Pollution Control Agency advisory board on Environmental Justice walked participants through an example of how court settlements on environmental issues are typically handled. Our Ripple Ecology sessions where participants present on topics like pollinators, soil health to other participants who pledge to carry that information forward to others also makes use of the kitchen space and participants' capacity for cooking and serving in-season food. We can document 130 unduplicated individuals at these gatherings. Objective Two This project, its staff and the two organizations forming the partnership are grounded in community and customarily take the approach of building community capacity to achieve results. The project solicits community members to teach workshops and lead skill shares and Ripple Ecology classes. Participants lead lessons given in the Learning Kitchen and share skills and knowledge on gardening nights. Participants also avail themselves of opportunities to learn how to convene, facilitate and advocate. Relationships between Hope gardeners and other area urban farmers are fostered by visits and field trips including participating in demonstrations on some of those farms on healthy soils--how to build and how to tell if your garden has it. A total of 340 unduplicated individuals took part in gardening and cooking activities and in workshops and skill shares on pollinators, soil health, care of fruit trees, pruning perennials, nutrition and health, and environmental stressors on health. Soil tests were taken and will be again next season to gauge organic matter increase. Gardeners assisted in taking the soil samples and results and interpretations will be discussed with them. Other soil health monitoring techniques will also be introduced next season. An example of a participant who has gained an understanding of "Food as health": Glenda Eldridge (now in her fifties') started with our program 3 ½ years ago. She longed for a healthy eating alternative or as she calls " alternative eating" . Glenda has struggled in the past with diabetes and asthma. She found she was able to her diabetes and asthma with clean healthy eating. She come to Hope because it was close to home and we were having the conversations of how to sustain programs like in her community, and conversations on how to grow healthy, cook healthy and eat healthy as community. She started with gardening, and community conversations around environmental issues but found the gardening tasks were too heard on here body. A year later the cooking program started, and this program more accessible to her physical needs- and she stayed with it. Glenda came back this year as a leader in kitchen group and an evaluation intern though the Great Lakes Grant program at MCTC where she is getting her Associate degree in liberal arts. Glenda hopes to graduate this winter and go on to her a social worker degree and certification. She has also been able to take part in the garden this year, as she is doing better using the stools and tools to make the work more accessible. Glenda says she keeps coming back because.... " What I love is people take care of each other. There is respect here". Objective 3 Seven community nights featured conversations lead by participants on the environment in the Phillips Neighborhood and how that impacts our food and our health. One of the sessions featured people from rural Minnesota and focused on similarities and differences between rural and urban with regard to impacts of the environment and the food system. As a result of these discussions three participants have joined a city of Minneapolis sponsored citizen task force on advancing Green Zones in the ward. Objective 4 Certainly program participants joining the Green Zones task force is an excellent example of this. The city of Minneapolis is moving forward on establishing Green Zones, starting with one the more densely populated, low income, heavy traffic areas in ward 6, including the Phillips Community. Their participation on the task force should help secure a good outcome for the community, and will build connections with other citizen leaders from across the ward as well as city staff and elected officials. Hope continues to participate in an effort to establish community gardens in city parks. Peavey Park, two blocks away from Hope has been selected to be among the first parks to pilot this effort. The project participated in "Open Streets Franklin" for the third year by tabling at the event and offering garden tours. The event drew over 5,000 people and featured an array of organizations and businesses serving the neighborhood. All told, the project and our partners produced 16 different multi-session activities related to food, culture, community, land access/environment, health, nutrition and systems change. Objective 5: All workshops, discussion sessions, events are led by participants in close communication with staff to help them develop convening, facilitation, conflict resolution and outreach skills. These skills are regularly carried forward into other community events and opportunities. In February 8 Hope Community food and garden participants and four staff on a food and garden planning retreat. Decisions about varieties and species to plant and kitchen activities were laid out for the upcoming season.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/15 to 08/31/16
Outputs
Target Audience:Our target audience is residents of the Phillips Community especially those 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. 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, one to one outreach, and engagement with other organizations. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Two staff attended the Serve Save course providing fundamentals of safe food handling in the kitchen. Maryan Abdinur, LSP/Hope project organizer completed Hope Community's SPEAC training this summer. SPEAC provides a means of cultivating and channeling the power of citizens in the Twin Cities. Through Hope Community, SPEAC promotes effective models of community organizing and leadership We have involved staff and participants in additional opportunities after the end of this reporting period. More to come in our next report. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Bringing the story of the Hope gardens and food project to other organizations involved in nutrition, healthy living and racial equity work in the region is constant. Here are some of the ways that has happened in the last 12 months. A Star Tribune article about our urban soil health work and the Hope food project's involvement in it was published. http://www.startribune.com/community-gardens-more-than-triple-in-twin-cities/392254821/#1 The project was featured at an LSP Earth Day breakfast with about 77 members and supporters in attendance at the Red Stag Supper club in Minneapolis. The project's involvement in the soil health work was featured in an article in the Land Stewardship Letter, summer of 2016 - "The Hard Truth About City Soils, page 14. http://landstewardshipproject.org/repository/1/1946/lsl_no_3_2016.pdf The community being created and supported by the Garden at the Rose was featured in Land Stewardship Letter, fall 2016. http://landstewardshipproject.org/repository/1/1964/lsl_no_4_2016.pdf page 18. The Ripple Ecology project and Ripple Skill shares series built close collaboration with Gardening Matters, Waite House and Permaculture Research Institute, Cold Climate. Fall Harvest festival brought stories from the gardeners and those involved in the cooking classes to a broader audience of Hope residents. This project was featured at Land Stewardship Project's annual mid summer cook-out bringing 216 supporters from around the Twin Cities area together. Franklin Avenue Open Streets: on August 21, more than 5,000 people participated in the 3rd Annual Franklin Avenue Open Streets event. In addition to hosting on-street activities during the event, Hope staff hosted and facilitated multiple sessions with a community-based planning team to prepare for the event. In September, the Planning Team (made up of groups in Phillips as well as Seward Neighborhood) voted unanimously to work with the Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition to submit an application for Franklin Avenue to be selected by the City as one of the Open Streets venues for 2017. The LSP/Hope garden/food project team was involved in planning and tabling at this event reaching out to residents about opportunities to participate. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Strengthen project participant involvement in program planning: We are developing a resident steering committee to guide our work and work plans. The Farm to Kitchen to Table Group will help develop and implement work plans and procedures in the garden and in the cooking classes. This is also part of an effort to expand participation in our garden planning retreat early in 2017 to include more garden leaders. Under the guidance of a consultant evaluator, an evaluation team is being formed including both project co-directors, one operations staff and three Hope gardening residents. The committee will outline the work to be evaluated including goals, impacts and timeline, and help identify resources and challenges and report results to the community. We are excited about this opportunity to involve project participants more deeply in the work, and also to drill down into network development and evaluation of their impact. The gardening season of 2017 will include exploration of more multi-sector opportunities in the food system through connection to and dialogue with rural LSP farmers. We are planning to strengthen our youth gardening component in conjunction with the food project work at Hope with Hope staff. Fruit tree and perennial care will be a significant part of the skill-share in 2017. Plans for expanding our composting efforts to include the collection of household material from gardeners and other Hope residents is underway with advise and assistance from the University of Minnesota Master Gardeners program. During the winter of 2016-17 we are launching an outreach campaign. We will be door knocking among Hope residents and Phillips neighborhood residents with information about our food project work. Interested residents will participate in one-to-one conversations to explore their interest and deepen their involvement with the project.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Objective One: Develop Infrastructure. This objective is nearly complete with perennial care training, especially fruit trees with Ecological Gardens left for 2017 left to do. Remediated soil is in place. Paths and beds are laid. The toolshed is in place with processes for care of garden tools. The storm water retention and irrigation systems were intensely engaging for several of the participants. The existing 2500 square feet of spaceprovides more traditional community gardening opportunities as well as a youth garden space providing pleasant gathering space along the parking lot of Hope Community's building. Much training takes place face to face during garden work times. Minnesota Master Gardeners are frequent participants. Staff and some participant gardeners are also very knowledgeable. Sharing information and demonstrating techniques are a regular part of garden work times. Additionally, staff prepare work calendars, timelines and procedures to accomplish necessary tasks. Training and leadership development is also accomplished through skill share sessions, a participatory process engaging more than 30 community members learning about soil health, bioremediation, nutrition, cover crops, water retention systems and sharing their new found skills with 3+ additional people. The Cooking, Community and Culture project takes place in Hope's community kitchen and has involved 15 residents, with 3 participants stepping into project leadership positions in outreach, planning, harvesting or purchasing product needed for the classes, cooking and preserving food and enjoying a meal together. Over the course of the year the group has developed a consensus around the role of youth and children in the project and leaders have assisted in safe involvement of children. The kitchen project is organizing itself along what is called the "Australian Model" (http://communitykitchens.org.au/what-is-a-community-kitchen/) providing opportunity for community building, technical and leadership skill development, and shared responsibility. With the help of University of Minnesota Master Gardeners, bins have been built, put in place and we have started composting at two of the garden sites Objective Two: Build Community Capacity to create a local food system in which food fosters health. We have hired an Organizer, Maryan Abdinur, starting on March 1, 2016. She brings strong skills and passion to this work. She is fluent in languages spoken by a substantial number of the people in the Phillips neighborhood, is passionate about environmental justice, gardening, and good food. She is committed to organizing people to come together to create a vibrant neighborhood food system and is an asset to the program. Maryan was appointed to Minnesota Pollution Control Agency's newly formed Advisory group on Environmental Justice this summer LSP, Hope and other partners held many different group activities related to food, culture, community, land/environment, health, physical activity, active living, and systems change. This count includes programs that met multiple times, one-time community events, and group discussions in which community members met with organizational staff to plan events and activities. Activities included: Nourish Community Film and Food Gatherings: - A continuing film, potluck, and discussion series with other organizations advancing gardening and local foods in Minneapolis. This proved an effective entry point for food project participants as well as a way to keep people engaged throughout the long Minnesota non-growing season. Ripple Ecology: This was a spring and summer series (with another short version in the fall) of opportunities to build skills and capacity for urban farming and soil health. The 25 participating community members learned about various topics then shared their skills/knowledge with at least 3 additional people. Through the "ripples," more than 100 people were involved in peer learning and capacity building. Participants learned and taught about seed saving and starting, designing water catchments, composting, fixing nitrogen with cover cops, soil health and removing toxins from soil with plants, and breaking up compaction and building water infiltration capacity in abused urban soils. Garden Care times: twice weekly regularly staffed times in our gardens for community members to visit with staff and get involved. These are also times for new people to drop in for an introduction to how the garden operates, meet neighbors, and harvest produce for their own use. Much learning about garden care, planning and harvesting happens during these times with organizers and the farm manager spending one to one, face to face time with people who are engaged and want to learn more. (This involved a minimum of 41 adults and 20 children.) Cooking, Culture, and Community: CCC is a bi-weekly gathering of 10-15 adults (and, occasionally, youth) to cook together, share a meal and stories, and plan for the next session. Particular attention was paid this year to leader development among the participants. Projects in the Garden: as part of building the Community Garden at the Rose, Hope and LSP staff hosted several different Saturday gatherings for community members to tackle specific projects in the garden. Four Sisters Farmers Market: from July 8 - September 23, community members were able to purchase healthy, locally grown food at a new weekly market piloted by Native American Community Development Institute with support from LSP and Hope Community. At least 196 unduplicated adults, youth and children were directly involved in one or more of the activities outlined above. Objective three: "Educate to Action" participants. Through participation in an LSP initiative on urban soil health, project participants have opportunity to "deep dive" into soil health, how to achieve it in your garden. People from Hope and Mashkiikii Gitigan Garden on the east side of the neighborhood are participating in hands on demonstrations of monitoring tools like water infiltration tests to see the effects of different land management practices including soil amended with manure, biochar or compost as opposed to more typical compact urban soils. Participants are learning about green infrastructure to create healthier urban environments and grow healthy food in urban areas. Objective four: Develop multi sector networks to strengthen local food system. We collaborated with Native American Development Institute in developing a business plan for the Four Sisters Famers Market. Residents were able to purchase locally grown food from this extremely popular market. Objective five: Strengthen leadership for external systems change. Two longstanding participants in the project are assisting the City of Minneapolis to align city policies with the needs of a robust, equitable local food production system through the Homegrown Minneapolis Steering Committee. Two years ago Hope gardeners and project staff testified to the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board about the importance of including racial equity in their plan for urban agriculture in city parks. Two of the project participants currently serve on a Park Board convening to review and revise their implementation plan to ensure that happens. In March we held garden planning retreat. The Hope/LSP food and garden team reflected on past years, planned for the future, and made commitments to the work for the 2016 season. Thecommunity leaders who joined us on the retreat helped choose seeds, and therecipes we create in the kitchen. The community leaders who joined us on the retreat have become active leaders during the 2016 season and beyond who will carry this project forward in the Phillips Neighborhood and beyond.
Publications
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