Will Work for Food

We started picking corn at 7:30 on a hot, humid Saturday morning in July. It was the kind of day where weather forecasters talk about dew points and heat indexes and "corn sweat." Within minutes everyone in our group had disappeared and was making their way through the weeds to the back of the field. It took about a half an hour to fill the two duffle bags that were strapped across my back, and when they were full I could hardly stand. I made my way back to the truck, bumping my bags against the tall stalks that stood on either side. When I finally stumbled out of the cornfield, I caught a glimpse of something that made me smile.

Standing next to my destination--an enormous cardboard box where I could dump my corn--was a man wearing a T-shrit that said, "Will work for food." That man was Jim Hires, executive director of Eastern Illinois Foodbank.

Jim greeted me with a water bottle and a smile and quickly emptied my bags. As I headed back into the corn I was reminded of the events that brought me to this field on a sunny summer morning.

It all started last February when my co-worker Dave Dickey invited me to a meeting to discuss the creation of a community garden that would serve the foodbank. The goal was to use land donated by Provena to create a garden that could provide fresh produce for the community--encouraging healthy eating habits and reducing childhood obesity. Since part of my job as educational outreach director at Illinois Public Media is to facilitate meetings for C-U Fit Families, a local coalition to prevent childhood obesity, I was eager to learn more.

After that first meeting a plan began to take shape. Provena would donate the land and seed. University of Illinois Extension would provide agricultural expertise. A local farmer would sow the seed. And several of us would recruit volunteers when it came time to harvest. Although the first meeting took place on a cold day in February. I was warmed by the thought of this garden and the impact it could have on the community. You might have read about plans for the garden in a blog post back in March.

Over the next few months I learned more about the foodbank and the work they do in central Illinois. In February and April my Rotary (C-U Sunrise) organized volunteers for food repacking events at the foodbank, and I participated. Then in March, Illinois Public Media partnered with Common Ground Food Coop and Busey to raise awareness and support for the foodbank during our spring TV pledge drive. The more I learned about Eastern Illinois Foodbank, the more impressed I became with their mission and their staff.

As spring turned into summer, I occasionally thought about the garden. When I noticed corn  growing in the fields around my house, I wondered if the sweet corn in the Provena garden was as tall. Then in mid-July I received an email letting me know the sweet corn was almost ready. I forwarded the email to members of my Rotary and organized volunteers into shifts. As a joke, I asked my teenage daughter if she wanted to get up early to help and, to my surprise, she said, "Sure." (She helped with one of the food repacks back in February, and I guess she was as impressed with the foodbank as I was.)

About fifteen of us descended on the cornfields that morning, and before noon we had picked 2,700 lbs. of sweet corn. Added to the 2,700 lbs. picked by volunteers the weekend before, I would say that's a pretty good haul.

On the drive home, my daughter and I were smiling. Although the conditions weren't pleasant, both of us agreed it was a very satisfying experience. Working side-by-side with other people who care about issues like hunger and health was energizing. In spite of the heat we left the fields feeling refreshed and rejuvenated. Our time in the corn had given us a new understanding of the phrase, "Will work for food."

Molly Delaney (the author of this post) is educational outreach director for Illinois Public Media and a member of C-U Fit Families and C-U Sunrise Rotary. She encourages others to explore volunteer opportunities at Eastern lllinois Foodbank.
Molly can be reached at delaney1@illinois.edu or 217-333-7300.

Sprouting Kids' Interest in Healthy Food and Food Production

Among the rows of the farmer’s “Market at the Square” of Urbana, pictures of a small chicken – a chick – peer out on shoulder-high signs. The tables near these chicks offer a variety of foods for tasting and display information for learning about foods and farming.

To a Market shopper wandering through, these tables may briefly pique their interest but are eventually passed by. However, these tables attract the kids participating in the “Sprouts at the Market” program, as well as their accompanying parents.

"Sprouts at the Market is a nutrition and farm linkage program for kids 3-8," said program coordinator and University of Illinois graduate, Jen Hewitt.  "Its goals are to teach kids about fruits and vegetables and about where food comes from.”

Notably, younger and older children often participate.

Blossoming Sprouts
“Sprouts at the Market” began as a joint project between Lisa Bralts, Economic Development Specialist/Director for Urbana’s “Market at the Square” and  Hewitt.

In 2008, Bralts was looking to develop a program at the Market that would educate children. She observed that, “apart from a few holiday-themed events, there wasn’t much around the idea of teaching kids about fruits and vegetables and nutrition or about seasonality and the farmers that grow the food at the Market.”

Hewitt approached Bralts about creating a project around nutrition as part of volunteering for her dietetics major, and, after coordinating ideas, “Sprouts at the Market” was created.

Sprouts through the Year
Sprouts activities are held once a month from May through October beginning around 9 AM.

Hewitt coordinates the Sprouts activities June through September. Her events focus on the tables around the Market at the Square that display a theme along with related food tastings and information, known as “Sprouts Facts”.

For example, the June event discussed Organic, Local, and Seasonal foods, along with the importance of Eating Here (eating foods from the farmer’s market, that is). Participating kids searched for each of four tables scattered around the Market to learn about the topics and tasted food samples ranging from green pea pods to kohlrabi, a vegetable that looks similar to a turnip.

After visiting all the tables, the kids returned to the main Sprouts tent near the Market entrance to receive a certificate of participation, as well a food seasonality chart and a coupon for a free apple courtesy of the Common Ground Co-op next door.

Bralts manages the “extra” May and October events that “introduce kids to different parts of the food system.” The activity in May this year was a seed-planting workshop.

While topics for Sprout” events have varied year to year, they always center around the importance of foods, nutrition, and farming. Past topics have included “Spring Produce” and “Meet the Farmer.”

 The remaining topics this year will be “Corn” in August, and “Fall Produce” for the month of September. For the “extra” activity in October, Bralts is partnering with the Eastern Illinois Foodbank to develop a lesson on giving and donating food.

Looking into the future, Bralts would like to plan activities such as composting food waste, opening a discussion on food distribution, and helping kids understand “food miles,” a look at how far food travels from farm to plate.

Supporting Sprouts
To support Sprouts activities, Market food vendors, volunteers, and other partners are crucial. Hewitt extols the importance of the vendors “without whom we could not hold our events.” She noted that, “we rely on (the vendors) to provide samples of foods for participants to taste, and getting kids to try new things is one of our primary goals.”

Volunteers also help run the program and are often responsible for talking about the information related to the month’s theme at each table. Although June’s event was mostly about food production and the benefits of local and seasonal foods, past events have had more information related to nutrition. Considering the volunteers are students in dietetics or nutritional sciences, they can be a wealth of information about the food and nutrition topics.

The Sprouts program has also had support from Common Ground Co-op and 88 Broadway. The Co-op provided the coupon for a free apple distributed to the kids who completed the Sprouts program for the June event.

Sprouts' Success
Participation in Sprouts has steadily grown, and it hosts a range of 30-80 children at each month’s event. This is encouraging to Hewitt, who considered the program a success.

The adults watching their kids learn appear to agree as well. Hewitt expressed that “parent surveys (about the program) have been overwhelmingly positive.”

Halfway through its third year, Sprout's is going strong and always welcomes new participants. This is a positive opportunity to learn, taste, and appreciate the foods you eat, and even try some foods you have yet to taste.

Join Sprouts
If you are interested in participating in Sprouts, the remaining events for the summer will be:
· August 21
· September 18
· October 23

For More Information
 Sprouts at the Market Blog
 Sprouts at the Market FaceBook

Contact Information
Lisa Bralts, Economic Development Specialist/Director, Urbana’s Market at the Square
· 217-384-2319
Email
 
Jen Hewitt, Sprouts Program Coordinator
Email

About the Author
Having completed a bachelor’s degree in food, nutrition, and dietetics from Illinois State University, Caitlin Huth is interested in community programs related to food and nutrition education, such as Sprouts.

N. First Street Community Garden Aims to Feed Spirits, Minds and Bodies

Sonya Lynch, program director at the Don Moyer Boys and Girls Club, and her son stand in front of a vacant city lot in Champaign that will feed minds, spirits and bodies of area youth this summer.

Lynch, an avid gardener, is part of a new collaborative community garden effort that's part of an even larger plan to revitalize N. First Street in downtown Champaign and promote development -- all kinds of development.

Access to local food is one issue the North First Street Association and the city of Champaign have worked together to address, including the formation of a farmer's market last year on N. First Street.

In an arrangement between the city and the North First Street Association, the vacant lot across from Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation on north First Street is about to be turned into the N. First Street Prosperity Garden and it will be cared for by the Don Moyer Boys and Girls Club.

One of those deeply involved in the project is Valerie McWilliams who is the managing attorney at Land of Lincoln. McWilliams said her organization got involved because it wants "to be a good neighbor and this seems like an obvious tool to promote good childhood nutrition and teach kids valuable lessons that will serve them the rest of their lives."

McWilliams needed the right person to work with the youth on gardening.  Someone who is "very passionate about getting this garden up and running." 

Enter Lynch.

"I like to expose my youth to as many things as possible that are not the normal types of things," said Lynch. "They would not normally think of gardening as a way to become an entrepreneur."

Lynch coordinates a program called JUMP (Juvenile Upward Mobility Program) that works with at-risk youth ages 13-18. The youth from JUMP and three other groups will plant the garden, harvest the produce, learn how to cook it and sell some of it at the Historic North First Street Farmer's Market this summer.

"I hope that some of the children will become interested in gardening and nutrition as well as their families," Lynch said. "Maybe they'll even grow food at home when they realize it's not too hard. They can even grow it in a pot."

Master gardener Sandra Mason of the U of I Extension Master Gardeners, one of the project initiators, will help develop the curriculum with Lynch, and work alongside the kids.  "Kids don't really understand where their food comes from," said Mason.  "People just see the end of the process. There are life lessons in gardening including delayed gratification, teamwork and entrepreneurship."

[Left: Sandy Mason, U of I Extension Master Gardeners and TJ Blakeman, city of Champaign, stand on vacant land that will be turned into a community garden]

As currently envisioned, the garden will be planted in two-foot raised beds with plenty of walkways for children to get up close and personal with the earth and eventually their plants. 

"We do a lot of good projects," Mason said, "but to me this one feels like things are really coming together.  This is one of the best things we do.  We're not just making the world pretty, but growing produce and improving lives."

The land, which is right next to railroad tracks, used to be owned by Texas Oil, according to TJ Blakeman, city planner in the advanced planning division of the city of Champaign, as well as one of the project initiators along with Mason and David Freeman, also a master gardener.   Raised beds will avoid disturbing the soil, which according to a 1991 report found by the city, contained no harmful substances.  Just to be sure, the city will do more sampling at three feet and six feet depths, according to Blakeman. 

The Champaign County Regional Planning Commission, also involved in the project, serves many low-income people including people with disabilities, seniors and families. Darlene Kloeppel, social services director at the Commission, regularly assesses community needs and one of the things Kloeppel found is that "a lot of things are pointing to the fact that people do need basic needs taken care of," she said.  "Money for transportation, housing and food." 

Kloeppel secured a grant to pay for a project coordinator to work under Lynch and for stipends to pay the youth for their gardening.   Eventually, the youth will sell their produce at the farmer's market on N. First Street.

For more information on this project, contact McWilliams at vmcwilliams@lollaf.org or 217-356-1351.

Kimberlie Kranich, author of this blog post, is director of community engagement at Illinois Public Media and may be reached at kranich@illinois or 217-244-5072.

Provena Covenant Medical Center Donates Land for Garden for Eastern Illinois Food Bank

The farmland in this picture isn't much to look at right now, but come July, dark green stalks of sweet corn will fill up 2.5 acres of this 88-acre farm. The corn will be donated to the Eastern Illinois Food Bank (EIF) for the food pantries and soup kitchens it supplies in the 14 counties it serves.

Why locally grown food for food pantries and soup kitchens?

Jim Hires, executive director of the Eastern Illinois Food Bank, explains in the video clip below.



The farmland, located on Old Church Road in Savoy, Illinois just southwest of the I-57 overpass, is owned by Provena Covenant Medical Center. For the past two years, Provena staff harvested the corn and donated it to the Food Bank. It has been difficult for Provena staff to sustain the effort themselves.

So, Doretta Herr, community benefits and missions manager at Provena, was more than willing for others to be involved. She explains in the clip below.



The Dave Dickey that Doretta mentions above is Illinois Public Media's director of agricultural programming. He explains why WILL is involved.



This year, volunteers from service groups including CU Sunrise Rotary and the Young Ag Leaders group of the Champaign County Farm Bureau will harvest the corn, according to Kirk Builta of the Farm Bureau.

The informal network of organizations and individuals working together on the Food Bank garden for the first time this year want a success. Their plan is to keep the garden simple and plant only sweet corn this first year. That's because sweet corn is hearty and doesn't need extra water to grow. The corn will be planted at two different times so it will yield two separate harvests.

This will be a learning year and a year to build an infrastructure for coordinating volunteers and gauging the possibility of obtaining a water source for year two, creating an educational component for youth and adding two additional crops next year.

Chris Wise will prepare the farmland for harvest. Connie Brand of Illinois Found Seeds in Tolono has donated the seeds. The seeds will planted by a planter and harvested by volunteers in the summer. The Eastern Illinois Food Bank will transport the harvest from the farm to its facility in Urbana.

If you are interested in this effort, please contact me at the address below.

Kimberlie Kranich is director of community engagement at Illinois Public Media and may be reached at kranich@illinois.edu

Rural King, ACES, Community Members Meet To Organize Free Community Garden

Ten of us gathered around tables in a small banquet room at Ryan's restaurant on Thursday, drawn together by the prospect of a community garden in the grass lot owned by Rural King in north Champaign.

Doug DeLong, right, organized us all through a meeting set up by CCNET, an informal network for sustainability in Champaign County. He did a similar thing in Sullivan, Illinois. His motto is, "Conquering world hunger one block at a time." He's set up a blog for projects he helps organize called Local Victory Gardens.

In the clip below, he talks about what drives him.



Four Rural King employees were at the meeting including Rhonda Grisamore, store manager. "I'm all about community involvement," she told us.



Rural King will provide the 12' X 12' garden plots for free and the water to keep them alive. Organizers are working on a way to capture rainwater that falls from Rural King's roof into rain barrels for watering the garden. Gardeners will provide their own seed and planting tools. Rhonda, who used to live in Baytowne Apartments, which are located near Rural King, will send a special invite to apartment dwellers there encouraging them to use the garden space offered by Rural King.

Dawn Blackman, left, six-year volunteer steward of the Randolph Street Community Organic Garden, attended, too. She said people have been signing up since January for plots on Randolph St. and she may need to send people to the Rural King community garden. Seniors from Washington Square apartments share the gardening responsibilities with students from the Motherlands Culture Club -- the after school program sponsored by the Champaign Church of the Brethren. In addition to eating their homegrown favorites, the Randolph Street Garden provides food baskets to Empty Tomb and vegetable soup to the TIMES Center, a homeless shelter for men in Champaign.

Dan Anderson is with the College of Agricultural, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences (ACES)at Illinois. As an outreach ag specialist, he'll serve as the main coordinator of the Rural King Community Garden and main contact. He may be reached at 217-621-7974 or via email, aslan@illinois.edu.

In the clip below, he tells us why he's involved.



My neighbors, Dane and Theresa, were also there. We serendipitously met at the entrance to Ryan's not knowing we were going to the same meeting. They have a big garden in their yard. Dane's interest is as a law student around the idea of a food clinic. Theresa is an architectural student and wants to help with the design of capturing the rainwater and reusing it for the gardeners.

As for me, I am pumped about the growing local foods movement and I see how it fits into the overall effort to combat obesity in our community. So I'll keep blogging about it hoping to connect people to these inspiring efforts.

Kimberlie Kranich is director of community engagement at Illinois Public Media and may be reached at kranich@illinois.edu

New High Tunnels at Student Farm Will Allow Year Round Growing Season

The earth was solid beneath my feet except for patches of mud that clung to my boots as I walked toward three greenhouse-like structures on farmland in the southeast corner of the intersection of Lincoln Ave. and Windsor Road in Urbana.

I was heading to the student farm to do some work. I had with me a FLIP video camera, digital still camera and eager hands and was ready for instructions. It was my furlough day and the sun was shining on this near 40-degree-and-windy morning, and I was excited to learn more about these new structures that would allow for the growing of fruits and vegetables year round. Students who eat at dining services at Illinois get to eat most of them.

This is the student farm's second year of production and first year using what's known as high tunnels.

I was first inspired by the idea of student-produced locally grown produce for students at Illinois at a CCNET sponsored panel in February on local food and blogged about it here Growing Hope!

Zachary Grant, Student Farm Coordinator at the Department of Crop Sciences at Illinois, explained that these high tunnels, as they are called, are passive solar unheated greenhouses. They allow for some fruits and vegetables to be grown all year round. That's a plus for the student farm operation which sells its produce to dining services to pay for the cost of operation. Zach told me that each high tunnel cost about $12,000, including shipping. These structures are portable and the three combined are about a 1/4-acre of land.

The climate inside the high tunnel was quite temperate. We went inside for an interview. Lettuce has already been planted and is poking through. The earth was soft and crumbly to the touch, unlike the hard earth outside the tunnel. In this clip, Zach explains further the concept of high tunnels.



When I first arrived, a small group of people were attaching a plastic cover over the tunnel. I got to help guide the plastic while another group stood on the opposite side of the tunnel and pulled the plastic over the roof. The short clip below shows how that worked.



When that was done, Jeremy attached the plastic to the tunnel using wiggly wire.



If you're like me and are interested in learning more about the student farm, you can contact Zach to find out how to become more involved. And you don't have to be affiliated with the university to contribute and take home some of the harvest. Zach explains in the clip below.



If you'd like more information, you may contact Zach here: zbgrant@gmail.com

I'm looking forward to helping out and reaping some of the produce! Maybe I'll see you there.

Kimberlie Kranich is director of community engagement at Illinois Public Media and may be reached at kranich@illinois.edu

Growing Hope!

Just when the winter blues and economy woes had me in a headlock, I attended a panel on local foods last night hosted by CCNET and grew a new attitude: hope!

I gave an audible affirmation when Erin Harper, a member of Engineers Without Borders at Illinois, spoke of efforts to create a community garden at Washington School in Urbana. I learned that the school board has approved a community garden curriculum at Washington and that each class will grow food and take it home and perhaps one day sell it at a local food stand.

I was blown away when I learned from Zachary Grant, Student Farm Coordinator at the Department of Crop Sciences at Illinois, that they are in their second year of production and that 100% of their produce goes to campus dining services and they have a dream of becoming a teaching farm.

So when Dawn Aubrey, senior assistant director of university housing told us that she is able to use vegetables from the student farm in the 24,000 meals housing provides to students daily, I thought, "That's incredible!" But there's more: one of their future goals is to compost food waste to be used on the student farm.

Lisa Bralts, director of Market at the Square, the Urbana-based Farmer's Market, said the market has been on-going for 30 years and the city has managed it since the 1990s. The city is doing a strategic plan for the market and would like your input here Market at the Square Strategic Planning Survey.

I had remembered that I was once a member of Community Supported Agriculture after Diann Moore of Moore Family Farm in Watseka told the audience that for $400 a season you can get pesticide-free vegetables and recipes to cook 'em and instructions to store 'em. Participants pick up their vegetables once a week at a drop-off location in Urbana or Champaign.

I am glad to be a member of Common Ground in Urbana, one of 2,400 people, according to Jacqueline Hannah, general manager. She told us that the Co-op is now open to the public and 80% of their revenue comes from owners. They sell locally grown foods produced within 150 miles of Urbana.

And then there was Wes Jarrell who started Prairie Fruits Farm, in 2003. They produce milk and cheese, grow organic fruits and berries and do a lot of public education around local foods. He told us of a "100 yard dinner" they had at the farm in which everything that was eaten was grown within 100 yards of the table.

I left the panel discussion feeling good about the local foods movement in the region. And tonight I am going to call in during Illinois Gardener, to ask experts there how I might start a vegetable garden on my roof!

Hope and inspiration. They feed me, too.

Kimberlie Kranich is director of community engagement at Illinois Public Media and may be reached at kranich@illinois.edu

Urbana City Council Goals Promote Community Health and Wellness

The draft 2009-2013 Urbana City Council and Mayor Goals represent core principles that will guide city governance and planning over the next four years. The goals address six key areas: Public Safety, Financial Sustainability, Economic Development, Downtown Development, Environmental Sustainability, and Quality of Life.

The Council also developed strategies to help guide the community toward reaching these goals. Described below are several of the strategies that will enhance opportunities for healthy eating and active living in Urbana and help promote communitywide health and wellness.

Strategy: Become a bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly community that promotes sustainable transportation modes.

a. Implement the Bicycle Master Plan and continue to incorporate bicycle facilities as the city expands or redevelops.

b. Develop community-wide bicycle safety education programs and provide appropriate enforcement, education and signage for bike routes.

c. Support the Safe Routes to School program to encourage walking and biking to school.

d. Adopt a "complete streets" policy that promotes pedestrian, bicycle and public transit.

e. Work with other agencies to develop regional recreational facilities such as the "Rails to Trails" project between Urbana and Danville.

Strategy: Promote production, accessibility and affordability of local farm and artisan products.

a. Develop a Strategic Plan and appoint an Advisory Board for the Urbana Market at the Square.

b. Implement use of Electronic Benefits Transfer cards at the Urbana Market.

c. Establish a "Friends of the Market" not-for-profit organization to raise funds for educational programming, artistic events, infrastructure improvements and other needs.

d. Establish a year-round, permanent location for the Market with a commerical kitchen that can be rented by vendors. This could expand the types of products offered, provide opportunities for small businesses, and provide space for classes in food preservation and preparation.

Strategy: Encourage sustainable landscaping and gardening.
a. Consider installation of a model community garden at the Urbana City Building.

Strategy: Promote continued intergovernmental cooperation.

a. Work with school and park district officials to ensure that recreational opportunities are available to youth in underserved neighbhorhoods, especially in east and north Urbana.

b. Explore development of community centers or meeting spaces to serve the needs of youth and adults related to education, training, guided activities and communication technologies.

c. Adopt the Mayor's Action Challenge for Children and Families sponsored by the National League of Cities.

The City Council will adopt these Goals in late January or early February, 2010. For more information, view the complete list at: Urbana City Council and Mayor Goals, 2009-2013.

Other resources:

Safe Routes to Schools
Urbana Market at the Square