Urban Seeds

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Director of Local Food Coordination and Outreach

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 Now Hiring! Director of Local Food Coordination and Outreach 

Urban Seeds, Healthy Communities Partnership, the Promise Zone, Welborn Baptist Foundation, and Purdue Extension work together in Southwest Indiana to support a local and regional food system that allows for farmers and food producers to flourish and for all end-buyers to have access to fresh and nutrient dense food. In addition, we work to support a local food economy in which our community’s dollars are used to purchase local/regional foods that will be the foundation of a robust food economy. We are passionate about growing and connecting our local food community to improve the health, equity, sustainability, and prosperity of the SWI region. 

Director of Local Food Coordination and Outreach

“We’re Healing This Community” – Beautiful Edibles’ Roger & Mary Winstead

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What does a healer look like? Is it a professional in a white coat? A nurturing elder passing down folk remedies? Can it be a farmer?

How do they heal? Do they consider the body alone or the systems in which the body lives – environmental, economical, nutritional?

We met with Roger and Mary Winstead, whose daily work broadens common perceptions of both healing and farming. 

Roger and Mary each have backgrounds in agriculture. Growing up in Warrick County, Roger grew up on a family farm and was active in 4-H. As an adult, he became a landscape architect. Mary grew up around the corner from Roger on her parents’ plot of land, from which they grew and sold strawberries.

In 2015, the Winsteads were ready for a change and moved back to the remaining two acres of Roger’s childhood homestead to be closer to family. “We left careers and are seeing a dream come true, coming back to southern Indiana,” says Mary.

That dream involved a connection to local food – borrowing, aggregating, and growing what they needed to thrive. Forming a CSA – in which customers invest in a share of the season’s harvest, agreeing to accept the risks and benefits along with the farmers – allowed the Winsteads to support this lifestyle for themselves and their members. Their website now offers CSA shares, delivery options, and mushroom subscriptions, with even more exciting growth to come this year.

Always present has been a commitment to make farming organic and sustainable year-round. Caterpillar tunnels help control climate and moisture, allowing for a longer and more consistent growing season, but the Winsteads also rely heavily on the land’s natural gifts. “We do everything as regenerative as we can,” says Roger, “We’re stewards to soil health.” To attract pollinators, the Winsteads grow edible flowers, which also benefit crop rotation cycles.

Another asset to Beautiful Edibles is their mushrooms. Started as a hobby, the Winsteads quickly became passionate about the benefits to the soil, the high nutrient content, the wide variety, and the ability to grow year-round. The Winsteads now grow their mushrooms on an “urban farm” – a 1930s-era parking garage that also houses the growing system for APE Aquaponics, another local grower producing lettuces.

Back outside on the farm, a neighbor offered another mutually beneficial opportunity in the form of a former livestock pasture. The Winsteads planted squash there and yielded 400 pounds! The results were both delicious and improved the soil quality for grazing livestock.

When asked why the average consumer should care about the sourcing of their food, the Winsteads have many thoughtful reasons. For starters, food sourced closer to home is less likely to be affected by the supply chain issues that have become more common in recent years. The less food has to travel, it retains more nutrient density while maintaining a far lower carbon footprint. There’s a level of trust in being able to know one’s farmer and see where the food is grown. Rather than paying a large corporation, profits benefit family farmers, giving a leg up to those who have lacked the advantages of massive acreage or subsidized commodity crops. “You’re creating jobs. You’re creating an economy,” says Mary.

Many people are surprised at how productive smaller farms can be when properly managed.. “You can provide for your community on a one acre plot.” Another misconception is that local food can only be found during market season. Roger points out that even Chicago, for example, has indoor markets that operate throughout the winter. While selection varies from month to month, many favorites are still available year-round.

Restaurants have already become hooked on the benefits of Beautiful Edibles’ offerings. Because the Winsteads don’t pick their crops until they have a buyer, their items are extremely fresh and store well. “We hate food waste!” says Mary. Buyers have reported greens that stay fresh for weeks in the refrigerator – a stark contrast to how quickly bagged greens from the grocery store often turn. That freshness ensures more nutrients stay in the food, as well.

How can you enjoy Beautiful Edibles’ products in your own kitchen? Their website, www.beautifulediblesgrow.com/ offers a variety of products and ways to order – from pick-ups or deliveries to subscriptions. An even more exciting option is set to launch in April 2022 with a local food hub – Local Source! This farmers cooperative will allow consumers to shop from many local farms on a single website. Similar to Market Wagon, a national online outlet for local items which discontinued service to Evansville last December, Local Source promises to be even more advantageous for farmers and shoppers alike by keeping the profits circulating in the local economy. More effort will be invested in helping farmers be successful in producing and marketing quality products. A collaborative effort between several southwest Indiana Farmers and Urban Seeds secured grant money for a physical location for food hub items to be picked up; and the hiring of a value chain coordinator is in the works, to connect farmers and consumers with one another and with a network of food hubs throughout the state. While farmers may have different approaches or products, all are supported. Says Mary, “We lift up all of us together.” 

The Winsteads say many of their customers have sought them out after getting “a second chance at life.” Roger points out that our area has a high incidence of autoimmune disease and cancers, widely attributed to a combination of environmental and lifestyle factors. Some of their own friends, family members, and customers have experienced common health issues like diabetes, but since eating a diet rich in homegrown plants and mushrooms, they have seen a reduction in symptoms and improvements in health regardless of age. While nutrient density works to heal bodies from within, the Winsteads’ commitment to organic, sustainable growing methods heals the air, soil, and water that surrounds us. What began as a dream for Roger and Mary offers hope to our community as a whole. “We feel very strongly that we’re healing this community and ourselves.”

For more information and ordering options, visit www.beautifulediblesgrow.com

The Local Source officially opens for orders April 13th with the first delivery on the 21st. The Grand opening will be in May 2022 with more vendors and items available. You can quickly and easily purchase product by accessing www.localsourceswi.com and becoming a customer. The weekly order cycle ends on Tuesday at 11:55pm and you can pick up your order on Thursday between 12:00 – 6:00 at 111 S.E. Third Street in downtown Evansville.

Photography credit: Kate Jacobson

Comparing Apples to Apples: A Chat With Countryside Orchard’s Kristi Schulz

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When you look at Kristi Schulz’s background, you’ll see she’s listed as a “former science teacher,” but it doesn’t take long to realize Kristi is both educating and utilizing science every day in her role as an owner of Countryside Orchard. 

If you’re unfamiliar with Countryside Orchard, you may know it by another name: Engelbrecht’s. Many of the fruit trees on the property were planted by the fourth generation of the Engelbrecht family before they sold the orchard to Kristi’s family. She and Tim, her husband and business partner, operate and manage all facets of the orchard business.

Like teaching, the key to successful farming has a lot to do with making connections: connections with others, with the land, with the community, and more. Kristi is passionate about her work, so sharing it comes naturally; and like any good science teacher, Kristi is a big believer in letting people be guided by firsthand experience with the orchard and the products.

“We’re always happy to show people around and answer questions,” offers Kristi. In our modern world, people are not always as connected to the source of our food, so the Schulzes are committed to offering U-pick opportunities for as many of their crops as possible. There is some magic in watching individuals enjoy their first taste of fruit they’ve picked themselves. “When you take a bite, you have ownership of the flavor and of the effort involved.”

“It’s really important that people understand that everything we do is hands-on and labor intensive. We don’t have machines to pick or sort the fruit. That is all done by hand.” Many customers are surprised at the difference in locally-grown produce compared to what they typically find at the grocery store. Kristi explains that grocery store produce is often picked before it is ripe or kept in cold storage for months at a time so that it doesn’t bruise or spoil before reaching the shelves. Conversely, the memorable, in-season flavors develop while the fruit is ripening on the tree. “We treat them gently and give personal attention to every single tree.”

All this attention requires many hands, and Kristi likes to offer high school students first-time work experience helping at the orchard. Harvesting is a job everyone associates with farm work, but Countryside Orchard also produces larger, healthier fruit by managing the cropload (thinning), so the fruit that remains can soak up more resources. Gleaning is also important; fruit has to be picked before it has a chance to rot, or fungus and disease could put the next year’s crop at risk.

“It’s nice to have plenty and be able to share,” says Kristi. Harvest totals vary from year to year, depending on weather and pest pressures, but the 2021 peach and apple crop was plentiful. In addition to selling to local markets, they’ve been able to donate hundreds of pounds of fruit to the Tri-State Food Bank, Feed Evansville, and a group cooking for tornado victims in Kentucky in late 2021.

Last year, Tom Zeta, the Nourish coordinator for Urban Seeds, made a visit to Countryside Orchard, and a new connection was made. Countryside Orchard is now providing apples for the Nourish boxes, and Urban Seeds hopes it’s the first of many local offerings to be added to the Nourish program.

In addition to offering produce, education is still front and center. “The orchard is like a big outdoor classroom,” so the field trips offered at Countryside Orchard include stations with many elements: information, discussion points, activities, immersive experiences, math, orienteering, and – of course – tasting.

Peaches are the main crop at Countryside Orchard, followed by apples, but they also offer U-pick strawberries and pumpkins when they’re in season, in addition to cider – and the popular cider slushes – applesauce, and creative flavors of jellies and jams. Depending on the weather, they hope to have a crop of cherries this spring, as well. Kristi is proud to have educated the public on “seconds” – fruit that has cosmetic blemishes or is too ripe to travel but is still delicious for immediate eating or bulk preparation – and now sells seconds by the case.

So how does one compare apples to apples? Apples from the grocery store are available year-round, with uniform appearance, but there is a trade-off. Types of fruit from Countryside Orchard change with the seasons; but the attention they have received, their ability to ripen on the trees, and their proximity to home leads to more flavor and nutrients for the consumer, and money invested will stay in the local economy. And if you’re lucky enough to make a trip to the orchard or their booth at a farmer’s market, you’ll have an irreplaceable connection with your food and its journey to your plate.

For more info:

  • Website: www.countrysideorchard.com
  • Phone: (812) 490-9559
  • Location: 16800 Old Petersburg Rd, Evansville, IN 47725
    • located north of Baseline Road, just off of I69, Exit 18

Book n’ Cook

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Initially begun in September of 2020 in collaboration with the Evansville African American Museum (EAAM), the Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library (EVPL) Lincoln School, Legacy Taste of the Garden (LTotG) and Memorial Community Development Program, Urban Seeds is a proud partner and sponsor of the Book n’ Cook initiative.

The EAAM and EVPL invited Urban Seeds to facilitate the Cook portion of the Book n’ Cook program, as part of their 3-month outreach to encourage shared family reading time. The project incorporated a month of fiction reading, a month of picture books, and a month of non-fiction reading, all with a focus on the Black experience and rich history of farming and homesteading, including the deep connective roots to African culture. October’s book was geared to children and we chose Bring Me Some Apples and I’ll Make You a Pie: A Story About Edna Lewis. Edna Lewis is a well known Black chef and food justice advocate, who encourages children to engage in gardening and cooking at age-appropriate levels, all the while weaving stories of her childhood with her sharecropper parents in the south. Urban Seeds donated a mixing bowl, a baking dish, and a hot mitt to each 3rd – 5th grade student participant, as well as all the ingredients. The story book had been read in a live-stream event the week prior, a copy of which was also included in the cooking kit and funded through the EAAM.Using locally grown apples from Engelbrecht’s Countryside Orchard, we made the apple crisp recipe from the book, live streaming the cooking class from the marvelous kitchen at Trinity United Methodist Church, a dear Urban Seeds partner. Denise and Paula of the Legacy Garden, whose family has been farming at Lyles Station since pre-Civil War, and which is the last remaining African American Settlement in Indiana, led the students in the cooking, all the while weaving in wonderful cultural and farming/gardening related information. The children were enchanted, and oh-so-proud when they shared photos of their apple crisp!

In honor of Black History Month EVPL, Legacy Taste of the Garden, Urban Seeds, and Trinity UMC partnered again to make another recipe from this marvelous book — a corn pudding. Once again, the book was funded, this time by EVPL, and Urban Seeds supplied the cooking kit and ingredients. Denise and Paula again facilitated the cooking portion, sharing rich tales of their childhood running and playing in the cornfields.

The first two B n’ C events were greatly enjoyed by the students and their families, so much so that we solicited additional funding to create a 5-month seasonal series to highlight locally grown foods. We offered this series from June – October, adding measuring cups and spoons and a larger mixing bowl to the cooking kits, and three new books for each student, listed below. We featured local produce as we made seasonal dishes, using these recipes: Strawberry-Rhubarb cobbler in honor of Juneteenth, Baked Stir Fry, Tomato-Peach-Canteloupe salad, Pancit, and Butternut Squash soup. The teaching of the recipes and cooking techniques was shared between Urban Seeds and Legacy Taste of the Garden, while the EVPL staff provided expert camera and audio recording behind the scenes. The recorded cooking sessions can be seen here. We even added a Holiday Book n’ Cook class in November so the children could learn to make a side dish and a dessert for the coming holidays! Combining literacy with autonomy in the kitchen all the while connecting children to how food is grown–especially the importance of locally grown food–and prepared is a wonderful opportunity, and one for which we are proud to have been a partner.  Special thank you to our private donor, a retired teacher who dearly believes in the power of reading. xo

The books donated by EVPL and the EAAM were purchased through an Indiana Humanities Collaboration grant :

Cora Cooks Pancit, by Dorina K. Lazo Gilmore

The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs, by America’s Test Kitchen

In the Garden with Dr. Carver, by Susan Grigsby

Bring Me Some Apples and I’ll Make You a Pie, by Robbin Gourley

Grow! Raise! Catch! How We Get Our Food, by Shelley Rotner

Going Down Home with Dad, by Kelly Starling Lyons

Time for the Second Annual High School Story Challenge!

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High School Story Challenge

Purpose: To engage and work with energetic high school students who are passionate about sharing/developing skills and talent, to promote food security and promote healthful food choices, willing to attend monthly board meetings and occasional community projects/events.

Urban Seeds invites all local high school students to explore the intersection of food justice with culture, class, income, or economics while considering societal assumptions such as access to food, equity, relationships, health, and etc. using one or more of the following medium choices:

Speech | Essay | Video | Poem | Song

Using your choice of the following prompts, please tell us how you see the Mission and Vision of Urban Seeds connecting to food justice.

  1. How do our environments affect accessibility to and our relationship with food?
  2. How do our traditions with food relate to our health?
  3. How does food build community?
  4. How does food break down barriers and overcome stereotypes?
  5. What changes could be made to ensure everyone has equal opportunity to access nutritious foods?

Criteria for participation: Student in good standing willing to attend monthly board meetings and occasional community projects/events.

Time considerations for submissions: 1000 words for essay; maximum 5 minutes for speech, song, poem or video.

Submissions accepted via email to scholarship@urbanseeds.org until September 20, 2021.

Finalists will be invited to apply for a student Board of Directors position for a period of one year and be eligible for a $1500.00 scholarship for post-high school training or education path of their choice.

  • Please include in your submission email a few sentences about yourself including your name, age, school you attend, and post-high school education/career goals.
  • Give two strategies you would use to promote food justice and food security awareness among your high school peers if selected as the Student Member of the Urban Seeds Board of Directors. Be creative! (Example of ideas: recruit and lead peers to volunteer at food assistance /event/programs; develop a value-added feature to an existing food assistance event/program; develop solutions for issues facing a specific community program that serve low-income families)

Scholarship recipient will be announced October 4, 2021.

Nourishing Our Community

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Urban Seeds is the lead organization for Nourish, Community Food Buying Club (nourishevv.org). Thanks to a generous grant from Welborn Baptist Foundation, we are able to collaborate with several community partners to initiate this project with the goal of diminishing nutrient-insecurity in the Evansville area. Nourish has two key strategies:

  • To provide nutrient dense staple foods via an online shopping platform at prices that will be, on average, 40% lower than big-box shopping, and
  • To facilitate an educational series that will empower families to cook nourishing and culturally familiar meals at home.
  • More recently, we have been granted additional funds to ease the transition in the year of Covid from Relief to Recovery, with the longer-term goal of our community’s settling into Restoration/Resilience. Our 2021-22 themed grocery boxes will be underwritten at 50% to further make nourishing food available to the children and families in our community.

There is a delicate balance between the importance of filling empty bellies and that of embracing our moral obligation to fill those empty bellies with foods that nourish–as opposed to deplete–our health and well-being. Families living with nutrient-insecurity are often relegated to the lowest nutritional value foods due to the low cost of those foods. Unfortunately, those foods happen to be highly processed with additives and chemicals, some of which are linked to diminished learning capacity and behavior challenges in children, as well as being associated with chronic disease states later in life, such as obesity and diabetes.

The goal of the Nourish is to increase access to more of the high nutritional value foods, more whole in their nature and lower in processing, to truly nourish the children in our community so that they may grow into our next generation’s leaders. As important is our embrace of building trusting relationships with our members so that they will be responsive to resilience-building and restorative behavior change leading to regular family meals, cooked fresh.

Nourish will increase access to nourishing food for our members by providing nutrient-dense foods at wholesale prices. In June of 2021 we will open a new online platform to offer themed grocery boxes, with 50% underwriting made available via a generous grant from the Evansville Covid Relief Fund. We anticipate ~ 12 months of very low pricing to be shared with our Nourish family members.

The logistics of Nourish:

  • Members will use an online procurement platform to order perishable and non-perishable themed food boxes. Ordering will be made every other Tuesdays by 3 PM. Groceries items will be available for pick up at Trinity United Methodist Church at 216 SE Third St, Evansville IN 47713 every other Thursday from 4 – 5:30 PM, following the Tuesday orders. Family members will pick up their pre-ordered, pre-paid food boxes from the front of the TUMC, facing 3rd Street.
  • Payment using SNAP/EBT, Debit, or Credit Card is accepted. Members are expected to order at least one grocery box per month for a minimum of $10.00.
  • Upon delivery by our distributors, the food items will be aggregated into temperature-controlled bags and/or boxes per each family’s order.
  • Nutrition classes and cooking demonstrations will be provided (scheduling pending as Covid restrictions are eased) to coincide with the ordering closure and rendering of payment for orders. Class attendance will be incentivized with points being awarded; these points will be redeemable for kitchen tools, with a quarterly drawing for more points providing the opportunity to redeem for small kitchen appliances such as a blender, insta-pot, pots, and pans. (Addendum: with Covid, in-person education classes and shared food tastings had been stopped but we look forward to resuming in person classes when it feels safer to gather in public).
  • Following nutrition guidelines and SNAP staple food requirements, the following foods will be ordered in bulk and stored on site on shelves for the dried goods and in a refrigerator and freezer for the perishable items.
    • Legumes & grains
    • Pasta
    • Fresh and frozen produce
    • Meat
    • Eggs
    • Various dairy produce to include cheese, milk, yogurt, sour cream, butter
    • Condiments & sauces
    • Dried herbs & spices
    • Two themed dinner boxes, one Mexican the other Italian, each containing ingredients for two meals
  • Staffing
    • The Nourish program coordinator is a 20+ hour per week position. The coordinator will be on site for the entirety of the Thursday grocery distribution day and on Tuesdays to help families with their online orders, as needed.
      • Tom Z. may be reached at (812) 213-7225 or via email at nourish@urbanseeds.org
    • Volunteers will be on site during the food aggregation days with no more that 6 adults present at any given time, under the supervision of the staff
    • A ServSafe-certified Food Manager will be on site at all time during the delivery, sorting, and aggregation of food
    • The TUMC site is not open to the public
  • Partners
    • Funding partners
    • May 2021 funding from the United Way Evansville Covid Relief Fund will allow for ~ 12 months of providing themed food boxes at an additional 50% off from wholesale pricing
    • Deaconess Health Care is providing the access to their food procurement wholesale pricing
    • Trinity United Methodist Church is providing the kitchen space with required grease trap for food aggregation and storage
    • Urban Seeds is the fiscal agent and will provide administrative oversight to all aspects of Nourish
    • Purdue Extension is providing RD’s as teaching partners for the educational classes (Addendum: with Covid, this aspect is on hold for now)
    • YMCA is providing use of their kitchen for some of the cooking demonstrations, and is providing child care for parents while they are in class (Addendum: with Covid, this aspect is on hold for now)
    • Healthy Communities Partnership is acting in an Advisory Board capacity

 

Nourish is a collaborative community project, managed by Urban Seeds

www.urbanseeds.org

Director, Robin Mallery may be reached at director@urbanseeds.org, or at (530) 263-4827

5444 E. Indiana St., #353 Evansville, IN 47715

 

Are You Ready to Try the 10% Locally Grown Challenge?

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A basket of locally grown produce

If you’ve been following Urban Seeds for any length of time, you know that our mission to food access, especially local options, takes a multi-faceted approach–and education is a huge part of the conversation. Recently we were flattered to receive contact from Kevin Kunst, head of Evansville Day School, about presenting to his AP Human Geography class. The class studies the spatial relationship between humans and food globally; and we were invited to discuss aspects of food insecurity, supply chain issues, and more, in a local context.

Our director Robin Mallery was thrilled to speak with an engaged group of youth about a wide variety of local food issues. Among the topics covered were the effects of COVID-19 on the food supply chain and how local farms were better equipped to handle these issues as a result of being closer to their community. Other local farm benefits are local economic and job growth, getting to know your food sources, and the future of indoor farming and its environmental benefits.

Robin also discussed the prevalence of local Food Priority Areas, formerly known as food deserts, and the causes, as well as the multiple devastating impacts to individuals’ health as a result.

Most importantly, possible solutions to food inequality were addressed, such as cooperative buying, food rescue – the repurposing of excess restaurant or retail food that would otherwise be thrown away – and Robin’s Kitchen Zen™ techniques, designed to maximize time management while minimizing food waste on an individual level. 

While researching the benefits of buying local food to alleviate many of our community’s food justice issues, Robin happened on a surprising statistic: “10% = $1 billion.  If we substituted 10% of our current at-home household food budget with locally grown and produced food, we would generate over one billion dollars of economic activity in Indiana. That’s just $458 per year per household.”–Ken Meter, CrossRoads Resource Center

We received some feedback indicating that these bright students were as engaged in the information presented as we at Urban Seeds always are to share it. The following is from an email received from Mr. Kunst:

“I wanted to thank you for speaking to my class last Thursday.  You were really wonderful with them and they learned a ton, and I think took away some really meaningful information both in how we are thinking about what we are studying, and what they can do themselves as actionable steps.  The next day, we talked as a class about your point about committing 10% of a grocery budget to local, which also ended up being a topic and a commitment of my own family this  weekend  (my son was in the class).

“More than anything though, I just appreciate so much the work that you are doing and the conversation you are creating here in what is an adopted home for both of us.  Thank you so much for that commitment.”

It is always gratifying to educate others in Urban Seeds’ passions regarding food justice, and even more so when we get the opportunity to help shape the choices for up-and-coming generations. 

Who else would like to participate? If you are able, please join us and the students of Evansville Day School in committing 10% of your food budget to buying locally grown items. You may be surprised at the benefits you notice! If you join us in shopping 10% locally grown, please report back! Post or send us your pics and experiences of buying locally grown (be sure to mention the producer from whom you purchased!) with the hashtag #10PercentLocalChallenge. Every month we’ll share our favorite pics, story, or recipe on our page! Be sure to share with your friends so our commitment to the local economy can continue to grow. Thank you!

Announcing… Our First Annual High School Story Challenge Scholarship Recipient!

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We know… we promised to announce our scholarship recipient on February 5th, but we were too excited to wait! We truly wished we could have chosen all six who applied, as all were impressive in their essays and suggestions to promote awareness of food insecurity among their peers. Luckily, we had a rubric described in our previous post, “The Story of Our Story Challenge,” which allowed us to give each entry thoughtful and unbiased consideration. All have been notified of our decision; and even though the scholarship could only go to one student, we felt all six merited an invitation to check out our board of directors and, if they wish, continue to participate with Urban Seeds for our mutual benefit.

Our entrants, in alphabetical order, were:

  1. Kate Baba – a senior at Signature School who has a deep interest in public policy and wrote very knowledgeably about the deep individual and community effects wrought by lack of food access.
  2. Anna Blessinger – a senior at Signature School who plans to work in dietetics and has a passion for community gardens.
  3. Amanda Kessler – a senior at Signature School who wrote movingly about her volunteer experiences at Tri State Food Bank, and how her work there deepened both her understanding of food insecurity and her friendships with her fellow volunteers.
  4. Kayleigh Mayer – a senior at Benjamin Bosse High School who beautifully drew connections between food as a love language and a sharing of cultures, and her own work in food drives and her school’s International Club.
  5. Linus McKinney – a homeschooled sophomore and aspiring filmmaker who questioned how the huge problems of food waste and food insecurity can coexist, then proposed community-based solutions.
  6. Anna Sawyer – a senior at Signature School who tackled the deep-rooted issues with food deserts and possible education-based solutions for her essay.

Our winner, based on the criteria of “focus & details,” “organization,” and the author’s “voice,” is (drumroll, please!) Anna Blessinger. Congratulations to Anna and thank you to all our participants! Below is Anna’s essay:

How Does Food Build Community?

by Anna Blessinger

Food has the immense capability to introduce and intertwine individuals from all communities. No matter cultural barriers, socioeconomic status, or gender, we as humans are all linked through the necessity of nourishing food. Hence, during celebration, loss, trial and tribulation, societies gather to partake in a meal. From simply offering a friend a bite to eat to serving hundreds of people a hot plate at a food bank, food engenders community growth and healing, physically, mentally, and spiritually. Therefore, it is paramount that everyone has equal access to nutritious and affordable food. In 2020, my family and I created and spearheaded a new food ministry, the Corpus Christi Healing Gardens, for my church here in Evansville, building a robust community centered around providing healthy and fresh produce to those in need.

Arising as a mere concept a few years ago, my family proposed growing a community garden, in which all members could propagate and harvest the produce. Altogether, this would generationally strengthen the community and ensure that all individuals would have the equal opportunity to access nutritious food. Looking at various locations throughout the city to generate the outreach garden, we recognized the need for growth within our own faith community as well. My church held over an acre of unused land on its property, and thus, my family advanced the idea of a healing garden that would address the growing issue of food insecurity within our area. Along with the enthusiasm and volunteerism of my church family, the vision materialized.

In order to generate the startup cost of constructing a geothermal greenhouse to grow produce year round, my family, along with an additional couple, planned and carried out a fruitful harvest fest. With sole volunteer labor from individuals of all regions of the city, we were able to seed, grow, and harvest over a thousand pumpkin and squash, including over 15 varieties, in preparation for the fall season. Over the course of September of 2020, our church hosted the first annual Corpus Christi Parish Healing Gardens Harvest Fest. Volunteers and vendors donated their time and efforts to sell an array of baked goods, handcrafted products, and multiple activities for children to partake in, such as hayrides and crafts. All proceeds from the Harvest Fest benefited the various Corpus Christi Parish ministries, the Father Deydier House of Discernment for young men, and were reinvested into the Corpus Christi Healing Gardens Food Ministry, as a first step in raising funds for a geothermal greenhouse to provide year-round fresh produce to those in need in the Evansville area.

Throughout the year of 2021, we will continue to grow and expand the ministry and within the next five years we aim to have the Healing Gardens and greenhouse fully functioning as a food ministry for all members of the community and city. The gardens will provide nourishment for body, mind, and spirit. Incredibly, the Harvest Fest brought not only my church community closer, but it additionally attracted individuals from all age groups and various regions of the city. Schools attended the gardens on field trips, receiving fundamental education on how to to grow their own sustainable gardens. Additionally, many new faces joined the Corpus Christi Church parish, eager to engage with and volunteer for the Healing Gardens. As I pursue dietetics in my undergraduate studies, I plan on using what I learn to nourish, transform, and connect my community through food. It is beautiful seeing the immense capability that food
has on integrating individuals, by building and fortifying a community based around the greater good of providing quality and nutritious food to all.

The Story of Our Story Challenge

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2020 was a landmark year for Urban Seeds in many ways. Like the rest of the world, we were pained beyond words to see the effects of COVID-19 and systemic inequality in so many facets of our lives. Specifically, Urban Seeds saw an opportunity to answer the call in addressing inequalities in local food systems, with encouraging results. As our name recognition and community impact grew during this challenging year, we considered how we might continue to expand our reach to new individuals and groups. While we’ve been fortunate to see a diverse cross section of Evansville residents volunteer in a variety of ways, we wanted to specifically strive to hear from younger voices in our community – high school age individuals whose fresh perspectives have thus far been absent not only from our board of directors but from the Food Justice conversation in general. We envisioned a mutual benefit in which we and the teens would learn equally valuable perspectives from one another.

Our board brainstormed ways to attract a youth demographic, and a scholarship challenge seemed an obvious incentive. We tried to avoid the word “contest,” as Urban Seeds values collaboration above competition in all things; but we hoped that the scholarship offer would grab the attention of young people as a jumping-off point from which to build. How would we create a pool of applicants who shared Urban Seeds’ values? As with most decisions, we arrived at our answer after lively, dynamic board discussion. (How fortunate to be on a board where one feels energized and more enlightened after every meeting!) Community is of utmost importance to Urban Seeds – dating back to pre-civilization, food has offered not only physical nourishment, but the opportunity to gather and share. And what else was incremental to our ancestors’ mealtimes bonding around tables or campfires, through to the present day? Storytelling – the handing down of experiences, tales, and perspectives to bring generations together. Thus, the inaugural Urban Seeds Story Challenge was born. 

Participants were challenged to respond to their choice of prompts – each pertaining to the effects of food/food access on individuals and communities – with an essay, video, poem, or song. Additionally, they were asked to provide two strategies that they might implement to promote awareness of food access amongst their high school peers.

Behind the scenes, Urban Seeds gathered a diverse committee to review the entries: Robin Mallery, Urban Seeds director; three board members: Serah Theuri, Associate Professor of Nutrition in the Food and Nutrition Program at USI; Jahmel Fowler, a recent Master’s of Health Administration graduate at USI; and Blythe Battram, a freelance digital storyteller specializing in videos and written materials. Rounding out our committee were Charles Sutton, Social Impact Research Manager at EVPL; and Xavia Harrington, Instructor in Teacher Education at USI.

By the submission deadline, we had six entries covering a fascinating mix of topics, experiences and ideas – just the rich variety of fresh voices for which we’d hoped! Ms. Harrington was instrumental in providing a rubric for fairly judging each of the entries on the three merits of “focus & details,” “organization,” and the author’s “voice.” We avoided judging based on spelling and grammatical rules, with the understanding that especially at a high school level, these skills are still developing and often reflect the level of support students are receiving from family and educators, rather than a true reflection of the student’s potential. Instead we wanted to see evidence of students’ ability to connect research and experiences with a connection to the community in which they live and aspire to serve. Students’ understanding of the Urban Seeds mission and vision was also considered.

Lively discussions ensued as we gave feedback on each of the entries. In the end, we had a clear winner based on the rubric scoring, but we remained impressed with all the students and many of their strategies for promoting awareness. While only one student could receive the scholarship, the decision was unanimous to extend an invitation to each of the six participants to attend board meetings and become involved in Urban Seeds in a broader way, with the support of our Board of Directors.

We look forward to announcing our scholarship recipient and publishing the essay in our newsletter on February 5th. We also plan to recognize each applicant within their school, and publicly, as we invite them to explore whether they wish to continue to grow with Urban Seeds. We are so grateful to these young people, our committee and board members, and all in the community who supported this first of our Annual Story Challenge. Look forward to seeing more of these future leaders and their ideas soon! We can’t wait to see what they bring to the Urban Seeds table – and of course we can’t wait for our second Story Challenge next year!

 

Looking Forward, 2021 has (finally) arrived!

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Happy New Year!

While there is no doubt that 2020 was a year of challenge, heartache, uncertainty, loss, and disruption, there were also silver linings to acknowledge, as there were so many beautiful displays of kindness and collaboration.

In a Fall 2020 newsletter, we explored the nuances of the Three Rs: Relief, Rehabilitation, and Restoration. (https://urbanseeds.org/the-three-rs-relief-rehabilitation-restoration). There has long been impactful Relief work occurring in the Evansville area by several nonprofit organization and faith-based groups; the pandemic invited us all, as a community, to see the troubling reality of food insecurity, made more evident by supply chain challenges and new joblessness. There have always been hungry families in our area, yet due to the sudden increase in families in financial distress, it was the pandemic that highlighted this bleak truth of disparity.

Urban Seeds’ Board members, staff, and volunteers have consistently advocated for Food Justice, related to accessing nourishing food. As well, we are committed to creating and engaging in Rehabilitation and Restorative initiatives, such as our Meal Plan, Shop, and Cook on a Budget, and our Nourish Community Food Buying Club.

Our focus for 2021 is to lean heavy into Rehabilitation efforts as we endeavor to find solid footing in Restoration programming, the details of which are:

Meal Planning, Shopping, and Cooking on a Budget

  • Many of our neighbors have become disconnected to the task of cooking a meal from scratch, which could be a time management challenge due to a busy schedule, or a lack of modeling from their own family life. And of course, when access to fresh foods is limited due to zip code or financial constraints, this further diminishes the likelihood of familiarity of meal planning and shopping, let alone cooking on a budget.
  • Providing resources and support that increase knowledge of how-to meal plan is the first step towards an improved likelihood that fresh foods will be incorporated into family meals. This is not an all or nothing situation – adding one planned, fresh dinner per week is a positive step. It is vital that the dignity and empowerment of each family member is supported as we walk side-by-side in our education journey.
  • It is imperative that we at Urban Seeds keep in mind the power of food preferences and the availability of those foods.
  • When a weekly meal plan is developed—often a rotation of family favorites over the course of a month—then we can shift the focus to cost-effective shopping, followed by efficient preparation of fresh meal ingredients that can be used throughout the week. 

Nourish

  • The Community Food Buying Club is a collaborative program created in response to a lack of full-service grocery stores in large tracts of the Evansville area. Leadership for Nourish is shared by Urban Seeds, Purdue Extension, Healthy Communities Partnership, the Promise Zone, and numerous community partner organizations.
  • We purchase bulk foods at wholesale pricing – pricing that we then pass on to our members. We also offer “boxes” which are essentially a meal kit or a theme box, such as a pasta dinner box or a breakfast box. Members shop on our online grocery store with orders being fulfilled every other Thursday. Grocery bags are currently being delivered to the front porch of our members, as the pandemic has interfered with our delivery to partner agencies.
  • We have one staff person, a paid coordinator, who works 8 hours per week. We are preparing to scale up the number of Nourish family memberships, and will be hiring another staff member to facilitate this increase in volume.
  • A difficulty has been the lack of ability to meet our members in person for the education class piece to Nourish. Increasing access to nourishing whole foods is important, yes, but as important is the teaching piece so that our members are able to integrate those grocery items into their weekly meal planning. The above-mentioned Meal Plan, Shopping, and Cooking on a budget is a signature element of Nourish and one that we eagerly anticipate resuming once we are able to safely gather again.

Fund raising for the expansion of Nourish as well as resuming in-person education classes is a necessity to augment funds we receive from Welborn Baptist Foundation. Please consider a new year donation, here: https://urbanseeds.org/donate 

I welcome the opportunity to speak to you with more depth in the coming weeks and months – either one-on-one or to your service group or to your worksite colleagues. Please reach out so that we, together, can share the mission and vision of Urban Seeds and Nourish Our Community.

Warm regards,

Robin Mallery, Director