Host: Dr. Tracy Ore

Speaking About the Sustainable Foods Movement in Cuba
and Her Recent Visit to that Country

At a
“Local Foods” Dinner

August 12, 2009 at 5:00 pm

Whitney Senior Center
1527 Northway Drive, St. Cloud , MN

For Tickets Contact:
Rick Miller, Director
Central Minnesota Sustainability Project
At 320-492-9415 or by email, springleafarm1@yahoo.com

More about our speaker:
Dr. Tracy Ore is a professor of Sociology at St. Cloud State University and the founder of the SCSU Community Garden .  She will speak about her recent trip to Cuba where she saw first hand that nation’s very successful local and sustainable foods movement.

“From May 21- June 1, 2009 I traveled to Cuba with a group of scientists, farmers, organizers, and researchers from the United States to participate in Agrodesarrollo ’09—“Agriculture with a Future.” Participants in the tour, conference, and international course included people from Cuba to Mozambique , Argentina to Portugal , and many other places in the world.”

~Dr. Tracy Ore, from her website

Central Minnesota Sustainability Project
Mission Statement

Our mission is to teach the greater community the value of environmental and economic sustainability through hands on practical application of sustainable food production*, with a particular focus on youth, senior citizens, young families, recent immigrants, and refugees.  We will strive to create opportunity within these communities by creating markets for sustainable foods and Fair Trade products that will lead to the desire to improve the quality of individual, family, and community life.  We will teach from an intergenerational and cross cultural model.

CMSP Statement of Purpose

The purpose of the Central Minnesota Sustainability Project is to help people find their way back to gardens, nature, and a sense of community, and to create an awareness of the opportunities available in pursuing economic and environmental sustainability.  We will link suitable lands with interested sustainable and organic gardeners and farmers, assisting them in implementing production and marketing methods.  We are interested in working with all demographic groups, but have a particular focus on recent immigrants and refugees where there is a high level of interest in this type of opportunity.

OUR GOALS

Phase I:  Sustainable Gardens
A. Sponsored Gardens: Consumer Supported Agriculture* “CSA”
for Individual Gardeners

• Sponsoring individual or family contributes to plot, seed, plants, and any needed compost
• Individual or family gardener, under the guidance of the project director, provides production labor
• Garden plan is provided by CMSP in consultation with the gardener and sponsor.
• Harvest is conducted by gardener and shared with sponsor under supervision by the project director
• A portion of the harvest goes toward a community meal shared by the sponsor, gardener, and community
• Gardener is free to market produce through CMSP created market venues or the market venue of their choice.

B. Community Garden I: Central Minnesota Sustainability Project
“CMSP” CSA Garden

• A community market garden designed to produce food for sale at market venues developed by CMSP including CSA shares to community member
• All labor for this garden will be donated by community volunteers and CMSP staff
• All sales revenue from this garden will benefit CMSP

C. Community Garden II: CMSP Community Garden

• Garden is sponsored by the Central Minnesota Sustainability Project
• Garden is open to all interested community members
• Community members exchange labor for fresh produce

Phase II: Creating Markets

Farmers Market/Retail Market

Wholesale Markets

Markets for Fair Trade Products

Phase III: Educational Programs

Education through Practical Application
Building Healthy Communities

TEACH:
Community Building

• teach community organizing
• teach healthy community building with food and shared experience.
• teach within a model of inter-generational shared experience
• teach the concept of supporting, and honoring wisdom
• teach honor, and share story telling and writing, poetry writing, and music

Knowing The Land

• teach rural land health
• teach urban land health
• teach methods for restoring healthy ground and surface water
• teach the history of land based cultures
• teach sustainable vegetable production
• teach sustainable animal production

Sustainable Living Skills

• teach wild food foraging
• teach sustainable foods preparation
• teach artisan baking
• teach sustainable foods harvest, preservation, and storage
• teach sustainable food preparation and shared food experience
• teach weaving, and quilt and garment making
• teach sustainable wood harvest
• teach crafting useful products from wood

* Community Supported Agriculture is a producer to consumer marketing method whereby the consumer pays a flat fee to the producer who in turn makes regularly scheduled deliveries of fresh produce to the consumer.

* Sustainable food production is food grown without the use of chemical herbicides, pesticides, fungicides and fertilizers, but is not certified organic under federal law.

// // // // // // // //

The garden shed and announcement board, which holds a space for volunteers to sign in and list what work they accomplished.  Green beans and other vegetables are planted at its base.  There is even a gnome, for what Minnesotagarden is complete without one?

Plant waste material is placed into compost bins at the edge of the garden (on the right in this photo).  There are also new “potato bins”; potatoes are planted at the base, and as they grow, more soil and more layers of wood are added to encourage more potatoes.  Apple trees and raspberry bushes form the garden’s north and west perimeters.

A stuffed pink flamingo keeps cozy with a tomato plant…

And a rain gauge keeps track of what precious little rain we’ve had so far this spring in Minnesota.  It, like the plants, must be hoping for more.

Tall, accessible planter boxes form the southern edge of the garden and are filled with onions and other vegetables.

Please stop and visit the SCSU Community Garden on 5th Avenue South near 6th Street, right next to the SCSU Women’s Center.  Anyone who helps here is welcome to share in the harvest.  The memo board posts community work nights if you’d like to get to know fellow garden workers, and an occasional potluck meal is scheduled as well. 

If nothing else, stop by to get inspired.  This is a wonderful example of a community garden that’s been working for several years now.

On Saturday, May 23, Bethlehem Lutheran Church planted its new community garden.  Sunday morning the garden was blessed by the ministers and congregation.  The hope of the congregation is that this garden will not only grow lots of fruits and vegetables, but a community as well.

Carrie Krick and Lauri Jola of the garden committee plant pumpkins started by Bethelehem preschool students

Anyone in the area is welcome to work in Bethlehem’s garden; you don’t need to be a member or even attend services at the church.

Planning and plotting on planting day

Pastor Steve and Carrie Krick at the Garden Blessing

Dr. Tracy Ore of St. Cloud State University is heading up the networking project.  She was instrumental in the beginning of a successful community garden on the University’s campus in 2004.  She is a professor of sociology who has an interest and background in creating community and opportunities for food justice through community gardens.

I am Lisa Zahn, a backyard gardener and member of Bethlehem Lutheran Church, site of a community garden that is new this year.  I will be writing regularly at this blog, but others are welcome and encouraged to contribute stories of their own.  I hope to make it around to all the gardens this summer, taking pictures and writing about the unique and common properties of each of our community gardens.

Many community members will make the St. Cloud-area Community Garden Network a success.  I hope you’ll bookmark this page and follow along on our journey!  I for one am excited about all the possibilities…