Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation

Michelle Knapik, Environment Program Director

Taqwa Farm in the Bronx

The explosion of interest around urban ag is undeniable. It is little wonder as it serves as a portal to community building, local pride, skill building, the knitting of relationships across perceived cultural and age divides, the physical and psychological transformation of vacant lots, the growing of food, and the feeding of people, body and soul. Funders large and small are clamoring to learn more about the social change mechanisms presented in urban ag. The Sustainable Ag and Food System funders dedicated a number of sessions and field visits to urban ag during its 2010 annual conference (see previous blog post for details).

Funder field trips, learning journeys and site visits, however, often focus on the urban oasis effect of these farms. In isolation, even an explosion of urban ag farming oases that feed their neighbors won’t add up to a changed food system, yet a new food system seems to be the dream. Many skeptics think this is an elusive dream, but my latest site visit to Taqwa Farms in the Bronx provided another perspective.

Taqwa Farms is definitely an oasis, but the leaders of Just Food were on hand to talk about the systemic changes they believe are possible. Just Food firmly asserts that community needs differ and that some gardens and farms will remain unplugged from the system, but for those aspiring to be a part of the regional food system movement, Just Food is there. They are turning from farmer support to farmer networks and learning communities. And after careful study and documentation of on-the-ground successes, plus model training efforts and transfer of knowledge initiatives throughout NYC’s five boroughs, Just Food has developed a sophisticated suite of guides and toolkits to support rural-to-urban farming connections and urban market developments. If you visit the resource page at Just Food you will be able to order the following: Farming for NYC Toolkit (this is the rural to urban link that helps farmers within 250 miles of New York City connect with direct City marketing opportunities), the City Farms Market Guide, the City Farms Toolkit, the City Chicken Guide (more on that in a second), the CSA in NYC Toolkit, the Local Produce Link Toolkit, plus the Veggie Tipsheets Book and CD.

These resources are the intellectual and practical how-to architectural frame for a regional food system. But Just Food knows that experiential learning is the key to success.

Through a partnership with Heifer International, Just Food paid attention to who was thriving in the city farming realm and recognized the enormous talent pool of growers and livestock handlers; they also realized that these experts wanted to share their knowledge. Just Food and Heifer worked to adapt Heifer’s developing world livestock program to the urban core.  The program is based on a holistic notion of community transformation and food sovereignty. Heifer says that “to receive an animal, families must go through extensive training, but training doesn’t stop with the animal. We also educate families on the importance of gender equity, protecting the environment and provide basic education such as literacy training and money management.”

For Just Food, the response has been a shift from Just Food experts dropping in to train city farmers to a train-the-trainer program of community practitioners and experts. It reminds me of the “alternate route” teaching certification program that enables content experts to gain the teaching skills that will enable them to be effective classroom teachers.

Just Food is creating a route for community farming experts to become community food and justice educators. These educators then receive a stipend for their classes and workshops that include topics such as edible weeds, starting markets, and farming models; plus events such as market visits, seasonal cooking instruction, knife skills, and recipe selections. Workshops are co-sponsored by community groups, so the sense of ownership about market development starts to run deep.

There are additional layers of enterprising opportunities in the urban farming arena. Just Food actually has a training and livestock coordinator. And to back this up, Just Food forges full steam into policy/advocacy work. Most recently, Just Food completed a two-year campaign on beekeeping that resulted in city code changes to permit this activity. Just Food is happy to share the campaign playbook because there are no party affiliations to protect here – this is a movement. Add to this the organizing efforts to develop community supported agriculture (CSA) initiatives and buying clubs to improve consumer access, and you start to feel the regional food system dream coming to life.

Has this food system connection always been the trajectory of urban growers? To answer this question we were privileged to hear the pioneering and historical perspective of John Ameroso. After more than 34 years of service innovations, John recently retired from Cornell University’s Cooperative Extension Service Program, during which he played a unique role as New York City’s Cooperative Extension Agent. John pioneered a number of horticultural and urban farming programs, including the Rikers Island Farm. And not only was John a founding member of Just Food (1995), but he also helped to pilot urban food production initiatives in more than 25 cities across the country. On this hot summer day, beneath the shade of a mature fruit tree at Taqwa Farms, John was chronicler and storyteller.

When he started this work in the mid 1970s, urban gardens stood as neighborhood strongholds against crime waves and ravaged urban landscapes. The emphasis was on urban horticultural and the focus was building social capital. In the 1980s, John noted that the notion of neighborhood beautification took hold. Unfortunately, as John accounts, that positive wave was disrupted in 1990s. There were a number of factors at play, most notably a decrease in USDA funding (which affected the Cooperative Extension work), as well as the lack of leadership succession for many of the now mature single champion garden initiatives. This past decade, however, has been marked by an upsurge in activity. The focus now is food production and food access, and the phenomenon of shrinking cities and funding shifts has brought local governments to the table to help bring urban ag to disinvested neighborhoods. There is also more thought being given to how to make the movement sustainable and how to support stronger rural to urban linkages.

John likes this new wave. He is seeing new farmers farming on land closer to the city; including Central and South Americans and other immigrant populations who are part of the new reverse commute from urban center to outlying farms. He also sees tremendous economic opportunity based on urban markets and entrepreneurial ventures. What is probably most important from a philanthropic perspective is John’s observation that social change often comes in short bursts. Given the high energy and entrepreneurial spirit at work, now he says, is the time for foundations to serve as a catalyst for the urban ag burst that could alter our local and regional food systems.

John and Taqwa Farm Coordinator Abu Talib

So what’s on the horizon – what will make urban ag an integral part of the regional food system and where might funders plug-in? Jacquie Berger, the accomplished Executive Director at Just Food, has more than a few thoughts on this matter. Here are some of the pieces of the puzzle:

• On the policy and public funding fronts, state departments of ag need to invest in the urban markets and urban-rural connection; we need to see more changes need to Farm Bill, and Community Development Block Grant dollars need to be aligned with urban ag capacity building.
• Programmatically, Community Supported Agriculture models need to be tweaked to work for lower-income people and they need to be adjusted with food access/food justice in mind. In addition, there needs to be wider spread efforts to align food benefits such as WIC, senior coupons, food bucks, etc. into urban markets (note that the Wholesome Wave Foundation is supporting double coupons benefits in a number of urban areas). Urban ag also needs to be more clearly tied to the food pantry and emergency food sector.
• There is a need for improved data collection (currently, most of the data is self reported).
• Land tenure issues need to be addressed, which may call for comprehensive vacant lot planning and strategies.
• The next level of capacity building must be launched. To this end, Just Food is planning a Farm School. This decentralized learning model will integrate food production, marketing, livestock training, food access and food sovereignty components and hands-on internships.
• Investment opportunities and models need to be explored (e.g., micro investing to take a 10 chicken operation to 50 chickens, provided the community wants to grow to this scale).

John and Jacquie both noted that our food shed should be compared to an ecosystem. The more complex and diverse it is the more robust and resilient it will be. If urban ag is experiencing short bursts toward food shed player status, where would you invest the next philanthropic dollar? We also want to know where you are seeing promising urban-rural connections and whether you believe in the dream of a new or re-regionalized food system.

A note about Taqwa Farms: Abu Talib is the community hero, resident farm educator (his specialty is edible weeds) and overall farm coordinator (and the son of a share cropper). He transformed this lot from a junk yard, dumping ground and host site of narcotic drug deals to this vibrant farm and community space. Today, this mature farms boasts 45 mature fruit trees and garden space that feeds between 5,000 and 6,000 people. The farm is outfitted with a 1,000 gallon cistern, a system of rain barrels, solar panels, a greenhouse, a chicken coop, a hydroponic growing system, a playground, and even a small community stage. The market is open on Saturdays and Sundays, and it is changing minds and changing lives about food, community, jobs and opportunities. Abu is a robust 76 years old and he proclaimed that there is “no better place for a man to retire.”

As our study team of funders was pouring over market guides, learning about urban gardening history, asking questions about land tenure challenges and vacant lot assessments, Abu quietly set a basket of freshly picked pears, apples and tomatoes in front of us. Each of us bit into luscious city farm produce and we tasted what Abu was doing here.  Abu added, “ I sleep at my house, but Taqwa is my home.” Here’s to urban farming!

From left to right: Owen Taylor (City Farms Training and Livestock Coordinator), Jacquie Berger (Just Food Executive Director), Aristides Georgantas (Chairman of the Rita Allen Foundation), John Ameroso (Just Food Board Member and retired Cornell University Cooperative Exension Agent), Elizabeth G. Christopherson (President and CEO of the Rita Allen Foundation), Rose Harvey (a Dodge Trustee and fellow with Jonathan Rose Companies and the former Senior Vice President and Urban Director for the Trust for Public Land, as well as a McCluskey Fellow at Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies), Barbara Reisman (Executive Director at the Schumann Fund for New Jersey) and Chris Daggett (President and CEO of the Dodge Foundation).

Molly de Aguiar, Program Associate

You can probably see that there’s lettuce in the photo above. And perhaps you recognize the kohlrabi on the left, too. In fact, there are 76 pounds of lettuce, spinach, kohlrabi and radishes there – all of it harvested at the Urban Farm at Lafayette and immediately donated (I mean, within minutes of harvesting) to the Interfaith Food Pantry.

Last week, the Dodge staff put on its gardening gloves and headed over to Grow it Green Morristown’s headquarters at the Urban Farm at Lafayette for a day of getting our hands dirty in service to our grantee and to our community of Morristown.

Founded by Samantha Rothman, Carolle Huber and Myra Bowie McCready, and directed by Farmer Tammy Toad Ryan,  Grow it Green Morristown is a creative, resourceful and inspiring organization which uses its gardening projects to promote the practices of sustainable communities: a commitment to fresh, local food; access to clean air and water; bike-friendly streets and safe, walkable neighborhoods.

The Urban Farm at Lafayette is a 1/3 acre of land behind the Lafayette Learning Center, which also houses the Morris School District (MSD) Board of Education offices. The Farm is a creative partnership with the school district: Grow it Green leases the land from them at an affordable rate; in exchange, Grow it Green teaches the joys of gardening and the principles of sustainability to MSD students while collaborating with the district on new curriculum.

As this new partnership develops, Grow it Green and MSD are discovering benefits they hadn’t anticipated. Field trips with buses are expensive when they leave the district, for example, but are inexpensive when visiting local places. Since May, 20 classes already have visited the farm 4 times each (yes! 4 times each!) to dig deep into the gardening and growing experience, helping to plant pumpkins, eggplant, brussel sprouts, kale, lettuce, radishes and many other vegetables and flowers – 18 beds in all so far. Furthermore, Grow it Green provides a permanent garden and learning space for MSD students, solving the district’s problem of trying to maintain separate gardens at the individual MSD schools.

Most importantly, in a community where the majority of the school children receive free or reduced lunch and where there is significant food insecurity, the Farm is able to donate fresh produce to the school district to help feed its students (in addition to donating it to the community at large).

Grow it Green Founders Samantha Rothman (right) Myra Bowie McCready (left)

Environmental consultant and Grow it Green Founder Samantha Rothman gave us a full tour of the garden, while sharing stories of generosity and community collaboration to get the land cleared and farm planted and maintained. Marty’s Reliable Cycles donated cardboard boxes, which were laid down on the paths between the garden beds as an eco-friendly way to suppress weeds before being covered by free mulch from the city of Morristown. Conservation Resources Inc. (another Dodge grantee) provided a grant for fencing, Lowe’s has provided lumber at cost, and Morris Brick & Stone donated brick pavers. The Sheriff’s Labor Assistance Program, Boy Scouts, school children, parents, and community members have volunteered hundreds of hours of their time. (See their full list of local businesses who have helped them).

As Samantha spoke, we were struck time and again by the enthusiastic response they’ve received from the community in such a short amount of time – this is only their first growing season at the Urban Farm. We were also impressed with the resourcefulness with which Grow it Green gets donations and maximizes its limited resources. This is clearly a labor of love for so many people.

After harvesting fresh produce to donate to Interfaith Food Pantry, which was our first order of the day, we got to work on our main task: building part of an herb garden designed by landscape architect (and Founding member) Carolle Huber.

The area around the path will be filled in with different beds of herbs; the design also includes an arbor to go over this part of the garden. We can’t wait to see what it looks like when Carolle’s vision comes to life.

In addition to her herb garden design, Carolle asked us to try our hand at building bamboo trellises. Imagine how beautiful this will be in the garden when covered with blooms:

While we were working, Carolle’s mother and sister had come to help finish painting the barn; Carolle’s sister then painted this cheerful rooster on the barn door and is working with her daughter to paint sunflowers on the side of the barn (which you can see in the photo above).

The Urban Farm is not just for school children; it’s a community space, and as we worked, we could see that the public has embraced it as such. Community members wandered in and out of the garden, some parents brought their children, and here was a class from the Lafayette Learning Center getting a lesson from Farmer Tammy (far left, in the purple shirt):

And here we are (most of us), at the end of a productive day at the Urban Farm:

For more information about Grow it Green Morristown, visit their website and watch a short movie about their first project, the community garden at Early Street. You can also read their blog, and if you feel inspired, donate your time or other resources to them. You can also see a terrific photo gallery of the farm in the Daily Record.

Special thanks to Sam, Carolle, Myra and Tammy for hosting the Dodge staff last week. We are inspired by your dedication to Morristown.

Michelle Knapik, Environment Program Director

Last week I was part of the Sustainable Agriculture and Food System Funders Conference (note, I didn’t say I that I attended – there is an urgency to this issue that calls for much more than attendance).  What struck me most was the convergence of thought leaders, practitioners and organizers from traditionally separate sectors. These presenters were not simply at the same conference, they were co-leading sessions, learning from each other, and identifying the knowledge gaps. Funders were invited to taste a fusion of community food, finance and design (as in planners, builders, and engineers), and to cultivate the models and policies to support this mashing of flavors at a larger scale. There was also a sense about this being the moment in time for the philanthropic sector to step-up and build local and regional food economies and communities (remember, we just fused these). The question is whether the sector will choose to do so (here’s a great article on how local and national philanthropy is gearing up to “effect big change” in this arena).

The conference learning went from head to field to stomach. While in the field, we met neighborhood food producers, local food pioneers, sustainable ag farmers, community development leaders, emergency food providers, policy leaders, and healthy food entrepreneurs.  We also saw that food production is happening on private walls and roofs, institutional lands, faith based lands, municipal lands, and if land is not granted, then by way of guerrilla gardening. Food is being sold, shared and gleaned, and there are linkages to food cupboards, neighbors and markets (sometimes a hybrid of all three).

Since the title of the conference was “Shaking it Up, Making it Last,” I’m about to honor the shaking it up portion by combining notes from the tour I led with my colleague Andy Johnson from the William Penn Foundation with reflections from the conference sessions. But let me start with what was for me the most critical take-away. It came from Jeremy Nowak, President and CEO of The Reinvestment Fund . He said that in this space of regional foods, we must start somewhere, we cannot wait for the perfect comprehensive plan. He underscored that development is iterative; that we need to pursue ideas and thinking and learn from them as they get embedded in practice. This is, in Jeremy’s words, about “craft” – and we must use craft and practice to go to scale, all the while creating a living narrative around the work. This, he says, is where hope lives.

Hope was certainly thriving in Camden, NJ on the day of our tour which was entitled, “A Union of Urban Food, Faith & Empowerment.”

Josh Chisholm of Camden Churches Organized for People (CCOP) told the story of how this was once a trash strewn lot where abandoned police trailers stood covered with graffiti and where a drug economy thrived. With the help of the Camden City Garden Club , which is the primary life support system for community gardens and farms in Camden, this ¾ acre lot now has 35 family plots and star quality community leaders. The Checos, whose son was sparked by CCGC’s “Grow Lab” program at neighboring St. Anthony’s school, and who in turn sparked the lot transformation, now organize potluck dinners wherein gardeners exchange techniques and best practices.  Mr. Checo also serves on the City’s new food security advisory council.

Speakers throughout the conference talked about the benefits of transforming vacant lots to productive lands. Here are a few benefits to consider: lower public land maintenance costs, reduced household food expenditures (this can be in excess of $1,000 year), increased property values, added jobs, increased opportunities for skills training, improved health, and improved environmental stewardship, biodiversity, and access to and use of open space. As food system analyst, Ken Meter noted, our current food and economic systems fail us on all of the following fronts – health, wealth, connection and capacity; but local food economies embrace and integrate all four. Mr. Meter, who is the President of the Crossroads Resource Center in Minneapolis sees local foods as a prime economic recovery strategy. If the $1 trillion dollar food economy were shifted to a regional food system, he asserts that true recovery could happen because the economic changes would build wealth in low income settings. How might this get kick started? Well, he noted that local and state governments spend $ 550 billion on economic development strategies that are not delivering on their promises. What if some of these funds were repurposed to support regional food system development?

At the local level, there is a community development corporation (CDC) in Camden that is combining community revitalization with community gardening. The response to Cramer Hill CDC’s support for community gardens is off the chart. When Andy and I sketched out the tour route a few weeks ago, the “lot” below was an overgrown triangle of neglect, but now it joins the ranks of some 80 community gardens in Camden that are connected to CCGC.

Our tour trolley then headed to south Camden, probably the hardest hit area of all the Camden neighborhoods, yet one in which community gardening has helped keep some blocks together for many years.

Pedro Rodriguez - Neighborhood Food Producer and Educator

Again, when Andy I did our pre-tour run, the lot in this south Camden block was devoid of any real life, now hope sprouts throughout the lot and those working on it.

There are innovative policies popping up all over the country to help accelerate the conversion of vacant and underutilized city lots. Many “fixes” focus on longer land tenure, including the concept of urban garden zones. There are also new city farm animal and bee ordinances, and there is an urban agriculture overlay district in Cleveland. Vancouver also has new urban ag design standard. I even heard a conference participant suggest “ 1% for urban ag” ( a new take on 1% for art). I learned about a number of these approaches last November at a Funders Network Conference in Cleveland, but the rate of change from then to now is staggering (see my blog post from last November).

The policy push feels necessary to effect change. Jason McLennan of the Living Building Challenge (who is also the CEO of Cascadia Region Green Building Council ) reminded us that rapid change is not only possible, but that many social revolutions occurred in short bursts. He noted that we went from cities built for walking and riding horses to auto cities in a span of 20-30 years – and that happened without a sense of urgency for change. Remember, too, that during WWII, Victory Gardens quickly ramped up, yielding 40% of all produce in the country. So with the ingredients we have for a food system revolution, imagine what our cities might look like in 2030 in terms of food production, transportation, architecture, and culture.

And I didn’t mean to gloss over the significance of having a green building expert at this conference. The Living Building Challenge is about regenerative design wherein our built infrastructure can help heal our degraded landscapes. McLennan said that we must have a blending of food & architecture – of community design – and that this is more about a re-imagining of our food system. He noted that food used to be an integrated part of community design – think pre WWII visions, or when Frank Lloyd Wright designed the broad acre city.

Do we have all the answers on regional/local food systems? No. There are lots of knowledge gaps regarding sustainable ag and urban ag. And we definitely need a deep learning session with Ann Carroll of the EPA Brownfields program. There is no doubt that we need to know HOW to operate in urban environments. Ann waves the banner of “methyl ethyl death,” but lucky for us, she is also a local food champion and advocate of the highest caliber – she just wants to make sure it happens in a way that protects our health and well being.  Working on or near contaminated lands is no walk in the park.

One of the last stops on our tour took us to the beginning of an urban farm in south Camden – just down the block from the two “lot” sized gardens.

There’s been more research on the impact of food production in Philly, so I’ll pass on these stats from Domenic Vitiello, founding president of the Philadelphia Orchard Project and a professor of city planning at the University of Pennsylvania who has done research to quantify local community garden food production (he also teaches a course on community development and food system planning). Philadelphia’s 200 food related community gardens, tended to by more than 500 people, produces more than $5 million in summer veggies. This without formal supports!  Imagine if there were maintenance and endowment programs, supportive experiential education to build consumer demand, and entrepreneurial and job skill training opportunities.

Going back to Ken Meter’s discussion – the Camden Farm could be part of Camden’s economic recovery, and it could operate as a hybrid model (part neighborhood food production and part farmers market, with perhaps a few spin-off food enterprises).  As professor Vitiello noted, this is about planting seeds and growing lives.

It also is about growing networks.  Ken Meter talked about the shift from working old supply chains to “building value networks” – clusters of small businesses that trade with each other. This would include a farmer, a local food processing operation, the distributor, a compost operation, etc.  Each serving as a multiplier in a local or regional economy. At the local level this might look like the Growers Alliance in Philly, which is about creating a green resource center to coordinate bulk purchases of seedlings, hay, and mulch for its member, as well as providing education and training. There are 17 growers in the alliance today; the forecast is for 300 in the next 3 years. At a higher level, the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies provides support for sustainable business networks across the country and the globe.

So where does the patient capital to fuel this shift come from? Let’s go back to Jeremy Nowak and the work of The Reinvestment Fund. Jeremy jumped into the food arena through housing and community development and attempts to address the issue of urban food deserts. TRF’s Fresh Food Financing Initiative has now reached national acclaim, including White House interest. Jeremy notes that data collection and relationship building is how TRF built “Wholefoods in the hood.” Now he sees the power and potential of the local and regional food movement and is considering models like mushroom farms and other food production enterprises as a complement to the supermarket financing initiative. He will collect data and build relationships with growers and then develop the finance models. He thinks funders can identify the “burning bushes” of activity in their regions by creating an activity map. From there, funders can identify where success might happen, as well as the range of risks and the different kinds of funding mechanisms that are needed (blended grants, loans, etc.). This calls for more foundations to jump into the impact investment arena – or to work with intermediaries like RSF Social Finance , whose team is creating a series of small food related Program Related Investment (PRI) funds (they do the underwriting, due diligence etc.) The Community Food Enterprise Report is a good starting point for this work. Sandy Wiggins, chair of E3 Bank , put it this way, “We need to change our mindset from one of exclusively “managing risk” to one of “creating prosperity.”

Mike Devlin of CCGC talks with NJ Ag Secretary Doug Fisher

Under a tent at CCGC, the final stop on our tour, we were joined by Mark Smith, Chef / Owner of Tortilla Press who is dedicated to sourcing local foods. I’d say more, but my mouth still waters when I think about the veggie quesadillas he served us. We were also joined by Tracy Duffield of Duffield’s Farm. Duffields represents the ever important rural to urban connection in our regional food system, evidenced by the blueberry crumb cake that was quickly consumed by our tour participants. But I have to say that even though he didn’t serve up any food, NJ Secretary of Agriculture Doug Fisher stole the show when he announced that he is talking to USDA’s NJ Rural Development Office about “a 21st century version of the produce vendors and fish peddlers who used to traverse the streets of our cities.” He wants to pilot a “fresh mobile” unit (a cross between a book mobile and ice cream vendor truck) that would have “cold storage amenities that offer locally grown produce and other in season ag products.” In addition to raw and prepared foods, there would be value added products – and all Fresh Mobile units would be equipped with EBT machines and non cash ways of handling SNAP, WIC, Senior Farmer Market coupons, and related payments. Secretary Fisher’s background in retail and wholesale food distribution provides him with the working knowledge that just because food is grown and harvested in NJ, it does not necessarily reach the plate of every resident, especially in our urban centers. He is also very sensitive to the availability of cheap, unhealthy foods that are prevalent in food outlets in our cities.

Secretary Fisher’s comments regarding unhealthy diets served as a nice segue to one of the final plenary sessions, “Refocusing the National Food System.” A collaborative effort among Columbia University , MIT, and the United Health Foundation offered a perspective on the link between the food system and health. Did you know that we will spend $344 billion by 2018 to manage the health consequences of obesity? Dr. Reed Tuckson, Executive Vice President and Chief of Medical Affairs at UnitedHealth Group, thinks that the ubiquitous $1 cheeseburger and our current food system has everything to do with this issue. This study group is calling for a decentralized local healthy food hub system – they want the nation to recalibrate and think in terms of Food Sheds. How does this shift happen? A huge part of it is about food literacy – something Secretary Fisher keyed in on as well. Dr. Tuckson proclaimed that we all need to become good food citizens in order to change a system that produces more than enough food calories, yet leaves 1 billion people hungry. I suppose we could wait until oil prices reach a catastrophic tipping point (futurist John Michael Greer was on hand to talk about his vision of a post oil peak “Ecotechnic Future”), but I have a little more faith in the power of people to organize for this food revolution.

Are you a good food citizen? What are your ideas about improving food literacy, cultivating the concept of food sheds and promoting civic engagement around regional food systems?

During the conference, I met some amazing writer, blogger, foodie colleagues from Seeding Chicago. They blogged about several tours and conference sessions. The “must reads” from their site include a general post on the conference, a tour stop at Cathedral Kitchen , more on Jeremy Nowak , and a tour stop at Greens Grow.

Today’s story from Maren Pearson, a Special Education teacher with Marshall High School (Fairfax County Public Schools, VA), is the final installment in our Monarch Monday series.

We thank the Educational Information Resource Center and its Monarch Teacher Network for so generously sharing their stories of transformation with us. We hope that you have felt as inspired by Mary, Sarita, Hope and Maren as we have.

By Maren Pearson

Mexico’s history and culture are so much more rich and beautiful than I ever realized.

Our trip began in Mexico City at the Museum of Anthropology, which really started the entire journey off right by laying the foundation for what we would experience during the week. A labyrinth of halls, each museum hall is filled with artifacts and dedicated to a different indigenous Mexican culture. As a prelude to our adventure, we toured the halls of Teotihuacan, Toltec, Aztec, Olmec and Maya, getting our first glimpse of the Mesoamerican god, Quetzalcoatl, the “feathered serpent”.

Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent (Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City)

Throughout the week, our Mexican tour guide, Marcos Garcia, gave us the gift of his knowledge of Mexican people, history, culture and soul. Before becoming a professional guide, Marcos worked for four years at the Museum of Anthropology. Now as he moved fluidly between present and past… on foot or on horse… Marcos became our gateway to understanding.

Marcos Garcia at the Sierra Chincua Monarch Sanctuary

On the final day of our trip, we explored the ruins of the ancient city of Teotihuacan (Tay-oh-tee-WHAH-cahn). Built by a culture that flourished a thousand years before the Aztecs, Teotihuacan is dominated by the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon, some of the largest pyramids in the world. After discovering its ruins, the Aztecs were so impressed they named it Teotihuacan, “the City of the Gods”. Visitors can climb the Sun Pyramid’s 260 steps to the top and ponder its connection to Mesoamerica’s 260-day Sacred Calendar.

Pyramid of the Sun

Also on the final day, we toured the Diego Rivera murals at the National Palace in Mexico City that capture the history and richness of Mexico’s indigenous past. A masterful explanation of the murals by Marcos brought our trip to a powerful close.

Diego Rivera painting at the National Palace depicting Cortez taking a bribe after the Conquest while the indigenous people are enslaved

I have always wanted to learn about other cultures, but Monarch Teacher Network’s trip to Mexico made me thirsty for more knowledge.

My professional ‘a-ha’ moment happened when we visited a school in the rural town of Santa Fe de la Laguna, a lakeshore community near the butterfly area. I teach students with severe disabilities, so learning that Mexican children with disabilities are not given the opportunity to attend school broke my heart (parents have to cope with their children’s disabilities the best they can). It made me grateful for what America offers people of all abilities. While I yearn to know more about the culture of the indigenous Mexican people I met, I am thankful for the inclusive culture and opportunity of America.

Sharing a bilingual copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar with a Purhepecha student, Santa Fe de la Laguna, Mexico

The Mexico trip was a chance for me to learn more about monarch butterflies, as I expected, but even more it was an opportunity to learn about a nation and its people. While monarchs are a great hands-on science unit, I now have information for a social studies unit about Mexico to accompany the science unit. Next year, I want to do more classroom work with cultures and include what I learned about on my journey.

As I reflect on my trip to Mexico I find new ways to bring those experiences to my students. I hope someday I have the opportunity to return to Mexico and learn even more to bring back to my students and school. I think my students could use their knowledge of Mexico to teach other people, which would empower my students.

I am a special education teacher of students with disabilities. The students I teach are not able to speak orally, but they can express feelings and communicate in other ways. I brought back lots of photos and artifacts for my students to enjoy and explore. Some of my artifacts made sounds, some had smells, some were brightly colored or had a great texture to feel. These items gave my students the chance to experience authentic Mexican culture in a way they could not do before. Telling my students about what I learned is not as meaningful as when I create opportunities for them to learn in new ways – this experience helped me to do this and have fun!

I have one student who was born and raised in Mexico, so my Mexico journey helps me to speak and relate to him more than ever. This also offers my class the opportunity to celebrate the different cultures that are found within our classroom. Students can learn about each other and interact in new and exciting ways.

Molly de Aguiar, Program Associate

Seed bomb by Heavy Petal

If you’re not familiar with them, seed bombs are small balls – a mixture of clay, compost and seeds – that you can toss onto an empty lot or a neglected patch of ground to help green your community. The clay and compost protect the seeds from drying out in the sun (which makes seed bombs especially useful in dry/arid areas) or getting eaten by birds. When enough rain has permeated the ball, the seeds will begin to sprout, nourished by the compost mixture.

There are several varieties and creative shapes of seed bombs (see Guerrilla Gardening’s Seed Bomb Guide for examples and instructions), and you can make them, or buy them (here and here)

But what do seed bombs have to do with gumball machines?

The duo of Daniel Phillips and Kim Karlsrud of Common Studio created Greenaid, a project that cleverly repurposes old gumball vending machines to sell seed bombs.

Common Studios: Green Aid from ISHOTHIM on Vimeo.

You can purchase a machine (or several machines) directly from Common Studio, and they will work with you to develop a seed mix that’s appropriate for your location as well as a strategy for using the seed bomb machine effectively.

They are already in place in San Francisco, Chicago and Los Angeles—but wouldn’t it be great to see them in Newark, Trenton, Camden and other urban locations across New Jersey?