Nourish My Soul, our Granby partner organization, is hosting an online cooking class on Tuesday to help folks use up their winter squash, navigate their pantries with ease, and figure out how to blend flavors so that they work in the chef’s mouth. Check out their post and see if this class might work for you!
https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fnourish.foodsovereignty%2Fposts%2F5204458619566955&show_text=true&width=500
January Newsletter 2022
Gratefully receiving guidance from the Nonprofit Accountability Group (NAG, donate here), the CT Youth Food Program Alliance is sharing accessible-by-screenreader newsletters based on information shared in our monthly meetings. These newsletters will feature image descriptions for blind and low-vision users. At this time, I do not have access to translation services. If someone is able to offer such services for the newsletter, please let me know.
December Meeting
As you all know, the Alliance does not hold monthly meetings in December due to the busy nature of that time of year. Information in this newsletter was gleaned from your organizational newsletters and/or social media accounts. Please let me know if there are any concerns via email at Kathy.engle-dulac@icrweb.org
Common Ground High School
On December 18, 2022, Common Ground High School held their Winter Market, featuring school-grown vegetables, locally-made teas, crocheted creations, skincare goods, wreaths, and other goods grown, made, packaged in the New Haven area. Bringing the community together to share in the bounty of the region helps to connect people to place, and food to people.
(Image Description: several cardboard boxes with their tops open line a hallway. These boxes are full of fresh vegetables and bread.)
In this vein, Common Ground has been a key player in the New Haven area getting food to families through Haven Harvest, a produce delivery program bringing fresh local foods to over 200 New Haven families during the covid 19 pandemic. Disha has mentioned the need to fundraise for this program in previous monthly meetings. Updates on this program will hopefully be forthcoming. Learn more or donate at https://commongroundct.org/food-assistance-for-common-ground-families/
Ebony Horsewomen Inc.
This summer, Ebony Horsewomen is looking forward to sharing their documentary, made in collaboration with Joe Young Studios and Sankofa Productions, “Horse of a Different Color”. This film centers the voices of Hartford leaders, activists, and educators to tell the stories of the city and its most vulnerable communities. More to come on this project as information becomes available.
FRESH New London
Shifting their procedures to meet community need while preserving community health, FRESH has moved food box distribution to drive-through only. They have sought volunteers to pack boxes for distribution but require that volunteers wear masks. Community care throughout this public health crisis has required shifting expectations on the fly, and this org has done well in their efforts in this regard.
(Image description: a flyer titled Food Pantry Pick Up, Wednesday 5, 12 pm-2:30 pm, at the Senior Center of New London, on the corner of Brainard and Mercer streets. The image of a mustachioed person driving a green cartoon car with vegetables poking out of the back window is topped with the heading “food for the people” in red text. Below the image, Important Information is listed in bullet form: drive through only, keep your windows rolled up, be prepared to open your trunk, and stay in your vehicle unless you are opening your trunk. This information is also listed in Spanish on the flyer.
Grow Hartford
Grow Hartford, the youth program in Hartford Food System, has not offered any updates due in some measure to the recent hiring of a new Executive Director for the organization. More information as it becomes available!
GROW Windham/Windham Youth Core
During this colder season, GROW Windham is seeking to increase access to funds for young and aspiring farmers. They are sharing information about grants and micro-grants UCONN extension is offering to budding agriculturalists to launch their growing careers. Their listing of upcoming grants includes:
- American Farmland Trust’s New England Farmer Microgrant- DUE JANUARY 7 (FRIDAY!)
- UConn Solid Ground Stipends for Beginning Farmers – Due January 21
- Southern New England Farmers of Color Collaborative Seeding for Success Stipends- Due January 26th
- National Young Farmers Coalition Young Farmer Grants- Due January 28th
- CT Women’s Business Developement Council Equity Match Grant- Opens Jan 17 and closes Feb. 13th
- CT Dept of Ag’s Farm Transition Grant, New Farmer Microgrants- opens for one week in the spring
To learn more, check out GROW Windham’s post on their facebook page linked here.
GVI
On Wednesday, January 5, Farmer Ellie, the ED of GVI, hosted a community conversation online to offer guidance on how the community could support the Reservoir Farm, GVI’s primary growing space in Bridgeport. Over the past several years, concerns about the city’s willingness to continue to lease the farm to GVI have been heard, and the team there hopes to keep the farm growing.
(Image description: a wooden farmstand shows shelves lined with potted plants on a green lawn. To the left, a sign shows some small text on a whiteboard. To the right, a young Black masculine person in a bright blue t-shirt directs the viewer’s attention to the shelves of plants with wide-flung arms pointed in the farmstand’s direction.)
Institute for Community Research
Since ICR’s move to smaller office space, development activity has hit a fever pitch. New program proposals are offered up daily and grant applications are constantly in the works. The ED has been looking to retire for several years and now, through a more cooperative leadership structure than most nonprofits in Hartford utilize, two new co-directors are ready to step into leadership with a renewed focus on whole-organization engagement in decision making and strategic planning. The food work is shifting in its expansion to focus on the impacts of climate change on our young partners in this work, particularly on their ability to identify what they can do in the face of these enormous challenges. As always, more to come when information becomes available.
Keney Park Sustainability Project
On December 18th, KPSP supported the winter market at The Sto, an open space at the Swift Factory site on Love Lane in Hartford. This holiday marketplace focused specifically on Black-owned business vendors in Hartford. This is one of the ways KPSP is encouraging investment of Hartford dollars in Hartford entrepreneurs, keeping the economy local and building its strength. The learn more about markets at The Sto, please take a look here.
(Image description: a Save The Date flyer features the title “Shop the Originals: Connecticut” The words The Sto in bold black print, Holiday Market in bold red text. Saturday, December 18, 2021, 12 pm-4 pm at the Swift Factory, 60 Love Lane. Save the Date is written in the corner in script in red, green, and black text.
New Britain ROOTS
After their successful year-end fundraising efforts, New Britain ROOTS is tempting us all with starting our seedlings too early!
(Image description: trays of various young seedlings with plant tags sit in a sunny window.)
Nonprofit Accountability Group
NAG continues their work of sharing local resources to increase access by our neighbors. Recent shares include the Parents Matter Zoom Support Group meetings in East Hartford (Wednesday January 5) as well as CT birth doula training opportunities offered by Earth’s Natural Touch. In addition to these opportunities, NAG has been sharing information about the North End Little Pantries (NELP), a system of little free pantries scattered throughout Hartford’s North End neighborhoods. Several other partner organizations have supported these little pantries, so sharing learnings from this effort could be helpful at our next monthly meeting.
Nourish My Soul
AnaAlicia, the ED of Nourish My Soul, is offering a session on prioritizing health, a response to diet culture and the tradition of new year’s resolutions. This session is offered online at 7 pm on 1/6/22. Please find the FB event page here.
Solar Youth
To celebrate the solstice, Solar Youth distributed donated outer wear around New Haven for wintertime play. In addition, they offered zero-waste gift wrapping services for the holidays. That seems like a creative way to increase community engagement in your organization and its mission.
(Image description: two children in heavy winter coats, hats, and face masks pose next to a giant snow head with snack pack wrappers for eyes, a cheezits pouch for a nose, and two sticks for hair/antennae in a snowy field.)
Summer of Solutions
The SoS Hartford team has been keeping their Pink Pantry and Fridge stocked for their neighbors. In addition, they have been collecting funds to feed local families throughout the holidays. In addition, they have been running their “Really Really Free Market”, offering exchanges of goods for neighbors of their garden. SoS is not running youth programming at this time, but their community benefit programs continue throughout the winter.
Alliance Meetings
We have mentioned the desire to hold our monthly meetings at a time when young participants can be a part of the discussion. Please fill out the doodle poll below to let us know when your young folks can be a part of our meetings so that we can work together more effectively.
Thank you all for all you do. Stay safe out there!
Nonprofit Accountability Group (NAG) newsletters: You should be following!
The Nonprofit Accountability Group (NAG), a partner in the CT Youth Food Program Alliance, is bridging the gaps between basic human needs (like food and housing) and the organizing work in Hartford, CT. Each week, NAG puts a newsletter together to share information, upcoming events, opportunities for learning and connecting, and the ever-important wisdom “drink your water”. Tenaya Taylor, the proud Black autistic nonbinary changemaker at the helm of NAG pushes everyone around them to do, be, and act better than they ever thought they could. Please sign on for NAG’s newsletter to keep up to date on the good work happening in Hartford at info@naghartford.org Below are some flyers from their most recent newsletter, including one for an event with another Alliance partner, Common Ground High School.
Efforts for the future
Work to keep the Alliance moving forward, rather than standing still, have always been unfolding. They have led us to Washington DC to talk with the USDA. They’ve sent some of us to Portland, OR to talk with academics about how we do what we do and why it matters. They have kept us talking to one another through a global pandemic, planning new ways to connect and have fun together while we work to feed our neighborhoods. Now, they look toward the changes in our environment, weather, and climate. How can we, with our hands in the dirt, make a difference in this global phenomenon?
Well, it isn’t easy. It isn’t easy to feed entire neighborhoods, to gather communities with the promise of fresh veggies, or to get adults in power to hush and listen to teens who know what they’re talking about. We have done hard things well for years. Now, we can lean on some help to do other, equally important, hard things.
Our state has a variety of conservation offices. The structure of conservation in CT is more challenging to follow than in other states because we don’t rely on county government structures, so we don’t have the level of leadership that usually managed conservation in other states. Despite this added layer of challenge, our conservation offices are apparently all staffed and managed by Really Good People with a deep drive to make this world a better one for young folks and their eventual children, even several generations beyond what we can imagine today. I mention the conservation offices because they are working to partner with the Alliance to make our work that much stronger, and that much easier for others to do in their cities.
In the Colonial era, George Washington called Connecticut “the provision state”. Our cities are built on soil that experiences rising rivers, which bring rich silty soil onto land for us to grow healthy, vibrant crops (source can be found here). Today, those cities play host to Alliance programs where urban agriculture offers experiences and our programs offer knowledge about systems that tie participants’ lives to the future, to possibility, and to power to make changes. Conservation offices are keen to learn about how we do what we do, and how we can utilize practices that will make urban agriculture even more sustainable than it already is. How can we manage pests that we’ve never encountered until it started getting warmer here, without damaging our crops, land, customers, or neighbors? How can we manage water so we don’t rinse away our topsoil? How can we maximize our growing season without using fossil fuels to heat our hoop houses? Conservation offices will help us to find answers to these and other, related questions in the next few years.
To make sure that we’re moving in the direction we want to move, accomplishing the goals we want to accomplish and not spinning our metaphorical wheels, we’ll have some surveys and interviews to manage. Your voices, Alliance participants, will tell us if we’re making the right connections, or if there are things we are failing at. Have the difficult conversations when they need to be had. Your wisdom and expertise is key to making this work the way we all want it to. You know more than you think!
Volunteer Workday in Willimantic
Join us this Saturday, November 6th, at the Thread City Family Garden for a Volunteer workday! As the season comes to an end, we have a lot of things to do! Everyone is welcome, and everything is provided! 9 A.M. to 12 P.M.
Grow Hartford Movie Night
The Grow Hartford youth are sharing a movie night with everyone. On Friday, 10/29/21 at 4 pm, you are invited to watch “The Invisible Vegan”, a documentary about African Americans taking back their health. RSVP with Shanelle for zoom information!
Hartford garden bed applications
Grow Hartford accepting applications for garden beds from Hartford youth; applications due March 10
Grow Hartford is excited to announce our garden bed giveaway for Hartford youth and families. This is a chance for Hartford residents to grow their very own fruits and vegetables and even learn how to sell their produce at a farmer’s market. Please pass on the application to any Hartford youth that you know and have them fill out the application below by March 10th. Thanks!
Garden Bed Application: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScWSf8s7JXAc2p0j8LkOhxIzC_kcmtalNyWZnxO1KuVyTyxuw/viewform?usp=sf_link
Settling into a Covid world
Zoom meetings. Hand washing. SO much hand washing. Masks, masks, masks. Lines at Rentschlur Field for food boxes.
These are only some of the changes the pandemic has made to our daily lives.
Gardens still need planning. Mutual aid is popping up in all of our communities. We are suddenly so much more aware of each other’s needs and abilities.
Things are different, but the work remains, and we keep kicking away at the foundations of walls that keep us apart.
Although we haven’t been able to get together as a network for the past year, we have had some important wins we need to celebrate.
The USDA listened! Our trip to Washington DC before the pandemic, where Abimael and Marilla talked about their experiences as young folks working the land in Willimantic, about the need for leadership development for urban teens, and about the importance of connecting with the soil, manifested in changes to funding opportunities in the most recent round of grants. New Haven organizations took advantage of those changes and got funding to improve youth programming AND to increase their ownership of land in their community for food growing development.
Programs are getting better and better at sharing their resources. The new curriculum sharing drive on Google is a home for tested and proven activities for building resilience and self sufficiency for teens and communities. Nothing about us without us! See our shared work here.
Some program, particularly GVI in Bridgeport, have been finding ways to get college credits for program participants. The summer interns earned credits, and next summer’s team may work their way through a certificate program, earning documentation that can help them to get jobs and track their college experience. More Alliance programs are trying to establish similar programs with colleges near their communities.
A youtube channel has been claimed for the Alliance to use. The hope is that this will allow programs to share their activities with one another, and to expand our wisdom by sharing what we learn with one another despite public health needs. For more information on the channel, please reach out to Kathy.
Some partners have been pushing hard to get their activities open for all community members. This increased accessibility has shown that there is expanded needs for food access during the pandemic. Common Ground High School has been tapping into USDA funding to distribute food boxes, and is finding that the winter produce lull is more impactful for our neighbors than usual. To keep fresh fruits and veggies going to our communities, new avenues of access are being explored, but nothing is set yet. This will be an exciting area for future development, for sure.
We are all doing the best we can these days. Please remember to wash your hands, wear your masks, and keep six feet between you and people you don’t live with. Things are moving in the right direction, slowly, and from very far in the wrong direction. Progress is still progress, and we are all making a difference. Please be good to you, and celebrate whenever you can!
Summer programs update
During this unusual summer, the coordinator has been connecting with program staff via one-on-one phone calls so that updates can continue to flow. Thanks to the recent hurricane, even that proved too much to ask! Now with summer program graduations on the approaching horizon, here are the updates:
-GVI youth are digging into what food justice means to them and will be presenting their own definitions as a part of their graduation ceremonies
-Summer of Solutions interns have been producing sessions on gardening, food apartheid, and self sufficiency on their Instagram account
-FRESH New London youth have been partnering with CT College to grow food across the city, and are feeding 35 families with produce from within city limits
-GROW Windham youth are pushing to meet their peers across the state
All program staff indicated an interest in starting a photography/videography project for teens to share their experiences of the food system during a global epidemic. If teens capture photos or videos this summer to share on social media, please send them to Kathy, or tag the Alliance! On Facebook, we are @youthfoodalliance, and on Instagram at @ctyouthfoodalliance
CT Youth Food Program Alliance 