Flint Farmers Market

BBQ Battle

mks — Sat, 20 Jul 2013 13:25:30 +0000

You are cordially invited to participate in the 9th Annual BBQ Battle on Saturday, July 20th at the Flint Farmers’Market. Professionals and restaurants are currently being invited to become part of this exciting event. You are invited to compete, grill and sell your goods from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.
All Competitors must be licensed with the Genesee County Health Dept. to apply.The BBQ Battle will have two components again this year:

PROFESSIONAL COOK-OFF

3:00p.m. – Awards Given at 4:30 p.m. on front lawn.No more than eight area restaurants will compete in the cook-off, which will take place at 3:00pm. All participants will be judged on ribs. There will be additional optional categories including: pulled pork, brisket, chicken and fruit/vegetable.

Those restaurants that register by JULY 16 will be mentioned in all paid advertising.
Try It then Buy It Samples and 11:00a.m. – until samples run out (likely by 1 p.m.)BBQ Battle Application

PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD

You are invited to be a part of this by providing customers who have purchased a punch card with SMALL tastes of your pulled pork. Patrons will pay $5, receive a punch card with each BBQ’s name on it.

This year we will ask for a FULL pan of pulled pork at 11 am from you – we will have a separate sampling area manned by our own volunteers –we’ll do the samples until they run out.

If you CHOOSE to participate by donating a FULL pan for this portion of the event your $50 ENTRY FEE will be WAIVED.

Customers will be able to turn the punch card in after they try each sample with a vote for their favorite and be entered to win market gifts – this will provide us with a people’s choice winner!

Attached you will find the entry form. The entry fee is $50 and must be paid (unless you are donating a full pan of pulled pork for the Try It then Buy It/People’s Choice) in order for you to be included in all paid advertising on CARS 108, WDZZ, CK105 and B95 radio stations.

You won’t want to miss the opportunity to promote your business at the BBQ Battle at the Market so register early! Form due by July 14 – to be included in radio ads! If you have any further questions please feel free to contact me at 810-964-5325 or kmmartus@aol.com.

Sincerely,
Karianne Martus
Flint Farmers’ Market
Public Relations & Marketing

Senior Citizen Resource Day

mks — Thu, 18 Jul 2013 21:37:54 +0000

Event Date July 18

Taste of the Market

oryan — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 21:36:14 +0000

June 22 , 2013

Proudly sponsored by Dort Federal Credit Union, this signature event of our early summer season takes place mid-June. It features 6-8 local chefs from the American Culinary Federation, each preparing a different healthy feast for market shoppers.

Our chefs, with assistance from the Mott Community College Culinary Arts Program students, then return Thursdays at noon throughout July and August to create unique and useful dishes which anyone can prepare.

Family Bike Ride

mks — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 21:16:37 +0000

Bluebell Beach to Flint Farmers’ Market
and Back

Saturday, June 8th from 9 am to 2 pm

Adults and children age 10 and older are welcome to join the ride for this family friendly event. SPROUT Coalition members, SAGE Coalition members, Mott Community College Bicycle Officers and Friends of the Flint River Trail will be on hand participating in the ride.

Bluebell Beach (5500 Bray Road) will be the starting point for this event. Bicycle Safety information, Helmet Fitting and a Bicycle First Aid Station will be available at this location to help prepare for the ride. For younger children, a shorter bicycle route
will be available.For A Large Image of Poster Click Here

At the Flint Farmers’ Market, (420 E. Boulevard Dr.) nutrition education activities, cooking demonstrations and healthy snacks will provide a break before the ride back to Bluebell Beach. Families should assemble at Bluebell Beach by 9:30 am for the ride. A limited number of bikes will be available to borrow for the ride. Reservations are required. Riders will be asked to sign a waiver before the ride begins. Helmets are required.

For additional information or to make a reservation, call 810-768-7970.

Armed with a Trowel, VSAT Program Aids Veterans in Launching Sustainable Startups

editor — Fri, 31 May 2013 22:32:59 +0000

May 30, 2013 | Trish Popovitch
“We believe the next wars are going to be over food and water. So who better to train than our military in water conservation and food production?” – Karen Archipley
Returning military often find themselves struggling to return to normality after serving overseas. Colin Archipley, co-owner of Archi’s Acres in Escondido, CA knows exactly how they feel. He served three tours of duty during the Iraq War that began in 2003. Between his second and third deployment, Colin, along with his wife Karen, bought an inefficiently run avocado farm. Besides starting their own very successful living basil hydroponics farm on the site, the empathetic couple created an incubator for transitioning veterans. What they created became known as the Veterans Sustainable Agriculture Training or VSAT program, a way to help veterans train for self-employment in the peaceful profession of hydroponic farming.
Courses on the VSAT program, that began in 2007, are pretty intensive, according to Karen Archipley. Six weeks long, the classes are administered by the California State University San Marcos’ Extended Learning folks. There is a lot of classroom education with visits from industry players and the sharing of success stories to help students feel motivated. The program’s focus is on training people for the transition from military to civilian life. The courses are open to civilians as well as veterans giving everyone a way to serve their local community while building a sustainable business that will support their family.
“The training in the military is a precursor to self-employment. Because you are taught to think outside the box, to adapt and overcome; you are taught to persevere no matter what,” states Archipley. “How much more perfect for self-employment could you get? What we try to do is give them a way to make a living…so they are not at the mercy of the government. We just want to see people independent and whole.”
Veterans in the VSAT program learn all about hydroponics, farm management, food safety, greenhouse production and all the major aspects of sustainable agriculture. The Archipleys are only too happy to share the many success stories of their graduates, several of whom actually work full time on the farm.
Mike Hanes was a survivalist, ex military recon marine and had a desire to start his own business. He completed the very first offering of the VSAT program, created his own line of super food based hot sauces and now sells “Forager Mike’s Superfoods” to Whole Foods Market and Sunfood Nutrition. “He actually just teamed up with another VSAT graduate that’s doing a lot of the business stuff now because business wasn’t his forte. Now he can be more the creator which is where he’s the happiest,” shares Archipley.
A former combat marine and fan of heirloom tomatoes, Jerome Yoskovits began his own organic ketchup company after graduating from the VSAT program. “He was an electrician in the war,” explains Karen. “He came back to the States and became an electrician and he felt kinda trapped in his job so he started growing tomatoes. He started making ketchup. His girlfriend read about our program and he took time off from his employment, took our program and at the end of that he is today in Whole Foods Market. That is so exciting.” Kaught up Ketchup is also available to purchase online.
Former MSNBC journalist and host Dylan Ratigan resigned his television career after interviewing the Archipleys, moved to southern California and now works on the farm four days a week. After assisting in the expansion of their greenhouse program, Ratigan began work on the expansion of the VSAT program. The intention is to use the VSAT program as the model for similar programs across the country.
Karen Archipley shares stories about the VSAT graduates and partners as though she is talking about old friends and her own family. Karen and Colin are proud of the students and excited to keep the program going so they can tell more and more tales of military might turned into sustainable success.
The intensive course in organic farming and business management costs $4500 and includes 240 hours of teaching and 30 hours of job training. Completion brings with it food safety certification, certification from California State University San Marcos, VSAT program certification and the tools to start your own agriculture based business. There are numerous funding opportunities to help veterans pay for the course as well as assistance in starting a business. Colin and Karen offer graduates access to their rich contacts in the field to help them find their niche. At the time of printing, 200 veterans have graduated from the Archi’s Acres VSAT program.
Besides training veterans to be farmers through their VSAT program, the Archipleys intend to employ graduates at their new greenhouses beginning to go up around the country. “In some cases veterans will go on to own those locations and in some cases it will be for those people who really just want to work for someone else and don’t want to have the responsibility of owning it. That way, whatever that person’s ambition is, we’re gonna fit them with that right opportunity,” explains Archipley.
The VSAT greenhouse project will be funded using grants, loans and investor donations for the first five years of operation. After that time, graduates and farm managers will have the opportunity to refinance the greenhouse after they have a strong client base. As Archipley explains, this means they will not take on the original debt and can use startup funding to assist them in becoming owners. The USDA Farm Service Agency is partnering with Archi’s Acres in this expansion of the farm and the VSAT project.
The Disabled American Veterans organization has been instrumental in assisting the VSAT program. They provide tuition assistance and aid to disabled veterans in the program. Its all about contact sharing, partnerships and supporting your fellow farmer in the world of sustainable agriculture and it seems as though the folks at Archi’s Acres have turned it into a very fruitful art form.
Anyone can help the transitioning military become farmers through the Veteran Valor Fund. The fund is a non profit that provides VSAT program graduates with low interest business startup loans.

Urban Homesteaders with a Mission: Yisrael Family Farm

editor — Tue, 28 May 2013 23:21:02 +0000

May 28, 2013 | Trish Popovitch

As a culture we have become so disconnected from our food. The sustainable agriculture movement is making strides to rectify the matter, but there is so much work still to be done. For those living in the inner cities, access to organic local food is even more difficult with few neighborhood outlets for healthy produce. That’s why the work of urban farmer, Chanowk Yisrael and the Yisrael Family Farm is one step closer to local access of fresh fruits, vegetables and honey for the folks of the Oak Park community in Sacramento.
The Yisrael family farm began in 2007 when Yisrael started to look at the economic fear that was mounting across the globe. “I’m sitting in my cubicle… and at that point there was a lot of fear mongering going on. You know: ‘everything is going to crash,’ ‘it’s the Great Depression Part 2,’ ‘we only have 60 days left,’ ‘run for the hills,’ that type of stuff,” remembers Yisrael. “So I started to ponder: imagine if that type of scenario did happen what would I do? What would I be able to do? How would I be able to take care of myself? How would I be able to take care of family? Even though I had all this knowledge about computers and you know, I was making computer money and what have you, I came up with a blank. It was at that point that I decided to start growing food for the family.” Yisrael is far from a survivalist, but terms himself and his business as “urban homesteading,” a lifestyle that sustains his family and aids his neighborhood.
A large part of the Yisrael Family Farm approach is community outreach. Living in what Yisrael describes as a “food desert,” bringing fresh food and self-sustaining practices to the community of Oak Park has played a large role in the success of the farm. They offer classes, opportunities to volunteer, tours, gatherings and urban agriculture-based dialog to help community members replicate their practices and understand the importance of eating fresh produce.
This oasis of urban agriculture uses a number of sustainable practices including raised bed planting, drip irrigation, composting, cover crops and crop rotation. Yisrael favors wheat as a cover crop when establishing a new raised bed. The work on the farm is done without machinery and double digging is a favorite technique; easy to share with volunteers and guests. Yisrael likes to experiment with different planting techniques and has enjoyed success with permaculture, bio-intensive planting, biodynamic planting and indigenous techniques such as the Three Sisters companion planting method.
Growing a balanced diet of fresh food that accounts for daily, weekly and monthly vegetable and fruit intake is the concept behind the Yisrael Family Farm produce choices. They grow a variety of greens, tomatoes, squashes, zucchini, several varieties of kale, potatoes, onions and seasonal fruits. Yisrael also raises chickens for fresh eggs and has a number of beehives on his property for the propagation of honey.
The goal is a completely closed system utilizing sustainable techniques that produce enough food to feed the immediate family, but also provide for the community. Still in its startup stage, Yisrael Family Farm is considering Lc3 status so they can not only sell food to the local community, but become involved in charitable giving on a larger scale. Right now, a vast majority of the food is simply given away.
For most small growers “profitable” is a term defined by the ability to grow again the next year without carrying a lot of rotating debt. For Yisrael, profit is a social endeavor based on the historic understanding of the urban farmer. “The success for the farmer back then before we started to use things like ‘money,’ ‘profit and loss’ and all these accounting terms was not only that you might be able to make money if people come and buy, but what’s the impact that I’m making with what I’m providing to people and in that case its very profitable,” explains Yisrael.
It wasn’t until 2011 that Yisrael Family Farm began publicizing their efforts and formalizing their production. Their first experience with a farm stand was a lesson in food desert living. “I can’t say it was a total success,” shares Yisrael. “We were there, we were able to provide the access to the food and we did make some sales, but what we’re finding especially in places like the inner city is the health habits are much different. We were in a parking lot with Louisiana fried chicken, slurpies, doughnuts etc. We were not able to really get a whole bunch of business because there has to be an educational piece that goes along with it.”
The second Sunday of every month is volunteer day at the Yisrael Family Farm. As explained on their website, the volunteer days not only help cultivate the produce, “Volunteer days are our way of bringing people together from a wide range of backgrounds in order to demonstrate that when we work together, we can change transform the hood for GOOD!” Each volunteer day sees 25-30 people giving up a large portion of their day off to work on the farm and enjoy the vegetarian potluck meal. Yisrael wants to do more than just grow fresh food. He wants to awaken his community to the possibilities of sustainable agriculture on their doorstep.
“You can employ people, veterans, you can take people out of the community and be able to give them some meaningful work to do as well as serve their community, especially in an inner city. You’ve got soup kitchens, you’ve got food handouts and things of that nature and at the same time you’ve got schools closing down,” shares Yisrael. “Why not take some of those schools and use the land that the school has and grow something on there? You can get the community involved. You can open up the soup kitchen where they do not have to get free food from anywhere and the people that were once coming to the soup kitchen can now be the people managing the soup kitchens with food that they all helped grow. Urban agriculture can serve those needs.”
Future plans include a stall at the local farmer’s market and creating their own CSA. Yisrael would also like to bring in more speakers from the sustainable agriculture community to educate his neighbors and customers. He hopes to collaborate with local schools and restaurants on composting food scraps and is currently building a relationship with the local library to include their garden in their busy schedule. A paid intern is hoped for that would not only give a local student an income, but teach them about sustainable agriculture. What started as a veggie patch for the immediate family has become an exercise in community building. As Yisrael explains, urban homesteading is not a new concept and he can only hope more people in his community realize the potential of the ‘grow your own’ way of life.
Visit http://www.yisraelfamilyfarm.net/

Chili Cook Off!

mks — Sat, 25 May 2013 17:55:47 +0000

MYOI CHEF vs.CHEF

Saturday May 25, 2013. 12p.m.-3p.m.
Flint Farmer’s Market
420 E. Boulevard Dr. Flint, MI 48503

Join Chef Nate as he competes against other local chefs for Best Chili in Genesee County
$8 for 8 tastes, bowl of chili & vote for chef with best chili.

Trophies for top chefs with best chili

All Proceeds benefit Older Youth Aging out of Foster Care.

Letter from the Mayor of Flint

mks — Fri, 24 May 2013 18:25:21 +0000

The following is a letter from the Mayor. As you will read Flint has been selected as one of the “main street” projects. We are asking for the community to vote for this. Please help by sharing the link with your contacts, on social media and through word of mouth. Together we can make great things happen for Flint.

“Hi everyone, I am asking for your help in promoting and supporting a new online challenge with Benjamin Moore paints. Flint is one of a number of cities competing for one of 20 paint and revitalization packages for a “main street.” We submitted the University Avenue corridor as our focus. The full release is attached and then there is more information online atwww.paintwhatmatters.com.

With our united networks I am confident that we can be in the top 20. You can vote once per day so spread the word far and wide and let’s win this!

Thanks, Dayne”

Stanford’s FEED Collaborative: Academics and the Food System Collide

editor — Fri, 24 May 2013 17:44:05 +0000

May 23, 2013 | Trish Popovitch
Currently, the world’s food system is in a state of flux. Small growers across the globe attempt to impact their local communities by producing organic food that challenges traditional food production. The students of Stanford University’s FEED (Food Education Entrepreneurship Design) Collaborative intend to impact the food system in another way: human centered design.
Matthew Rothe of Stanford’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design explains the FEED Collaborative’s approach to fixing the global food system. “We believe that human centered design is a powerful process for uncovering the unmet needs of people and for unlocking the creative problem solving potential of its practitioners. Coupled with the domain knowledge of our collaborators and opportunities for social entrepreneurship, we believe human centered design is the most compelling opportunity we have for driving the level of innovation needed to transform our food system.”
The FEED Collaborative began when Stanford lecturer and fellow Matthew Rothe and Debra Dunn, former HP executive and faculty member, used their human design approach as part of Dunn’s research on ‘Design for Sustainable Abundance.’ Students were challenged with reducing meat consumption in one of the school’s cafeterias.
“We ended up implementing one of the solutions that came out of the class and, working with a researcher in the Prevention Research Center at Stanford to evaluate its efficacy, we were able to significantly reduce meat consumption in the dining halls in which we tested the solution,” shares Rothe. “As or more important than the day-to-day reduction in meat consumption, however, is that the solution relies on an innovative combination of explicit education and subtle behavioral interventions, which we hope will translate to a long-term impact on the 4,000 students who eat in the dining halls every day.”
Taking some of the issues our current food system faces, turning them into academic exercises and then sharing the solutions with food system stakeholders to make real change is the goal of Stanford’s FEED Collaborative and it seems to be working. Rothe refers to the approach as a multidisciplinary experiential education that brings different groups together. “We believe that innovation and breakthrough ideas happen as the result of a diverse group of people working collaboratively and we are very thoughtful in this regard about the composition of students in our classes, as well as in the formation of student project teams,” states Rothe.
Students from all seven of Stanford’s schools take part in the FEED Collaborative. They work with local organizations invested in the food system in some capacity. A recent project involved the FEED Collaborative working with Collective Roots, another collaborative based in East Palo Alto to form solutions to improve food security for the underserved population in that specific area. Collective Roots’ mission is to involve students in making change in the food system making them a perfect partner for the Stanford based initiative.
There is always the concern that student led projects that involve real world problems can lose funding or assistance when the students concerned finish the semester or graduate from college. Rothe is very aware of this issue and takes real steps to ensure projects are sustainable.
“One of the things we’ve learned, both through the seminar and in our own experience, is that you have to be very clear with community partners about what you can realistically deliver in a ten-week quarter,” explains Rothe. “Beyond that, we are seeking to establish long-term collaborations with our community partners in such a way that we are able to turn the traditional paradigm on its head by incorporating them as co-learners, co-educators, and co-creators in our process. We see this as the most promising way to create systemic change in the food system.”
An underlying force in the FEED Collaborative seems to be teaching the students the role of empathy in food system understanding; taking academic exercises and making them personal and poignant. Students around the world are now studying the many aspects of environmental science, sustainable agriculture and green technology but often the ethical and empathetic approaches necessary for sustainable change are overlooked. The FEED Collaborative’s approach ensures empathy goes hand in hand with learning.
The collaborative part of the Stanford think tank involves not just the students, but the folks they work with in the real world. It must be a two way street for anyone to see concrete results. Often we forget there is more to fixing the world’s relationship with food and health than those we have already experienced. We must remember that we are still at the beginning of this green evolution and the work of students in the FEED Collaborative and others like them could become foundational to how we approach meeting the healthy food needs of the world in the future.
Currently, students can receive academic credit for their role in the human design process of the FEED Collaborative. Future plans involve expanding to internships, fellowship grants and work study as well as bringing the experiential education to all students. “As we build out the FEED Collaborative, we are planning for that number to increase by an order of magnitude,” explains Rothe. “Put another way, we have asked ourselves, ‘how might we create a meaningful experiential learning opportunity around food and design thinking for every undergraduate at Stanford?’ Our work is moving in the direction of answering that question.”
The FEED Collaborative is currently developing relationships with small growers and others that believe in the concept of social entrepreneurship. Rothe grew up on a corn farm in Colorado and has worked in the food system in a number of capacities over the years. Together with Dunn, he combines his real world experience with the sustainable food system classes he teaches his students. Their work with the Collective Roots organization has become the current focus of the FEED Collaborative.
Further Reading:

http://www.collectiveroots.org/

http://feedcollaborative.org/

Eco Garden Grows Community While Encouraging Kids to Play in the Dirt

editor — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:01:20 +0000

May 22, 2013 | Abbie Stutzer
Luke Ebner and Angela Stanbery were fine art majors who also had an eye (and a few green thumbs) for organic gardening. Ebner started working at Permaganic Co.’s Eco Garden, a community garden, educational program and non-profit in Cincinnati, Ohio, part-time in 2003. Stanbery joined him in 2004.
While Ebner had previous experience working at various organic farms and Stanbery worked as a ‘horticulture helper’ with the Cincinnati Park Board, the couple never dreamed they’d take over and transform Eco Garden into a non-profit, educational organization.
Ebner and Stanbery formed Permaganic, the non-profit that claims Eco Garden, when the garden’s original umbrella organization, IMPACT Over-the-Rhine (merged under Memorial Inc.), folded in 2010. After creating the non-profit, the couple has successfully supported the organization, garden and its educational programs.
While Permaganic is poised to have a successful 2013 season, Ebner and Stanbery know that keeping the Eco Garden successful will take a lot of work and community kids’ helping hands.
Neighborhood kids typically hear about the garden and all the non-profit’s programs from other kids who have participated at the garden. “Some of our most memorable, honest, reliable, hardworking kids have come to us through friends who are similarly blessed,” Stanbery said. “Some of them wait for years to be old enough for the program, or for a spot to open up.”
Many of the kids who participate in the programs use money they earn at the garden to help their families, or start savings accounts. Once kids finish the program, they leave knowing – and valuing — the importance of tending and caring for plants. “Most kids come through this program with a highly developed connection to the earth, and their role as stewards and future leaders in their community,” Stanbery said. “They learn how to grow, harvest, process, and create meals with vegetables, and how to care for the soil, and that they can actually do things to create healthy microclimates wherever they are, by planting and tending trees.”
Every year, the organization supports various programs, such as permaculture, basic business skills, visual art basics, and service learning. “The ongoing service-learning project is the Eco Garden itself, where the kids give tours, do outreach at the market, and participate in beautification and community building,” Stanbery said.
The Eco Garden’s has about an acre of growing space. “We have about 35 or 40 fruiting trees and bushes of various sorts, and perennial veggies. We also have a variety of herbs. We do sunflowers and zinnias most years, and many other flower varieties, and a huge garlic crop,” Stanbery said. “It’s very pleasing to people who see the world as artists, and social and environmental activists. It’s nothing like an English formal garden or a suburban yard — we make friends with many of our weeds.”
The garden also supports peaches, raspberries, asparagus, annuals, and greens of all kinds. Ebner and Stanbery don’t use any chemicals on the garden’s plantings. The couple also is in the beginning stages of creating a biodiverse food forest. “We feel it’s important to begin transitioning from a mostly annual-based monocultural agricultural system to a perennial-based polyculture,” Stanbery said.
The food forest would help build ecological capital, which would be similar to a healthy, old growth forest. “If we created as many pockets of food forest as we could in our urban environment, and trained people how to harvest and process the food, that would be our best odds at mitigating the food-desert issue. When the one-acre forest wrapping the back of the Eco Garden in 2006 was cut down, we noticed a huge difference,” Stanbery said.
The organization does get outside help and funds, and works with multiple organizations in the area. “Last year we worked with Children’s Hunger Alliance to build a wood-fired cob bread oven. They approached us through the Civic Garden Center of Greater Cincinnati – it has been like our mama organization since the Eco Garden was founded in 1998,” Stanbery said. “Each year, the Civic Garden Ctr. funnels grants our way, as one of their ‘Neighborhood Gardens Program.’ They provide support in many ways, as does Turner Farm, who also helped found the Eco Garden. We work to bring groups of student volunteers through Urban Plunge, UGIVE, and the Peace Village.”