Day 4 - Growing Power's Distribution System, Going Off-Site, and FOOD!

Today was very eventful (everyday has been…), but in a different way. I spent a lot of time off-site. Growing Power has 4 sites total in Milwaukee:

1. The main site / headquarters at Silver Springs,
2. Will's Farm - about 5 minutes away from his house, where most of Growing Power's produce comes from during the summer months
3. A place called Merdan
4. And then a cemetery which has greenhouses that Growing Power uses… yes a cemetery!

We went to The Forest Home Cemetery and brought some plants/pots over from Growing Power's headquarters (where I live and work most days.) They grow lots and lots of salad greens in these 4 greenhouses, just like the 14 at the headquarters.

As we were loading the plants out of the truck, a van next to us was unloading a body box (which was a cardboard box with a dead body in it!) and bringing it to the incinerator. You'll see smoke coming out of the chimney on some days – luckily not today!

Anyway, here's a little bit more info about the Growing Power distribution system. All the salad greens and sprouts that Growing Power grows are harvested each week and put into individual bags. Some are sold in the storefront, but most go into what's called "market baskets." These market baskets are distributed to anyone who wants them and there are 3 different sizes: a "senior basket" for $9 (called a senior basket because they intentionally leave out things that some senior citizens can't have, like oranges which have a lot of acids in them), then there's another basket for $17 which is approximately a week's supply of vegetables for a family of 2-3, and the largest basket is for $28 which is approximately a week's supply of vegetables for a family of 4.

Some of the food that's included in these market baskets right now (during winter) include: sweet potatoes, potatoes, oranges, apples, bananas, garlic, onions, sprouts, salad greens, spinach, bell peppers, and sometimes celery, carrots and a bag of mixed nuts (peanuts, brazil nuts, hazelnuts and walnuts.) People are able to purchase a "market basket" whenever they please. They don't need to buy one every week, but some people do. There are different "pickup points"… so everyone who buys this market basket doesn't need to come to Growing Power headquarters (they can, if it's convenient for them.) They can also pick it up at a school that's partnered with Growing Power, a conservatory (in Chicago they do this) or at the local farmers market. One thing to note is that this time of year, Growing Power does not grow a majority of the food in these baskets. Rather, it's from a farmers coop; a group of farmers that come together to sell their produce, and they split the profits. I'm not sure how many of these baskets get sold per week, but it's a lot (well over 100 to my knowledge.)

There's no meat in these baskets, but people can also purchase high-quality meat (grass-fed cattle that had a good life, as well as chickens and pigs... all are local.)

I'm getting tired tonight and this blog takes a lot of my limited free time while I'm here in the intern house – I haven't got a chance to read much since I've been here, or write in my journal since we're always doing something (working 8am-5pm and then cooking as a house usually after.) So I'm not going to rant as I was planning on doing tonight. I'll tell you what I was going to rant about and then you can ponder it for yourself.

I had a conversation with another roommate, named Chris, who volunteers here many days a week. Chris is great – he doesn't get paid at all, he usually sleeps in the small shed, but since it's very cold now he sleeps in the intern house. Chris used to own a book store for 33 years, he is an avid gardner and is a great conversationalist. We talked a lot about how America has so much food waste, and there are so many people around the world who don't have anything. We have such an abundance of food here at Growing Power… but not just here – it's everywhere. America has so much and places like Africa have so little.

Today we had an entire 18-wheeler full of food that was given to use by local supermarkets. All of the food wasn't able to be sold...it was considered "old" and no-good... so they were going to throw it all away. Growing Power takes it and composts it all…which is certainly better than throwing it away (it gets turned into soil and then regenerates the land to grow more food) yet there are so many starving people who would/need to eat this food to survive. The way the world works is beyond my comprehension sometimes… it really is sad how uneven the playing field is. It happens in this country, too.

A video of my roommate Jon talking about compost!

That's all I'm going to say for tonight. But I wish I had taken my camera with me to show you all a visual of how much food was being thrown away in ONE WEEK…from just a couple of grocery stores. Thousands of pounds…

…And some of it was still good! So me being me, put 4 boxes aside and brought it back to the intern house. We have about 50 red-bell peppers that were not going to be sold or eaten by anyone. So what is one to do with re

d-bell peppers? Stuff them of course.

Here's a visual of what our after-work (tonight) entailed. So much abundance! Yet this is about 1/1000th of the food we threw away today. I want to leave you with some goodness after talking about something that may anger/sadden some people.

Now we are stuffed! We did this with apples last night (about 30 apples that were unable to be sold... we made apple sauce out of them.)

Tip of the day: just do the best you can with what you have, live as positive a life as one can, treat others kindly and do not judge. We are all one and the same, we are all beings on this planet and we all deserve to be happy. Food is something that brings everyone together, no matter what your background, nationality, skin color or religion.

Cheers,

Ryan