My three week stint at Growing Power has finished and I am back home in
They are under the compost right now, eating away the bananas, apples, orange peels and newspaper we fed them. We'll be adding tea and coffee grinds, sweet potatoes, other citrus fruits (they like all this stuff best) and then some other kitchen wastes / cardboard that they will also eat.
We became friends at Growing Power.
Our truly "Sustainable Kitchen" in Amherst, MA.
The remainder entry is going to focus on my entire time at Growing Power and the lasting impressions it had on me. I'll start with the people. Growing Power attracts such a diverse group of individuals: local volunteers of all ages, races and backgrounds – and long-stay interns from all over the country. People come to support their community, to learn how urban farming works and because they are interested in affordable sustainable food production for low-income areas ("food deserts".) I made some incredible friendships during my short stay that will last me a lifetime: I am so thankful to have met all of you.
I am leaving Growing Power with a head full of knowledge and a heart full of inspiration. One focus of mine will be collecting food wastes, coffee / tea grounds and other "waste" materials in the local community – thinking of starting of a composting business. I will begin forming relationships with grocery stores, coffee shops, breweries and restaurants – collecting their wastes on a weekly basis. Some things I'm going to need include:
- 5 gallon buckets! Buckets used for bulk food storage (pickle buckets) with lids – I need A LOT of! I'll be checking craigslist and freecycle… or if anyone has any or knows of a company that has excess and throws them away - please let me know!
- A plot of land (nearby) where I can do my large-scale composting. If anyone has some land in/around
- Along with the land, it would help enormously if there was a bobcat on-site that could be used weekly to turn the pile.
- A truck – I'm going to be trading in my Chevy Lumina for a used pickup truck. It's probably going to get beat up with all of the loads I'll be carrying – something cheap is what I'm looking for (any leads, let me know!)
- Possibly a dump truck, but not right away. This will depend completely on the quantity of waste I'm dealing with. Growing Power hauls away over 15,000 pounds of beer mash per month… which would be way too much for one person to handle shoveling!
- Also, I'm very interested in starting up a small-scale urban farm - a smaller, local Growing Power... who knows what the future beholds. If anyone else wants to exchange ideas, contact me: iamharb@gmail.com
Although excited to be home, I'm already missing those 15 greenhouses, the chickens, goats, turkeys, ducks and worms (but some came along), and all the great people working there. The great food, the routine, the lifestyle and even the shoveling manure and chipping. I learned a lot at Growing Power and it is an experience that I will never forget. Unfortunately I did not get to see much in terms of education and school partnerships during my 3 weeks at Growing Power. The other interns got to teach composting workshops to schools, but I wasn't there long enough.
And lastly... Will, you are a great man, but there is frustration among your staff. I have to be careful with what I say, because I don't want to get anyone at Growing Power in trouble. People come to Growing Power because they are interested in ending racism, fixing social inequity and for educating and feeding low-income urban communitites. The employees need to be more involved with the behind-the-scenes activities, and know more than 20% of what's going on. Please let this happen.
I'm going to stop there for tonight. I wish I had only positive things to say about Growing Power, but even the most progressive, do-only-good organizations have imperfections. To sum things up, my overall feeling is that any organization, once it gets successful, will begin to expand and will keep on expanding to get on-top. Then things start declining little by little. I think this might be in the beginning stages of happening at Growing Power. The un-seen things, such as employee moral, are being overlooked due to the bigger, visionary plans. A good practice is to keep things small and manageable (if that means stay small, then stay small) – things only get more complicated as you get larger. Why expand anyway? Money is one reason. Spreading your message to more people is another. I think my intern-housemate, Chris, sums things up well with this statement:
The best way to live life is to live simply, be compassionate and be generous. My addition is to love yourself for who you are and how you use your energy.
I think its inaccurate to say that Will Allen is allowing GP to expand to get more money. His motive is purely about getting affordable healthy food into the hands of people who need it most. Expansion can also happen simply because the word is getting out about GP and people are resonating with the cause. GP is Will's realm, sometime's it's hard to give up control out of a fear of losing the vision. The turn over is a sign that this is happening. He gets qualified people, but can't keep them because he needs to call all the shots, instead of sharing the control. Hopefully he'll learn how to do that for the good of GP, and its mission.
ReplyDeleteThe anonymous above is wrong. Turnover hapens because he and Erika are completely abusive people.
ReplyDelete