Photo courtesy of Core El Centro
Milwaukee has a fruitful history of nonprofits and community collaborations striving to make fresh, healthy food accessible for everyone through gardening programs. The aftermath of the pandemic has created more of a demand for good food, and nonprofits are creatively working within its confines. We caught up with some nonprofits to see how they’re retooling to continue their missions during COVIS-19 restrictions.
Teens Grow Greens is a skill-building paid internship that offers hands-on education about nutritious food production for Milwaukee-area youth. Since forming in 2014, the organization has used Weber’s Greenhouse (4215 N. Green Bay Ave.) as their experimental learning facility. In 2018, Teens Grow Greens purchased Weber’s to employ graduates of the program, creating a home base and community hub.
This season, Teens Grow Greens has moved all educational sessions online, says co-founder and Executive Director Charlie Uihlein. During the summer, the teens mentor third, fourth and fifth graders, which Uihlein says will be more difficulty because of social distancing. They are adjusting the programming to partner with local gardens within walking distance of teens’ homes so they can avoid public transportation. Teens will either take home the harvested product, along with recipes, to create healthy meals for their families, or they will donate harvested produce to a nearby food bank.
Students also received grow kits to grow produce at home. “A big part of Teens Grow Greens is healthy living and learning how to grow food, and they would usually do that at Weber’s. Now they can’t go to Weber’s, so we dropped off grow kits with seeds, instructions and soil so they can grow and study the plants,” Uihlein says. They’ve also partnered with Funky Fresh Spring Rolls for a virtual cooking class. Their annual Chef’s Dinner was pushed back to October.
Core El Centro (130 W. Bruce St., Suite 300) is an integrative health and wellness center with gardening and nutrition programs in English and Spanish. Over the last year-plus, they’ve transitioned their rooftop garden atop the Clock Shadow Building into an education garden for herbalism classes. There’s also an apiary for honey production. The organization partners with Turtle Creek Gardens to offer a community supported agriculture (CSA) program, set to start in June.
Rebeca Heaton Juarez, Core El Centro’s program director, notes that most of the organization’s vast programming has paused during the pandemic, but they hope to offer a “cooking from your CSA box” class in June. “We’re planning on increasing programming for children to do some gardening work,” Heaton Juarez says. “With that, we’re going to be doing online virtual summer camps.” They will film videos from the garden, and the organization will provide kits with seeds and soil so families can mimic what’s happening on the rooftop garden.
Heaton Juarez emphasizes the importance of nutrition and self-care, especially during the pandemic. “We want to help alleviate the stress that’s happening from this situation, because when people are stressed, their immune system goes down.”
Ann Brummitt, the co-executive director of Victory Garden Initiative (249 E. Concordia Ave.), is carrying on founder Gretchen Mead’s mission of addressing food insecurity. The organization was born from their annual Great Milwaukee Victory Garden Blitz, a community garden building event held in May. They’re in the process of renovating their urban farmhouse on Richards and Concordia, in the Harambee neighborhood. Their nearly two-acre adjoining arm produces an array of fresh produce.
With a focus on safety first, VGI staff began working remotely, with the exception of farm manager Aaron Wynn, and Joya Wade, community outreach coordinator, who runs community programs from the farmhouse and has been redeployed to help at the farm.
“Joya started a program in direct response to COVID to give away seeds and compost every Saturday. That’s something we knew we would could do right away, because there was an excess of both,” says Brummitt.
VGI had to change how they handle their signature event, the Blitz. Instead of using teams of volunteers from different organizations, VGI is using their staff, along with small teams of families from households that travel in their own cars and use their own garden tools.
The pandemic has unleashed economic hardships upon many wage earners, hindering their ability to feed their families. ‘We feel like the mission of helping people grow food and access fresh, nutritious free food is even more important, so we’re inviting Harambee residents to come to the farm and utilize our u-pick food forest,” says Brummitt.
VGI will also offer a pay-what-you-can farm stand, and a hybrid of socially distant programming and boxed activity kits to teach families about growing food.
