Clockwise from top left: The 2023 Community Advocate team; Leah and Farida prepare to survey neighbors; the entire Community Engagement cohort; Food Justice Network Apprentice KJ |
Exploring the Garden with Students
As a Youth Engagement and Garden Coordinator, I get to experience immersive moments with the students. For Farm-to-School Week, The CSG team escorted chickens from Charlottesville High School on field trips to see the elementary students. Scratching and snacking in the grass at Burnley-Moran Elementary, the hens grazed while surrounded by curious student spectators. The students approached the chickens with an excited but gentle curiosity, smoothing their feathers with care. As a class, we noted the beauty of their colorful patterns and we considered how chickens create rich soil in the garden.
The students and I plunged deeper into the soil with earthworm lessons. Gazing into the many layers of the “earthworm hotel,” also known as a vermicompost chamber, students marveled at the soil superheroes. With magnifying glasses and trowels, we searched the garden together, discovering an abundance of earthworms. The students screamed with surprise when they learned that earthworm poop, called castings, is the key to healthy soil and therefore everything we eat. Earthworms and chickens, the unsung caretakers of a thriving food system, impressed the students through close-up interactions. What better place than the garden to allow the students to explore these essential creatures?
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Second grade students explore in the Clark Elementary garden |
Jordan planting alongside students and staff at Lugo McGinness Academy | |
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UAC Farm Manager Jenifer Minor |
Reflecting on the Growing Season
There’s intrinsic value in service to others that often can’t be quantified adequately. There’s something inherently powerful that should be celebrated in reclaiming, and reframing, a family history in our own way. And, it goes without saying, that there is an unspeakable beauty in instilling those passed-down, vital skills, and that powerful history to our children so that generations to come will take pride in the past.
Jenifer Minor has selflessly served the people of Charlottesville for many years through the Urban Agriculture Collective. As one of the founding members of what was first the QCC Urban Farm at Friendship Court and UAC farm manager, she has touched the lives of young people and elders alike. Jenifer provides the comfort of knowing that neighbors can rely on her tireless efforts in the community urban farms to assist them with access to fresh, locally-grown produce. Jenifer works diligently to meet community needs with an intentional reverence for nature.
The story didn’t start with her. Jenifer has roots as deep as ironweed in Virginia, and a strong family legacy in farming. Her people were among those that labored at Stratford Hall, and Bracketts Farm (which to this day boasts the oldest wooden structure in existence in the US), and she comes from powerful women. Her ancestor, Nancy Minor overcame her former owner after emancipation, and fought to successfully retrieve her child that was illegally taken from her at that time. The family thrived and spread across central Virginia and as far north as Philadelphia. Jenifer continues to pass down the legacy on the land and the healing aspects of service to her community by cultivating those values in her daughter Markajah.
As Markajah’s mom, Jenifer continues the family legacy of empowering her daughter on the land through Cultivate Charlottesville’s Youth Food Justice Intern program. As time goes on, Markajah will carry this beautiful family, and the power of the Minor name for generations to come in the Charlottesville community. |
Jenifer with her daughter Markajah and some of her Cultivate coworkers |
If you are interested in working with Urban Agriculture Collective as a volunteer, or would like to provide in-kind material support please contact amyrose@cultivatecharlottesville.org or volunteer@cultivatecharlottesville.org. |
Cultivate Charlottesville Food Justice Network hosts our virtual large group gatherings on the fourth Wednesday of February, April, June, August, October, and December from 10:30am-12:00pm.
Our theme for 2023 is How Are We Implementing the Food Equity Initiative Policy Platform. Each month we are digging deep into one of the policy planks and sharing with each other how we are aligned with or advancing the goals of that plank. Each meeting will include a Partner Profile from someone fully engaged in the plank theme as well as opportunities for each of us to reflect and share how our work advances the plank goals.
April Food Justice Network Large Group Meeting
In April we continued our exploration of the Food Equity Initiative with a discussion of the second plank of the policy platform: The Power to Grow: Advancing Affordable Housing and Urban Agriculture. Our topic of conversation this month was to examine how our work aligns with or fosters the goals of advancing affordable housing and urban agriculture. Thank you to our guest speakers for leading these inspiring conversations: IRC New Roots Food & Agriculture Programs Manager Cecila Lapp Stoltzfus and New Roots AmeriCorps Service Member Dustin Hicks; Cultivate Co-ED & UAC representative Richard Morris; Cultivate Community Advocates Michele Gibson, Rosia Parker, Mary Anderson, Ashley Freeman, Farida Osmanova, and Rosa Key; Livable Cville Co-Chair Steven Johnson; Charlottesville Public Housing Association of Residents (PHAR) Board Chair Ms. Joy Johnson; and Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority Redevelopment Coordinator Brandon Collins.
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The team at our second workday transplanting a yard full of plants for a neighbor at Westhaven |
The 2023 Farm Bill
Cultivate Charlottesville is a core member organization of the HEAL Food Alliance, which is a multi-sector, multi-racial coalition building collective power to transform our food and farm systems. Over 2 million rural and urban farmers, fishers, farm and food chain workers, indigenous groups, scientists, public health advocates, policy experts, community organizers, and activists are members as well.
HEAL is calling on the 118th Congress to craft Farm Bill legislation that supports thriving futures for all people and our planet. The farm bill is some of the most powerful federal legislation shaping the United States’ food and farm system. It impacts all of us living here, as well as communities around the world.
In a nutshell, the Farm Bill is a collection of food and agriculture laws, programs, and funding that congress passes every 5 to 7 years. It determines what food farmers grow, what consumers eat, and how we access food. Because of the central role food plays in our economy and our daily lives, the farm bill impacts our health, our jobs, our environment, and for many, even where we live.
A lot of people assume that our food and farm system operates in an open market, where farmers grow what consumers want to eat, and consumers pay for that food. In reality, the farm bill is what really pays for large portions of what we eat and how that food is grown, harvested, processed, and transported. The farm bill is funded by the federal government - aka us taxpayers. It's our bill. (The most recent farm bill cost about $428 billion).
For ways to take action, check out HEAL Food Alliance Farm Bill Guide HERE
For more information: www.healfoodalliance.org |
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At Cultivate Charlottesville we believe that working together to grow gardens, share food and power, and advocate for just systems cultivates a healthy community for all. |
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