Beginning in June, the Kent County Health Department began publishing a monthly newsletter for distribution at the Southeast Area Farmers’ Market. Pick up your copy next time you shop at the market: Friday Night Farm Stand, 3 – 7 p.m. at Garfield Park, Burton & Madison SE, or the Main Market, Saturdays 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Gerald R Ford School, Madison & Franklin SE.
There are a lot of goodies in store for fresh food fans at the Southeast Area Farmers’ Market, which kicked off its 2013 season on Saturday, June 1 at Gerald R. Ford Middle School (851 Madison Ave. SE) in Grand Rapids. The Saturday market will be open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. through the first week of November.
Beginning June 7, a Friday Farm Stand Market will take place, on a smaller scale, from 3 – 7 p.m. at Garfield Park, located between 1558 Madison Ave. SE and 2799 Madison Ave. SE.
Then, on June 22, the market will host its official Grand Opening Celebration with special activities and music — and an even greater selection of fresh, locally grown, chemical-free produce.
Our Kitchen Table (OKT), located at 8 Jefferson SE, Grand Rapids inside The Bloom Collective, manages the market, and there is even more in store for the rest of the summer and into fall. Market partners Kent County Health Department and Greater Grand Rapids Food Systems Council will host additional market activities throughout the season.
– June 7, Weekly Walking Club kicks off
– June 29, Healthy cooking demo with a local chef
– July 6, Urban Foraging Workshop. Learn about local edible “weeds”
– July 27, Healthy Cooking demo with a local chef
– August 3, Make Your Own Hypo-allergenic Soap Workshop
– August 24, Healthy Cooking demo with a local chef
– August 31, Healthy Cooking demo with a local chef
– September 7, Art at the Market
– September 28, Healthy cooking demo with a local chef
– October 12, Greens Cook-off and Fried Green Tomato Festival
– October 26, Food Day Activities and Healthy Cooking demo with a local chef
Our Kitchen Table is a nonprofit, grassroots community activist organization working for environmental justice and food security in Grand Rapids area urban communities. OKT’s Food Diversity Program is funded by a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
Get involved:
– Visit Our Kitchen Table’s website.
– Grow a Garden.
– Go to the Farmers’ Market!
The Southeast Area Farmers’ Market kicks off its 2013 season on Saturday June 1 at Gerald R Ford Middle School. This Saturday market will be open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. through the first week of November. Beginning June 7, a Friday Farm Stand Market will take place, on a smaller scale, at Garfield Park from 3 to 7 p.m.Our Kitchen Table, managers of the market, has an exciting line-up of market activities on the calendar. The following OKT sponsored events will take place from 12 to 2 p.m. at the Saturday market:
The Tolbert’s greens were a hit all season long during the 2012 market.
June 29 Healthy cooking demo with a local chef
On June 22, the market will host its official Grand Opening Celebration with special activities and music—and a greater selection of fresh, locally grown chemical-free produce. Market partners, Kent County Health Department and Greater Grand Rapids Food Systems Council will host additional market activities throughout the season.
Over the winter, Lisa Oliver-King, executive director of Our Kitchen Table, joined the women of the Inner City Community Advocates (ICCA) for their Lose Big Challenge, a motivational physical activity and nutrition education program offered to inner-city Grand Rapids, Michigan residents with diabetes or hypertension. Oliver-King found the program to be extremely helpful. Because it does not operate over the summer, she had the idea of starting a free walking club affiliated with the Southeast Area Farmers’ Market, which OKT manages.
While the Market has intermittently offered music and dance-exercise during open hours, the walking club will increase opportunity for patrons to add exercise as well as healthy foods to their lifestyle. “Being healthy isn’t just about good eating, it’s about motion,” Oliver-King says. “The walking club will get us going and feeling good without the burden of cost.”
Beginning June 1, Walkers will meet at 10:30 a.m. Saturdays at Gerald R Ford school and/or 6:30 p.m. Fridays at Garfield Park. Neighborhood residents of all fitness levels are welcome to join. Oliver-King’s goal is to be fit enough to handle a 5-K walking event by next fall.
“It’s not only about exercise,” she says. “We will be in the park, connecting with the land and with nature, learning about the trees. And, we will be in the neighborhoods, connecting with our neighbors.”
The Well House greenhouse is growing a wide variety of food plants
Well House, a group of homes on Grand Rapids’ southeast side that provide safe, affordable housing for people who have been homeless, is expanding its gardening program at 600 Cass Ave. SE and will sell produce at the 2013 Southeast Area Farmers’ Market. According to Jeff Smith and Camilla Voelkers, Well House’s urban farmers and food justice educators, the garden program continues the legacy of its founder, Miriam Clemens, to engage in self-sufficient practices such as growing food, saving seeds and canning. “These activities support Well House residents, the adjacent neighborhood and, to some degree, the community at large,” Smith says. (He is also an OKT collaborative partner.)
“Were working on creating a … closed loop garden where wastes are composted and put back into the garden,” Voelkers adds. “We’re planting fruit trees and berry bushes, too.”
The community that frequents the Southeast Area Farmers’ Market will benefit from a wide variety of Well House produce: greens, heirloom tomatoes, sweet and hot peppers, squash, cucumbers, carrots, beets, radishes, broccoli, cauliflower, herbs and two varieties of mushrooms—shiitake and oyster.
Profits from market sales will go back into the Well House garden program and its other projects. “Selling at this market in parts of the city where there is the least amount of access to fresh produce is a food justice matter,” Smith says. “(and it will) spread the word about what we’re doing here at Well House. Smith and Voelkers invite community members to join them for Well House garden activities. For information, call them at 616-245-3910.
In 2012, Lila Cabbill (left) facilitated a local community dialogue with OKT and renowned chef and food justice activist, Bryant Terry (right front).
As Our Kitchen Table heads into its third year of managing the Southeast Area Farmers’ Market, the management team is looking at ways to make the market sustainable, with the ultimate goal of turning over the market to community. One tool is the development of a market manual. OKT is engaging Lila Cabbil, facilitator and president emeritus of the Rosa Parks Institute, to develop this manual.
In addition to outlining operations protocols, staff job descriptions and budget items, Cabbil will develop guidelines for developing staff skills and community events through the lenses of food justice, public health and empowering women of color.
“Mrs. Cabbil will help us define what needs to be taken into consideration when trying to create a neighborhood market that neighbors walk to. She will help us explore how we can present the market in different forms, for example, as a farm stand one day a week or as a house-call market,” says Lisa Oliver-King, executive director of OKT. “We hope to create a new model that better serves the needs of the community. Mrs. Cabbil will help us develop this model.”
In 2011 and 2012, Mrs. Cabbill worked with Our Kitchen Table staff on team building and with the farmers’ market partners.Prior to her facilitation work, Mrs. Cabbill worked alongside Rosa Parks for decades. She is also author of the book Accountability and White Anti-Racist Organizing: Stories from Our Work.
One of Our Kitchen Table’s founding members, Darlene Gibbons is also one of the Southeast Area Farmers’ Markets’ most faithful vendors. A 1974 graduate of Ottawa Hills High School, Ms. Gibbons has deep ties to the neighborhoods the market serves—even though her small farm is located in Allendale.
If you’ve been to the farmers’ market the past few weekends, no doubt you have chatted with Ms. Gibbons and admired the chemical free produce she has grown. As a staunch advocate for community improvement, she expends a lot of energy advocating for environmental and social justice right here in the Grand Rapids area.
If you have a conversation with this soft spoken grandmother, you’ll no doubt discover her heart for justice as well as a great depth of political and historical knowledge.
Ms. Gibbons is also a college student—and the mother of two successful college graduates. This past spring, her son Dr. Baron Colbert, 30, received his PhD from Michigan Technological University. He lives in the Upper Peninsula with his wife and four children. Her son Brandon Colbert, 27, who earned his Master’s Degree in Sociology this year, works as a Regional Director of Leadership Platform Acquisitions, in Washington, DC.
In addition to gardening, Ms. Gibbons spends time reading about social justice issues, quilting and sewing for her grandchildren.
Don’t forget to stop by the Southeast Area Farmers’ Markets this weekend: 2 – 7 p.m. Friday at Gerald R Ford Middle School or 10 – 3 Saturday at Garfield Park. Both market locations accept cash, debit cards, EBT/SNAP, Double Up Food Bucks, WIC Project Fresh and Kent County Health Department coupons.
Artist and musician, Derrick “Vito” Hollowell and the Vegtible Brothers set the musical tone for a fun, successful grand opening last weekend. Come out to the market this weekend for your fill of fresh, local, chemical free produce as well as herbs and hand made craft items. You can also sign up for DHS/United Way 2-1-1 “Bundled Benefits” while you are at the market!
Do you wish you had access to the produce sold at the farmers’ market all year long? Beginning Saturday, OKT will host monthly “Preserving the Harvest” skill-sharing sessions in conjunction with the Saturday Southeast Area Farmers’ Market.
The Saturday skill-shares will take place from 2 to 4 p.m. so you can shop at the Southeast Area Farmers’ Market and the stop by to learn how to preserve the produce you just purchased. OKT especially hopes that learning how to preserve produce will add even more value for folks making purchases with Double Up Food Bucks. Also, if you learn how to preserve fresh produce, you don’t have to worry about it spoiling before you have a chance to eat it.
This weekend is the Southeast Area Farmers’ Market’s grand opening celebration. In addition to more produce and more vendors, both market locations will groove to the beats of Derrick “Vito” Hollowell and the Vegtible Brothers. Vito will also exhibit his artwork.
In addition, the grand opening will also feature children’s take-home crafts, face painting, card table games, jump rope, 2012 Farm Bill information, used book give-
away, United Way 2-1-1 Bundled Benefits, free iced tea and cold water–as well as these scheduled events:
Gerald R Ford Middle School, Friday 2 – 7 p.m.
Garfield Park, Saturday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Shoppers purchasing produce with EBT/SNAP/Bridge Cards will receive a free kitchen utensil. Both market locations accept cash, debit cards, EBT/SNAP, Double Up Food Bucks, WIC Project Fresh and Kent County Health Department coupons.
Our Kitchen Table 