Spring Growth at NCFA
Dear Friends and Supporters,
Happy spring! Are you enjoying the transition from a chilly, grey landscape to sun, warmth, and sprouting plants? Here at NCFA we’re excited by the onset of the growing season! We’re ramping up our programs to make the most of this time of prolific plant life. Read our updates below to learn what we have in store!
In Solidarity for a Better World,
Haakon, Mae, Will, Sasha, Alison, May, Catherine, Mark, Bozena, Nick, Celeste, Maria, Fatuma
(The Workers of NCFA)
Program Updates
Foodshare
Our foodshare program is staying strong and steady! We continue to move around 36,000 pounds of food a month, supplying local organizations with fresh, high-quality food that would otherwise go to waste. An exciting opportunity emerged this winter as the Minneapolis Public School system approached us with literal tons of food! Several school cafeterias had huge amounts of overstock because students were learning from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, they donated nearly 6,000 pounds of food to NCFA through January and February! We in turn delivered this food to local community groups who cook meals for our unhoused neighbors. Thank you to Minneapolis Public Schools for making sure your excess food went to people with limited access!
Two volunteers from Community Kitchen at First Congregational Church taking in a portion of the bounty to cook for our unhoused neighbors.
We also have lots of plans for the coming year. Our foodshare team is laying the groundwork for harvests of excess crops and direct purchasing from local farms. These local food recovery efforts began last year with the help of The Food Group, and we’re excited to expand the program in the coming months! Big thanks to everyone who volunteered and helped make this program a success. If you’d like to be notified of volunteer opportunities in the future, please sign up to our volunteer list below.
Garden
Winter is a quiet time for the garden, but things are ramping up now that spring is here! NCFA workers are busy building raised beds at the Charles Horn Towers garden. These elevated beds will help improve accessibility for the senior population at the public housing facility. We’re also developing our partnership with the Somali American Farmers Association (SAFA). SAFA plans to implement a cultural foods program to connect Somali elders and youth to the garden’s produce.
NCFA workers Haakon and May putting together a raised bed at Charles Horn Towers.
We plan on further expanding our North Minneapolis garden with additional raised beds supplied by the Garden in a Box Program from the Minnesota State Horticultural Society (MNHS). A huge thank you for MNHS for their continued support, and for all their work to make gardening more accessible!
We’re also excited to welcome a new worker to the NCFA team—May, the prospective garden coordinator for the North Minneapolis garden! May comes to us with years of experience in farming, mutual aid work, and food justice organizing. We’re all looking forward to seeing what her talents will bring to the garden project!
Both our gardens will need additional volunteer help soon! We’re so thankful for all the volunteers who joined us in weeding, watering, and harvesting produce from these gardens. If you’d like to get connected to future volunteer opportunities, please subscribe to our volunteer list using the button below!
Other Updates
Spring Forward MN: May 1-11, 2021
GiveMN—the organization that hosts Give to the Max Day—is hosting yet another springtime fundraising event. This one will take place May 1st to 11th on NCFA’s GiveMN page. Your generosity made this last Give to the Max Day an amazing success, and are hoping to match that enthusiasm this time around! We have a goal of $6,000 for this upcoming fundraiser. Your help is essential to maintain our expanded programming: we now have two community gardens with free food distributions, plus a local food recovery program that includes gleaning and direct purchasing from local farms. Please be sure to mark your calendar and watch for more details on our GiveMN page and in the next newsletter!
Grants
NCFA is fortunate to be the upcoming recipient of two co-op round up programs: Wedge/Linden Hills in June and Lakewinds in July. If you’re unfamiliar with this program, here’s the overview: co-ops ask their customers to round up at the register to the nearest dollar. The sum of all this change over the course of a month is donated to a chosen nonprofit, which typically totals over $10,000! A huge thank you to Wedge/Linden Hills and Lakewinds Co-ops for selecting us for their round up programs! If you shop at either of these locations, be sure to round up at the register during our round up month to support food sovereignty in the Twin Cities Metro.
We’re also very happy to announce that we received a $19,500 grant from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) for our Horn Towers garden! This comes as surprising and joyful news, as they initially told us we did not receive this grant. However, they were able to secure additional funding and chose NCFA as the final recipient! We’re so grateful for this stroke of fortune, and would like to extend our gratitude to the MDA for awarding us these significant grant funds.
Meet Our New Workers!
Thanks to grant funding from Hunger Solutions, we were able to hire three temporary workers to assist with our foodshare program. We’re happy to announce that two of those workers are now regular staff! Meet Celeste and Fatuma below!
Celeste - Foodshare and Garden Worker
Celeste loves having her hands in the dirt, and all aspects of food sovereignty, from heirloom seed keeping, gardening, feeding the people, composting to rebuild soil and co-creating worlds of regenerative abundance.
Fatuma - Interpreter
Fatuma had her own business in Kenya and now lives at Horn Towers. She interprets Somali for fellow residents as needed with appointments, housing, and food assistance.
We’re also happy to have a new canvasser working with us:
Bozena - Canvasser
Bozena has worked around food for several years, from living in a food distribution house, to slinging produce at the co-op, to farming in the MN river valley, and is excited to hone her fundraising skills with NCFA. In her free time, she likes to play the fiddle, carve spoons, and spend time with the Mississippi river.
Finally, our search for a new coordinator for the Northside garden led us to May. We’re so excited to have her on board!
May - Prospective Garden Coordinator
May is a farmer and sometimes a punk singer, and is committed to both police and prison abolition and food sovereignty as anti-colonial practices. Her main interests are hauling heavy things around in the garden, playing synthesizer, making potions, and talking to worms. The shovel in her picture is full-sized and she is twenty feet tall.
Support Our Work
Your participation is integral to maintaining our expanded level of programming! A huge percentage of our revenue comes from individual donors. We rely on your contributions to increase land access through community gardening, strengthen the local food system with direct purchasing from small farms, and distribute thousands of pounds of food for free every week. Thank you for your generosity and on-going support!