This blog post is the story of my time WWOOFing at the GlennArt farms in Chicago, as I arrived in preparation for Mayday for Money. (Separate blog post!). Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF). Woofing, for those who might not know, is a great exchange program where you get your basic needs of shelter and food met in exchange for labour, on a farm. There are so many Worldwide Opportunities to engage in this work, so if you feel like you need a vacation from your ol’ 9-5 and want to get your basic needs met, you can try WWOOFing.
I’d never worked closely with goats before so this was a really cool opportunity to get up close and personal with them there were 6 goats total at the farm, 4 fresh from this year babies 4 months old- Sammy, Grammy, Zuko and Rosco, and the older goats 1 year old Frodo, and Frannie , the only female. The farm was lovely, though in the phase of downsizing to only goat cuddles services, no longer reproducing or milking goats as the folks want to retire out of the business. The goat cuddle chill sessions were a great passive income for the farm owners, and rent from non-working housemates supplemented this even further.
The farm operates as a nonprofit, and is thus eligible to do awesome things like…
Receive the food donations from Whole foods!
Trigger warning: there is a lot of food waste in the world! so if you find the topic of food going to dumpsters because it can't be sold at market price any longer, then you should read on and learn more about how to get this sort of thing going in your community! Firstly, it must be noted that this kind of agreement is very hard to come by and takes years of negotiation of stakeholders, and trust building. But also, at the end of that, there’s always produce, products and miscellaneous crap being thrown out of big box stores. It’s beyond planned obsolescence, it's just the cost of doing business.
So... Imagine the usual kind of bag of goodies that Santa Claus slings over his shoulder. Now multiply that times 4-5 bags. That’s the amount of bread thrown out of a regular Whole Foods bakery weekly. Throw in 7 pies, 12, small cakes and 10 cannoli … and you’re getting close to imagining the bakery section of waste that we would pick up as part of our woof duties on the Glennart farm. Then, is the produce, often 30 mangoes past sell prime, lettuce, random veggies a little too old, eggs, milk,.. boxed goods and packages that have been damaged and frozen too close to the best by “date”… it would take about 1.5 hours to receive this at the back of the whole foods, and pack it up. This would be loaded up by our mastermind volunteer David and a volunteer (i volunteered as often as i could!) into a big business van in crates and boxes, destined to the urban suburban porch of Carolyn and David and their ministry who serves low income needy in the neighbourhood, primarily elderly people of color and dependent families.
A prayer circle would launch the Wednesday and Friday market day, and a boon of goodness would make it home to families in the neighborhood, as they packed it up in carts and reusable baggies. That’s how dumpster food can be avoided. If this seems like a tedious process, think of all the methane of those decomposing mangoes bread, and meats (EW!) in the whole foods dumpster instead- (which I'll add has a lid on it to make it inaccessible and discourage further dumpster diving. Luckily this scenario of intercepting food before the dumpster exists, and it is unclear how many hours of additional labor are needed from Whole Foods staff, but this sort of program needs to be incentivized in all localities so no food shall go to waste!
The porch would stay available with leftovers for the community- and then on the odd days that It was possible, I and other woofs would cart the leftovers downtown to distribute to the community at Pristzer Park, a meeting place of the immigrant and homeless community in downtown Chicago. a simple green line loop train away – you could be delivering ‘pan gratis’ to all kinds of folks who don't know how much waste the system we live under enables, and protects. Because when abundance exists, it must be hidden to maintain the illusion and scarcity and competition that dominate in our social un'conscience’. This illusion also maintains the separation of us and them and makes one question who is deserving to eat bread from Whole Foods.
Check out this live VIDEO That a friend recorded of us giving out the goodies downtown.
Ok enough about dumpsters, now you wanna hear about the great community garden Harambe right? Yeah thought so! There are garden beds to rent and a community child education garden with nice logs and a natural playground of wildflowers and stones and wood towers! I learned more about how composting works, and how to build a Hugle bed so that native plants and pollinators can thrive. There’s a greenhouse for starting the seeds in (which never ever serves the additional purpose of housing the homeless- discouraged- but did happen on many occasions... the ethics and security debate is hot on this.) But back to the safe topics- the best part is the grazing area for the goats- oh yeah – this is what a goat crossing looks like when they go from their usual pen in the garage to the chill penn in the garden 😊 behold the queers and the goats.
The Community Garden was amazing and they do pizza night every month with their built pizza oven, people from across the neighbourhood- members of the community garden bring the goods and toppings, there's music and karaoke and a good time all around.
because that’s what community building can be and I tasted it and it was beautiful and now I stay up dreaming about how to implement these miraculous ideas into my own community…
^ Unfinished project that i must go back to finish :) See you Soon Chicago!
Read my next blog about how I'm starting citizen science projects and crafting in Keystone Heritage Park.
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