Foundation Journal

Harvesters food bank in Kansas City kicked off a new project to provide unusable produce to Missouri Organic for their composting business. Prior to this initiative the food bank was disposing the rotten produce in the trash, which was destined for area landfills. The funding for the project was partially provided by a grant. The project included building a concrete pad behind the agency loading area to hold a dumpster, a garage door leading from the loading area to the pad, and a gravel drive leading to Topping Avenue. Harvesters pays Missouri Organic to transport the dumpster to their composting operation. Some of these photos depict the first dumpster provided to the composting business.

Will Allen with Milwaukee-based Growing Power described an astonishing collection of the group's food projects during the "Abolish Food Deserts" presentation at the Anita Gorman Conservation Discovery Center on August 27, 2011. Some have called the efforts of this organization a "good food revolution." Taking the pulse of participants of the event indicate there are a number of food growers and advocates willing to join the movement or re-double efforts here in Kansas City. "Abolish Food Deserts" event in Kansas City on August 27, 2011 (from left): Sasteh Mosley with Green Acres Urban Farm and Research Project, Will Allen with Growing Power, and Ernest Bradley with Lincoln University--St. Louis Urban Impact Center. Local growers, farmers, and advocates could barely contain their enthusiasm after the presentation, asking practical questions about the array of methods and practices described by Allen. Local growers asked about worms, composti...

There's always a pleasant surprise during visits to sites on the KC Urban Farm Tour. This year was no different when a lively discussion on growing plants from seeds ensued at City Bitty Farm. The owners of City Bitty, a husband and wife team, gave tours of their 2.5 acre property, which included a demonstration tunnel, large rainwater container, and microgreens. One of the tour participants asked Jennifer of City Bitty Farm about their success with growing edible plants from seeds, mentioning his difficulty in consistent plant growth this year. Others described how they saved and used seeds. Another person added that corporate seed producers are engineering the seeds to prevent using them in subsequent years. Still another tour participant remarked that a failsafe way to find seeds that allow growers to save plant seeds is to use "heirloom" varieties. Someone else in the tour group mentioned that Belton's new policy on beekeeping has affected their growing. ...

I woke last night about 3 a.m. with clenched fists, the kind of tension that made me think if I had actually been sleeping for the last 4 hours since going to bed. There are plenty of events or situations in one's life to get upset or stressed over: a collapsed light pole left unattended and increased dumping in the Dunbar residential neighborhood near work in Kansas City; half the houses leveled, some recently bulldozed, on a friend's block on Brooklyn; shrinking payrolls and teacher layoffs due to state budget deficits; a car driver not giving me clearance on a morning run through residential streets; US admonishing the Mideast nations to not engage in violence to solve problems despite engaging in this approach for years; a co-worker's description of being blacklisted by police from traveling in his old Paseo corridor neighborhood; or a KC city council candidate describing police intimation driving through his own neighborhood. Any one of these problems could raise a p...

The Kansas City Food Policy coalition met today to discuss distribution and production policy as a committee of the group. As meeting facilitator Katherine Kelly with the KC Center for Urban Agriculture indicated in her email announcement, the meeting focused "on policy issues that affect the production, distribution, and access of healthy, local food...which will be taking the lead on figuring out what city/state/federal policy initiatives we could create or get involved in that would help strengthen the local farming and distribution community." As a newcomer to the group interested in their direction and progress, I noted there was a good collection of representatives from many different types of organizations: local growers, CSA distributors, government health educators, financial foundation sponsors, environmental groups, and university agriculture programs. Several individuals addressed jobs for urban core youth and economic development for the same area. The food...

Noreen's Harvesters crew (left to right): Carlos, Maegan, James, Josh, Noreen, Doug, and Matt Harvesters employees took time out of their workday to learn about cooperative urban farms on Kansas City's east side. A light rain fell as Sasteh Mosley started the tour Wednesday, September 22 on the drive to the "Garden of Eden" farm just north of 27th and Prospect Avenue. Frequently we miss out on learning about alternative ventures like the farms on the tour because of our busy schedule working in the warehouse and offices at Harvesters. Today we got a good breakdown of the variety of urban farms on the tour. I'm amazed at all the connections Mosley's group East Meets West of Troost bringing youth to jobs on the urban farms, meeting with neighborhood associations, engaging government agencies, as well as larger nonprofits with organizational depth and funding. Mosley reflects on his family's connection and legacy to the neighborhood, adding that he ...

The Tomato Fair brought out a sizable crowd to Farrand Farms at 5941 Noland Road in Kansas City, Missouri on August 1, 2009. The full parking lot was a testament to the crowd size. The nursery farm is located in the Little Blue River valley between Raytown, Independence, Lee's Summit, and Kansas City. The event was well-organized by the nursery gardens owner as they had a lot of activities focused on the featured vegetable -- the tomato. There was a tomato tasting area, salsa tasting, tomato cooking demonstration, tour of a large demonstration tomato garden, several booths from local groups, and activities for kids. Locally grown produce, was one of the themes that several people talked about during the morning festival. Festival-goers heard Chef Jasper Mirabile, Jr. talk about using locally grown garlic and basil in his Italian recipes used at his south KC restaurant, Jasper's . Ginger Johnson, a master gardener with the new Heartland Harvest Garden at Powell Gardens in Kin...

Jane and I participated in the Kansas City Urban Farms and Gardens Tour on Sunday, June 28, 2009. The tour included a week of activities – educational, food tasting, and other activities to inspire healthy food advocates. We visited three sites – Harvesters food bank 's demonstration garden at 3801 Topping Ave (that's where I work!); Juniper Gardens at 1st and Richmond in Kansas City, Kansas; and Hun's Family Garden , 4730 Metropolitan Ave also in Kansas City, Kansas. At Harvesters food bank's demonstration garden we saw how volunteers had planted a wide variety of plants to show food bank visitors alternatives for growing their own food. The tour of Juniper Gardens started at the place where makeshift sheds and offices were set up on a recovered housing development land. The land was situated on the bluff over the Kansas River. If you look east from the community garden you can see the profile of downtown Kansas City. There were several large garden plots that were p...