Fruits of Labor

When we had an initial farmers market planning meeting, one of the things that was said was that "A market is successful when it becomes a destination." I have kind of been using that as my mantra for the summer as i plan larger events for every first Saturdays of July-November. Today i was talking to a lady on the phone who comes to the farm often and she actually said that the Farm has become a destination for her family. Even though she has not been to markets yet this year, the farm is a destination for her and, by way of the equation, it means that the farm is considered successful, so the fact that she actually said "destination", was really encouraging for me. Unfortunately i will not be here through the Market season to see if the fruits of my labor will bring more and more people on first Saturdays, but such is life i guess.

I have been teaching service learning workshops with the teens, this week was the second group i taught. This time around was really exhilarating. We have discussion questions in the beginning of the session, do the service project, then do some reflective mapping afterwards. The past two weeks, the to different groups of teens have gone to the Red Hook Senior Center to help serve food to the seniors. So in the beginning we talked about service and how the learning a really important part of it. I learned that most teens have not done any community service type work in their lives! I was surprised then really exited to be a part of some of their first experiences with community service because doing community service as a youth was one of the things that has molded me the most in the way i think about people, the things i know, and how i have envisioned my future. So we go to the senior center the first week and the supervisors had us preparing fork, spoon, knife combos. I thought it was a little menial but everyone was totally engaged and talking to each other and we figured out a little system part way into it utilizing the skills people were best at or enjoyed in the process of prep-ing utensil combos. We served the seniors and everyone was generally enjoying the experience and even wanted to stay for lunch so they could talk with the seniors. We debriefed afterwards and did a connections chart about all the possible effects of our work on the seniors, ourselves, our team and the world.
This week I went to the senior center again with a different group. This time we did some gardening. We brought compost to put on the tomatoes they are already growing and then we found a little weedy patch, weeded it, and planted some Nasturtium flower seeds we brought. Hopefully they will grow quickly and the youth will walk by sometimes and see the flowers growing there and think of it as a reminder and symbol of giving back to their community. We went in and served the food to the seniors and one youth, Rayquan said that it was actually more challenging than he thought it was going to be. So it was really nice to see them fully engaged. No one complained, people saw neighbors at the senior center which hopefully helps them put a face to who "old people" are to a community. Unfortunately we did not get to debrief about the day because of scheduling conflicts but i think it was a really valuable experience. It was even valuable for me as i have had almost no experience with senior issues. It helped me broaden my perspective on who vulnerable and valuable populations are and i was able to put faces on elderly people as a population which i have never really thought about as the older people i come in contact with are my family and i never really put family members in social boxes...which is another interesting thing to think about (another time) about why that is...

Other things I have been thinking about but are works in progress that i just need to get down here in writing:

7. how race plays out when the staff and market goers are majority-white and the youth employees and community are mostly people of color.

1. how I will function in the real world of work (timeliness, working on a computer, self-setting goals, etc.)

2. this burnt-out feeling that i am in a battle with

10. the "intern" role and how i can fully be fulfilled in it when it is on short term basis and i do not necessarily get to see my work come to fruition in the longer term AND the constraints of programming

5. whether i am interested in/ have it in me to facilitate teen programming (in the future)?

3. if I could live in NYC in my future. Is it overwhelming or always fun? dunno which side of the fence I'm on about that one.

8. Who's going to take over my responsibilities when i leave and will they do it right? will they use my system? Should i even care?

The hard thing about most of these questions is that they may be unanswerable and only time will know the answers. So I'll be patient.

The first Farmers Market was a hit! I set up two bands, a youth Bomba band and a Latin music band to set the tone, a cooking demonstration by Cornell Cooperative Extension and kids crafts. There were a lot of people there to shop and work on the farm and apparently Added Value made about twice as much money as they usually do at Markets...(maybe they were attracted by the music?? :)

I was really encouraged by the praise that i got from the staff afterwards. An unexpected encouragement came from the youth who said that they really liked the music and it really kept them focused on their work on the farm. I got really excited to plan for the next Markets!

There is more to come soon. this is just a short update.

Spreading Branches

This week has been a set of pre-event feelings. The first Farmers Market is on Saturday. So to get over my self-doubt about coordinating market events, I actually asked advice from the Program Coordinator at The Point in the South Bronx, our site visit for last Friday. I asked him how he got over the feeling like you weren't doing anything right or not well enough in his first assignments when he started. He "assured" me that i was going to make mistakes and that it was just a part of the job and that you learn from it and try again next time. It made me feel better that the was so casual about it and like it happens with anything when you are stepping into new waters professionally, personally, whatever. I felt better but I also thought about how, for example, in a non profit it seems like there is little room for error because if you are working with kids for example, and you screw up the academic year curriculum/schedule for an afterschool program, you have lost a whole year of kids that you could have more effectively helped. It seems like in a nonprofit where you may be working with "vulnerable populations" there isn't much room for error because sometimes the populations are fragile.

It was really great asking for advice from an outside source for overarching encouragement but when i went back to work on Tuesday, i still felt anxious about not having enough umph for Markets. Asking for advice at the Point and receiving reassuring and comforting and non-judgemental advice, I felt more comfortable talking to my supervisor about how i was feeling. She was also really receptive and understanding. She assured me that the work i was doing has never been done before and that anything that i did put together was more than they have ever had at markets and so everything that i did have was great. That was even more important for me to hear. I also talked to her about how sitting in the office all day trying to schedule everything was not my favorite thing to do and she totally understood. Later she discussed how we could schedule the rest of my summer now that the youth are here so that i can do office work but also get to be outside with the youth now that they are here.

One positive thing that I just realized today was that I am helping Added Value build relationships with other people and organizations who have similar interests. I have contacted many, many people about cooking demonstrations and information tables, i have given small farm tours and explained the farm to passer-bys, I created a flyer to spread the word about markets. This realization takes me back to my post about Keith Getter and how important forming relationships and making connections with people is. Along this note I personally received a job offer upon graduation, several contacts in NYC who are doing cool development work, met people who have connections to DC and Prince Georges County (my hometowns) and may be able to help me find an internship for the upcoming semester. So it is really exciting to be around great people who are doing cool things and to be learning the different connections and networks that can and have been made in the urban farm scene. One of my goals to accomplish through my work here was to learn the connections that Added Value has to other people and organizations. The staff here has been really instrumental in introducing me to their networks, giving me leads to untapped connections, and letting me research new ones.

* * *

Today was the youths' first day and it was fun. I am mostly un-knowledgeable about "teen psychology" except from my own experiences. So seeing how to program for teens was really interesting. It seemed almost a little childish sometimes but at the end i felt like they really enjoyed the activities that were set for them and that maybe the programming was perfect for them. So I am really excited to see how the summer progresses in terms of teen programming because i will be responsible for teaching a few service-learning classes soon. So i want to see what definitely works with them and what definitely does not.

So now everything is confirmed for Market on Saturday, I'm a little anxious still but more so excited, the youth have finally arrived, and I am ready to work on scheduling things for next week! (i am now realizing how little time i have to plan, plan, plan!)

Going to the Fortune Society last week was very eye opening. When we went the facility i was expecting to see people who looked like they needed mental help. All of the people living there looked like average, everyday citizens. I questioned why i would have even thought that ex-offenders would look different. One thing i realized was that ex-offenders and thier readjustment to society are somethings that alot of people dont talk about paired with my stereotype that people in "group homes" have mental disabilities. Which when i think about it makes no sense and i think it is because the only facilities i have visited in my life are ones that house the mentally disabled. I really appreciated the tour of the facilty and the degree of openness that Barry Campbell created to ask questions and talk to participants in the program.

This week I started to doubt my abilities to pull off my agreed upon task of coming up with fun, enriching activities for the Farmers Markets. It was Thursday and i looked at exactly what was confirmed for Saturday July 7th, the First Market. I had only one performer who had minimized the band size significantly to fit our budget, no information tables, no workshops, and one cooking demonstration. This did not sound very fun or enriching. So i began to think about how i got to this low point when i had been working on this for 3 weeks. So I assessed:

1. In reality I had only been working on it for about 12 days.
2. I was not pushing people to perform or come on the 7th though it was quickly approaching, rather I just wanted people to pick any day when they were available
3. I did not plan my days out ahead of time and set appropriate goals for each so that i would have everything done by this time.
4. I didnt ask for much guidance.

Overall it was mostly an office week and i was not on the farm. I realized also that i cannot be in an office for long and that i have to be doing active things in future. So this week has been really important for my professional development and task management endeavors.

Farm Daze

So, i definitely did write my first entry and it is currently lost somewhere in some other blog account. Anyways, last Friday, we went on a tour of Brooklyn (Forte Green mostly) with Keith Getter. I found it interesting that he knew so many people. I am really starting to understand the importance of just being a little friendly and being known in a community and how it is such an important resource when trying to accomplish goals as they are at Added Value, where I work, for example. One person who is connected to a lot of people is also beneficial for others and can serve as a liaison, connecting people who have similar professional, personal, or development interests to one another. So Keith knew a lot of people in all different parts of the neighborhood and genuinely seemed to care about them and tap them for their local knowledge, having them give us "lectures" as "professors" while he added on his knowledge of the place. His respect and inquiry for local knowledge was also really important in getting a real feel for Brooklyn life. We talked to a diverse bunch of people including a fruit stand salesman, a customer service representative in a Black-owned and operated local bank,a community elder, a female shop owner and longtime Brooklyn resident, etc.
During the trip, it was kind of awkward talking to, sometimes completely random people, and sometimes felt like we were invading on their time and space, but as i am writing this blog, i am thinking about just how different each of the "professors" were and their different understandings and histories of Fort Greene and surrounding areas and how us stopping them for 2minutes couldn't have put them totally off track and may have even been a welcome highlight to their day, who doesn't like to talk about themselves, what they do and their experience?!
Connections and respecting local knowledge are two principals I have studied about and seen in action in the urban and regional studies major while at Cornell. In one of my classes with John Forrester we conducted interviews and he was the one who told me that people are glad to talk about themselves. I see this rang true even in a completely different context! Its nice to see that what I am learning at school has practical implications. : ) Overall, the tour was very interactive and interesting which helped to keep everyone alert and excited about exploring Brooklyn!

In my work at Added Value, i have been explicitly assigned to do a calendar of exciting events from July to November for farmers markets that happen twice a week. It was daunting at first. Then I was supplied with a lot of leads and great ideas from the staff about what could work at the markets. Then i actually started trying to contact people and what a hard job. It seems like in order to pull this off, i will have to be on the phone and/or computer alllll day! I emailed a lot of people and discovered that that is teh slow way to do things when i thought it would definitely be the fastest. I was so wrong so i wasted an entire day emailing to get maybe 2 responses the next day. So now i have to call all of the contacts and talk to them which can also sometimes be frustrating because the right people are not always at their desks so then you play phone tag with them. Overall calling is the best way to get in contact with people. I have confirmed a couple of people to do different things at Market by calling. Calling people is a little scary because of the immediacy of it. If you don't have all of the answers or the right words, you confuse the other person or sound uncomfortable. On the other hand i may be thinking about it too much. So i have been practicing having all the info i need before i call. The point is that thinking and having to worry about all of the complications makes confirming people for the Market a harder task than i thought, the first Market is on July 7th and is fast approaching and i feel like i have nothing done on the programming end of my job.
I think i have been really helpful doing odd jobs around the farm like cleaning up and organizing the messy greenhouse and directing volunteers on Saturdays to getting a bed ready to seed, or being the third teacher for a class that had too many kids and not enough Added Value instructors, etc. I am learning a lot of new little things every day that make my job much easier and my knowledge about the Farm that much broader. There are still a few logistical things that I still don't understand that I don't think i will fully understand until the youth arrive and the Farmers Markets begin. I cant wait...