Northern Happenings
Hello FNLies - Steve invited me to share some stories from the North, greetings from Minnesota. (thanks Steve.) I was involved with the beginnings of Food Not Lawns KC and impressed to see how it’s growing. I hope the happenings of a different city will inform and inspire the KC efforts.
Thought I’d share a big picture city government program Homegrown Minneapolis that is similar to the KC Healthy Food Policy Initiative. Even though the policy avenue is not everyone’s cup of tea it generates a nice outline on key areas, including suggestions related to the growing urban farming and gardening efforts. (Yea for KCCUA & KCCG!) KC has a unique opportunity to convert vacant land to community gardens/urban farms and willing gardeners like FNLies could lead the way. Anyway thanks for the opportunity to share… hope others will contribute stories and pictures highlighting the bounty of their transformed lawns and how you’re working from the ground up in the community to bring change.
Homegrown Minneapolis is an initiative to develop recommendations for the City of Minneapolis to improve sales, distribution and consumption of fresh, locally grown foods to positively impact the health, food security, economy and environment of our City and the surrounding region. http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/dhfs/homegrown-home.asp
Minneapolis City Council voted unanimously to pass a resolution supporting the production, sales, and consumption of healthy, locally grown foods in the city! The resolution also called for the formation of a Task Force to help oversee the implementation of key recommendations over the next 18 months. The Mayor Rybak officially signed the resolution at the Emerge youth garden in North Minneapolis. The Emerge youth garden is a city-funded summer program that uses a community garden to teach youth about local food production and sustainability. The program is a collaboration between the City’s youth employment programs and Homegrown Minneapolis.
Sarah