Outstanding examples of rooftop agriculture can be seen in cities like New York, Portland, Seattle, and Los Angeles. The Eagle Street Farm in Greenpoint Brooklyn is possibly one of the best examples of rooftop gardening in the nation. This farm sits on top of an old warehouse covering 6,000 square feet. Kale, lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, radishes, peas, and herbs all grown on the roof are delivered to residents and local restaurants through a community supported agriculture model.

What about the rooftop farm possibilities right here in Spokane? Our built environment boasts a variety of roofs and walls that could support urban farm operations. There are a few rooftop container gardens and the Main Market Co-op greenhouse, but there are yet to be any food growing endeavors that produce on a large enough scale to regularly supply residents and restaurants. Imagine an urban farm on top of the Jensen-Byrd building, the Wonderbread building on Lincoln and Broadway, or even on top of the Spokane Transit Authority storage and maintenance center!

Local developers, property owners, universities and community colleges could be engaged to assist in developing rooftop farms and other forms of urban agriculture in our city. Supportive developers and property owners are essential to the success of urban farming; they hold the keys that open onto the roofs of Spokane. The City and the County could help by writing or re-writing ordinances that are conducive to urban agriculture.

The universities could bring their programs together to develop an “Urban Agriculture Institute of Spokane” which would research and develop best practices and models that could be applied in other cities. Urban farming would greatly benefit the people, natural environment, food culture, and local economy, as well as reinforcing Spokane’s reputation as an innovative and creative city.

Now that Bike to Work week is through and SpokeFest isn’t until September, the Spokane biking community could pull together an early season blowout in preparation for the new Summer Parkways festivals that will be taking place in July and August. If it is too late to pull off such a biking fete in June this year, we should definitely think ahead for 2011.

It would be a benefit event for local grassroots groups on wheels, like Pedals2People and the Lilac City Rollergirls. And lets also throw in The FBC since *someone* has to pay to print all the rad spoke cards Jeff painstakingly puts together, and Board of Spokane, since they promote skateboarding, and maybe Meals on Wheels could be sponsored to cater lunch, and so forth.

Core volunteers at P2P.

Lilac City Rollergirls, photo by Josh Smith.

Clearly there is enough critical community mass to make this thing a smashing hit. And clearly this would represent a great way to cross-promote cycling readiness among people in Spokane who are already athletically predisposed to get off their duffs and bike around, but may not be a part of the family/office-going demographic that Bike To Work week appeals to.

I would pay for a bike wash, or donate to be shown (again) how to clean my chain. I could pay to get into the beer garden at the event. I could pay for Pop-Up Spokane lunch, and pay for some sweet P2P and LCRG merch. I think this thing would definitely be worth everyone’s while. We could do it in a church parking lot to avoid the bureaucracy of Spokane Parks and cut down on overhead.

I suggest the Unitarian Universalist Church of Spokane, for example, and volunteer to be the church liaison should someone miraculously appear to organize this event and should the church be able to partner on the project.  It is a nice little ride outside the city center and is close to wonderful rides around Riverside State Park. Finding a parking lot in Spokane to host the event will not be a problem.

After we emerge victorious from all the scrubbing and spraying, the event concept will go viral and people in Bellingham and Tacoma will do bike washes in a similar fashion. Just another idea floating around in the cauldron of community innovation that is Spokane.

One aspect of the community clean-up was having a dumpster available for people to bring their excess garbage, old furniture or large items they might not be able to afford to bring to the town dump. The huge dumpster filled in about three hours. It surprised and pleased me how people from the neighborhood helped each other load and empty their cars full of stuff, and stopped by to take an interest in the One World organic garden.

I was pulling weeds when someone asked me if I was “artistic,” and I responded, “Sure, why not?” The volunteer coordinator led me to a very old trailer. The corrugated metal siding was rusting in places where the paint had chipped off. It had certainly seen better days. I’m not sure how this trailer was important to the operations of the restaurant or garden, but I said, “Sure! I’ll paint it.” It is amazing how a coat of cream colored paint can make a difference in how something looks: old, dilapidated, or clean and well-cared for.

After finishing the paint job, clearing most of the weeds out of the garden, and picking up trash in the neighborhood, we had some hot dogs and potato salad donated by Sonnenberg’s, an awesome local deli just down the block. I felt like I’d done something good for my neighborhood and for people I don’t know very well who live pretty close to me.

The concept of “stewardship” comes up a lot in conversations about how human beings should live in relationship to the earth. How do we use natural resources and how do we care for the people and earth around us? While I acted locally, the real benefit was a new connection to the place where I live.

With all the graduations last weekend, many young people are now faced with how to start paying off that pesky student debt. But the question of achieving financial independence begins long before the loans go into repayment. Students (and their parents) are often wondering about employment prospects right out of high school, and rightly so. This question of gainful employment plays into the programs of study students choose to pursue, and the extracurricular experiences they seek out while in school.

Too often college students try to “follow the money” without understanding the complex demands of the modern job market, or having the faintest clue about the kind of work they might actually *enjoy* doing. There is an assumption that a law degree or a business degree with high marks is some kind of ticket to employment entitlement. Think again kids. While the traditional college job fair might be fine for those going into accounting or insurance, the knowledge economy is evolving faster than degree programs can keep up, and has an insatiable demand for students with interdisciplinary skills that can prove their worth in real work settings.

Internships are a familiar, if underutilized tool for businesses to trial run the next generation of talent before signing on the dotted line. The challenge is how to reach out to these new recruits, and effectively manage them once they get into the work environment. For many organizations the risk and the burden are too high. Finding the right student for the right internship at the right time can be tricky. College career offices are great resources, but are not equipped to offer one-on-one services for every business and student that comes through the door. If you are a local nonprofit, chances are you don’t even have the resources to think about which door to knock on. Resolving these dilemmas is the domain of a social enterprise called InternMatch.

Click the picture above to get a glimpse of an InternMatch reception.

The founders of InternMatch are young people themselves, and have proven adept at utilizing the tools that many college students use to communicate. They have tested their match making models in Seattle, and are preparing to branch out into other markets. I’ve encouraged them to consider working in Spokane. If you think there is a need for this kind of service locally, let us know in the comments section below.

• InternMatch on Facebook
• InternMatch on Twitter

There’s an essay that covers similar terrain by Alex Steffen and Sarah Rich from Worldchange. Way back in 2007, when polls showed that most Americans believe climate change is real, they argued the Earth Day celebration should have been the last. The timing was right, they said, and concluded, what we need is a dramatic break with the past.

Earth Day accomplished its mission; the environment is now near the top of the global agenda. By making this Earth Day our last, we can signal that the time for mere awareness is over, and the time for real transformation has arrived.

But don’t say that to the Lilac City! For the 40th Earth Day, local organizers seem equally as informed by P.T. Barnum as they were by Bill McKibben in putting together the most audacious Earth Day Spokane has ever seen. The event runs from 11am to midnight on Maine Avenue between Division and Browne Street (with echoes of the Sustainable Uprising event last September.) There are funky children’s activities like sidewalk chalk art to raise awareness on stormwater runoff and the WSU Raptor Club displaying rescued live birds. Films at the Magic Lantern like The Story Of Stuff and Vanishing of the Bees, the latter has never been screened in the United States.

Performances by such disparate acts the Lilac City Roller Girls and Jupiter Effect. Speeches by Mayor Mary Verner, City Councilman Jon Snyder, and Commissioner Bonnie Mager. Since we’re starting early, footage of the event will appear on a jumbotron at the national mall in Washington, D.C. One hundred organizations total are participating, representing that environmental change begins with personal responsibility, leading by example, and becoming involved in the decision making process for regulatory policies like transportation and land use.

In a sense, yes, everyday should be Earth Day but throughout transitional American towns like Spokane, a celebration is absolutely critical, a time for connectivity amongst a variety of community organizations; a time to educate. You can’t undermine the importance of awareness, no matter how incremental.

• RSVP for the Earth Day Tree Planting and Prep Party when four new trees will be planted on Main Avenue.
• RSVP for Earth Day on Facebook.
• Sign a national petition that will be presented on April 25th at the National Mall to push for climate legislation.

Spokane recently lost two grants of more than $4 million that provided after school, mental health, and substance abuse services for elementary and middle school children, forcing our city to become increasingly complacent to the shortcomings of local public schools. Dropouts are 63 times more likely to be institutionalized and ill-equipped to compete in today’s world as unemployment awaits.

Enter the Children’s Investment Fund, a definite game changer. This potential levy proposes to raise $5 million a year to support early childhood learning, abuse and neglect prevention, treatment and mentoring programs, and before- and after-school activities through earmarking 35 cents per $1,000.00 of assessed property value (or about $65 a year for a median home valued at $197,000). The money would be made available through a competitive granting process to supplement proven programs that are currently administered by nonprofit organizations in the area. No new city department or agency would be created.

Our Children First says these types of programs could improve Spokane’s graduation rate by up to 20 percent. Some will inevitably cry over taxation while neglecting to acknowledge that a school loses $7,291 for each dropout, and hundreds of thousands more can be exacted on taxpayers in the form of emergency social services. The levy will have a built-in sunset date, which means in a number of years the program will go back to voters so they can decide whether or not they would like it to continue.

Many other cities have already opted to establish such funds. Some examples are the Portland Children’s Levy and Seattle’s Families and Education Levy. When asked why Communities In Schools decided to help lead the Children’s Investment Fund campaign, Executive Director Ben Stuckart had this to say:

I’ve seen the need directly. Our job is to connect community resources to schools, and I’ve seen the number of services available to our kids in schools through nonprofits has shrunk. I understand the dropout rate, and I think it’s a huge social and economic issue that we need to address. Our organization can’t address it alone. I think there’s a need for something larger here in our community.

Since City Council wasn’t able to deliver on their individual promises to help put this proposal on the ballot directly, a broad coalition of community advocates has formed to gather a hefty 12,000 signatures by April 16th. To learn how you can help, please visit the Our Children First website.

• A 2009 Report on Spokane’s Dropout Rate.

After working with Crosswalk students on a film project I came to know several of them personally. One especially stood out to me. Jamie is a fighter like no other. She was married with a baby at 19, desperately needed a job, and knew McDonald’s would not fit the bill. Jamie relies on Head Start at Crosswalk so she can devote her attention to studying and is on target to graduate this year.

Unfortunately the Crosswalk-Head Start partnership is facing a substantial roadblock. Talk at the Institute for Extended Learning could move this chapter of Early Head Start much more than a crosswalk away. Three miles may seem diminutive to some, but for a teen mom without a car this will mean more time spent negotiating transportation and less time spent on school.

According to the Spokesman, teen mom Katelynn Capps said, “I definitely needed to go back to school, and there was no way I could do it if this place [Early Head Start] wasn’t here.” With Early Head Start, red lights turn in to diplomas for these low-income, hardworking parents. Kent Hoffman, a local psychotherapist and an enduring Crosswalk volunteer argues this:

“… Here’s my bottom line: When it comes to need, not all children are created equal. Some need modest help, some need even more. And then some require intense intervention. The parents and children who have benefited from the remarkable gift provided at Crosswalk EHS often fall into the third category. If Crosswalk EHS leaves downtown, where will they turn?”

There are few things I value more than education because it has the potential to decrease the appeal of crime and increase the quality of life for all people. We’re lucky Spokane has a place that supports students, including young moms. We’re even more lucky to have accessible childcare for low-income families. In Crosswalk EHS we are most fortunate to have these two supports working together to provide a comprehensive and effective service to the very people that need it the most.

Concerned about the fate of Crosswalk? The future of Early Head Start at Crosswalk will be discussed during the next gathering of the Head Start/Early Head Start Policy Council on March 9. The meeting is scheduled at 5:45 p.m. at the Hillyard Center, 4410 N. Market St. Can’t make the meeting? Send your input to Scott Morgan at: smorgan[at]iel[dot]spokane[dot]edu

]]> http://spovangelist.com/head-stop/feed/ 5 http://spovangelist.com/eye-of-the-violets/ http://spovangelist.com/eye-of-the-violets/#comments Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:54:02 +0000 The Spovangelist http://spovangelist.com/?p=1658 Just one year ago a handful of Spovangelites cemented my resolve to start a (mostly) young women’s group called the Spokane Shrinking Violet Society. It is startling what has grown in its place since that time. Hundreds of participants, dozens of lifelong friendships, and nearly 80 events later, we have firmly established what we set out to create: a micro-community, a social co-op, a whatever YOU want it to be, fill-in-the-blank here.

We’ve pumped thousands of dollars back into Spokane’s own local economy, preferencing businesses with sustainable and socially responsible practices. We swapped closets, made our own deodorant, and helped to inspire and support new community groups. We even went on a retreat and drafted a mission statement:

The Shrinking Violet Society is a dynamic social co-op of fresh-minded individuals sustaining creative endeavors. We are dedicated to:

• Promoting Localism
• Building Intentional Friendships
• Affirming Sass & Independence
• Nurturing Artistic Abundance
• Circulating Our Passion

At its core, the Shrinking Violets are a group of people learning to genuinely trust and value each other. Slowing down and taking time to be accountable and present with anyone who seeks out their company. In our crazy-making world this is often easier said than done. But something about the resolve of this group makes it possible. There are no committees, no obligations, and no structure that binds the organization together. It is simply a longing for a functional community in which to contribute and become enriched.

You are invited to celebrate this venture with the Shrinking Violets at our first annual Birthday Bash. Tickets can be purchased online and RSVPs can be made here and on Facebook. Think of it as Spokane’s own Ladyfest.

The event will feature an art show, local vendor fair with over 30 businesses, nonprofits and artisans represented, live entertainment, free child care and delicious home made cupcakes, all in the funky warehouse space at Silver Auctions. We hope you will be able to join us for this special occasion!

Join us for our Downtown Spokane Annual Meeting

Keynote speaker Dr. Wim Wiewel, President of Portland State University, will talk about the positive impact that a great Downtown has on higher education.

January 27, 2010 at 3:30pm (doors open at 3pm)
Reception-style meeting
The Davenport Hotel | Grand Pennington Ballroom
Register now at DowntownSpokane.net

“Metropolitan areas with strong downtown cores perform better than those without them. A strong connection between a university and downtown signals, and helps create, a high performance economy.”
Dr. Wim Wiewel, President of Portland State University

I REALLY wanted to hear Dr. Wiewel speak, but both cost ($30.00) and timing (middle of the work day) were problematic.

Paraphrased letter to the DSP:

Dear Event Coordinator,

Is there any way I could volunteer in exchange for the admittance fee for this event? Are their scholarships available? Is there a student rate? I’m a huge Downtown proponent and am concerned about the accessibility of such visioning events to working, low-income and young people.

I’m really excited by the speaker who has been chosen to present, and it would be great if everyone who is interested in this topic would be able to listen in. Would the DSP be interested in having Community-Minded TV film the presentation and then air the lecture on Cable Channel 14? I can help make this happen if there is interest.

Thank you for responding to my concerns.

Sincerely,
The Spovangelist

Needless to say neither happened (my attendance or a response). We’ve got to say, though, the apple pie analogy is an interesting one. What others can you think of to represent the U-District and Downtown?

Like with anything people don’t think of very often, personal philanthropy is something folks have to get familiar with on their own. What total annual amount they can expect themselves to contribute, and some kind of criteria by which decisions are made say a lot about a person’s awareness, values and orientation. While it’s well known that poorer people give a larger percentage of their wealth than the rich, I’d be interested to learn what giving trends are across age groups.

Aside from cold cash, I believe young people are one of the more generous groups when it comes to giving their time and talent. In some ways young people are rich; with no mortgage or children to lock them into a routine or responsibilities, many are able to seek out new experiences and cultivate first-hand empathy for those less fortunate. An excellent example of this is the annual Caterina Coat/Vitamin/Underwear/Socks Drive taking place this Saturday, where a diverse cross-section of the local music scene has banded together to support the House of Charity.

Artists include: Space Age Fur, Kevin Long, Jaeda, Cheap Meat Suits, Anadonia, Matthew Winters, Kim Wescott, Som Jordan, Joylissa Vleck, Kurt Olson, and Jason Corcoran.

Sponsors include: Caterina Winery, Aaron Schaber Design, TheSomShow.com, Broham Entertainment, Audio Affiliated and Platform Booking.

Last year’s show was a project of the nascent Wonderground Collective, and was an enormous success that resulted in a mountain of donated goods piled up at the end of the night. If you are curious about what local music has to offer, this benefit show will be an outstanding smorgasbord of the talent resident right here in Spokane. If you can’t make it on down to Caterina Winery (905 N. Washington) this Saturday at 6pm, consider sending a friend or two in your stead. The show is all-ages and family-friendly. Bring your kids/parents/neighbors/coworkers and make it a night!

Posters from last year’s benefit:

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