March News & Updates

March 2019

Your Monthly News & Updates

Community Partner Profile | Events | KDS | LFG | Trivia

COMMUNITY PARTNER PROFILE

Lee Van de Water

Name: Lee Van de Water

Town of Residence: Potsdam, NY

Organization: Potsdam Food Co-op

Role: General Manager

How Long: Less than a year

Why I do what I do: I love food: feeding the community and supporting the local agricultural economy.

Hobbies: Cross-country skiing, reading, too busy running the co-op to do much more than that right now.

Most recent accomplishment: Coming back to the community I grew up in. Being in the North Country working at an organization making a positive impact. Persuading my partner Nicole to make the trek from Montana to New York with me. There’s still lots of work to do but returning and putting down roots here was a key accomplishment this past year. Looking forward to new growth in the year ahead.

If you could do or be anything else, what would it be and why? I would be a farmer, because I respect all that they do! Plus, I wouldn’t mind being outside more and in front of a computer less.

Favorite song, book, or movie? I make an effort to stay current. I like going to the Roxy when they host Cinema 10 on Monday nights. I’m looking forward to the first film of the spring season, one of my favorite Japanese animated movies, “My Neighbor Totoro.” Lots of weird nature spirits and rural living.

What would we find in your refrigerator right now? Mostly local stuff, except for the lemons and broccoli. This time of year there’s indoor greens from 2445 Organics in Massena and root veggies from Kent Family Growers. I’ve got a great hard cheese from North Country Creamery called “Couronne” and some sweet cider from Kanab Orchards. Probably a few cans of Genesee beer in there somewhere.

EVENTS

Canton Winterfest Film Screening

Look & See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry at his desk in his earlier years

On February 10th, members of the Canton and surrounding community came together to watch and appreciate the story of beloved American novelist Wendell Berry. The Potsdam Food Co-op provided free drinks and refreshments and the film was provided by the Canton Free Public Library. The Unitarian Universalist Church welcomed students, farmers, and professors alike to appreciate Berry’s story as well as scenery of farms on warmer more vibrant times of the year.

Look and See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry covered most of Berry’s professional life as a writer, farmer, environmentalist, and activist. Family members and close friends of Berry’s were interviewed to discuss his opposition to industrial farming practices and the gradual decline of environmentally conscious farming. The film starts by delving into the idea that agriculture has lost its craftsmanship and artistic aspect as industrial agriculture has taken over. Berry explains that farming used to be an intimate experience between the farmer and the land, where the farmer would strategically plant certain crops at certain times. However, today with industrial agriculture, everything has been reduced down to a formula and numbers.

This film did a great job of encompassing the stories behind industrial farmers. Berry explains that he does not blame the farmers for what they are doing, he blames the system that put them in this situation. The current industrial system lures farmers in, making them believe they can make more profit and improve efficiency by expanding their production scale and buying expensive machinery and inputs to keep up with the market. However, as these farmers expand, their costs keep going up and their debt continues to grow. And as Berry points out these industrial practices are degrading our natural environment and accelerating climate change.

This comes back around to impact industrial farmers because climate change is unpredictable and destructive, in turn harming these farmers' crops year after year, resulting in less profit to pay off their substantial debt. Therefore, Berry believes big Agribusiness is to blame for not only the destruction of our natural world but the exploitation of farmers. However, this film is not all doom and gloom as it may appear. Berry ends the movie on a hopeful note by acknowledging that if we continue to educate and advocate for small-scale regenerative farming we can slowly begin to combat the destruction industrial agriculture has created.

Article by St. Lawrence University Community Based Learning Students Tim O’Brien and Olivia Raynard

Cabin Fever Trivia Night

You still have a chance to get your best trivia team together, but you better be quick because it's happening tomorrow night!

Prizes for top 3 teams, best team name, and best team uniform!

Last year's winning team:

"Kohlrabi is for Closers"

Last year's winning team name:

"We Thought this was Speed Dating"

Last year's winning team uniform:

"The Oni's", who were all dressed up as various pasta!

Check out the poster for more details and r egister HERE before the event sells out! We've already got 19 teams registered!

Kappa Delta Sigma Sorority

Rides for GardenShare!

Pictured from left to right: GardenShare Board President Carol Pynchon, KDS members Hannah Doro and Elyse Merrell, and KDS President, Jenna Bailey.

We were thrilled and honored to have been chosen as Kappa Delta Sigma’s (KDS) philanthropy for this year, and they just keep impressing us with their initiative and dedication to GardenShare and our Bonus Bucks program. On February 20 ^th , the sorority once again came through for the organization with a 24-hour Bike-a-Thon, held in the student center on campus. Starting at noon on February 20 ^th and going through noon on February 21 ^st , 40 KDS sisters rode in one hour stages for the cause. Elyse Merrell and Hannah Doro, pictured below, even did it twice – once in the afternoon and again in the wee hours – hopefully bolstered with a large dose of caffeine! Thanks Ladies!

LOCAL FOOD GUIDE

It's Time to Get in the Guide!

Would you like to be listed in the 2019 SLC Local Food Guide? If you are a farmer, retail/restaurant that regularly showcases local food, or interested in placing an advertisement please go to our website . Forms and information are available online and we'll be mailing out farmer listing the beginning of March.

Deadline for getting information to the office is Friday, March 22, 2019.

Local Food Guide Cover Contest!

GardenShare is running a cover art contest, link found here , for the cover of the 2019 Local Food Guide. Artwork to be considered can include photography or any two-dimentional piece that can be re-printed. Artwork should illustrate the variety of local food available in the region.

To enter, send a high resolution file to [email protected] by March 22, 2019. The top submitted entries will be shared on GardenShare's Facebook so the public can vote from Tuesday, March 26 through Sunday, March 31, 2019.