Minutes from Oct. 11^th Community Food and Garden Network meeting

This months meeting was hosted by David Ballman at Wisconsin Council for the Blind.  He told us that the Council is one of 2 agencies in the state of Wisconsin that work specifically with people that have vision impairments.  The Wisconsin Council for the Blind is non-profit and is funded through private donations.  Their work includes translating documents into brail, having a store that sells white canes and other assistive devices such as talking clocks and calculators, and home rehabilitation services.

Ø      Community Gardeners’ Potluck will be held on Oct. 25^th from 4:0-8:00 at Olbrich Botanical Gardens.  Everyone from CFGN is invited to attend.  We will have a skill-sharing session that will include a presentation from Oak Hill Correctional Center about their horticulture program, a permaculture workshop from Outta the Box and more.  Children are welcome to attend and we will have activities specifically for them.

Ø      Celebrating Youth on Nov. 6^th at the Monona Terrace.  CFGN will have a booth their and will provide an activity and information.   We need people to help with the booth.

Ø      The directory is coming along very well and will be completed soon.  It will be available as a word document and so it can be emailed.  We are still taking information about agencies, activities and recipes.

Ø      The garden tip from this meeting was that neglect makes tomatoes and peppers flourish!

Program Updates from Attendees;

Sandy Miller reported that the garden at the Wisconsin Youth Company grew this year from one raised bed to two.  They had an excellent basil crop.

The Bayview Foundation received a grant for $3,000 for their Planting Partners Project for next year.  Their garden this year was a success and is still producing!

Paul Bittorf from Pathways of Wisconsin said their garden plot at Reynolds Community Garden went wonderfully.  The cut flowers were very popular with the participants.  Next year they would like to have more room.  They also have an idea of hiring one of the participating gardeners from Pathways to clean the garden area up.

Carla Wuennenberg is a VISTA with Campus Compact and is working on an online garden project.  It will be a guide to gardening with curriculum for school.  The goal will be civic engagement/service learning.  She is having some questions about how to run garden programs at schools during the summer.

Amy Meinen is working on putting together a toolkit for gardening and eating healthy that will be distributed to all of the schools in WI and some other programs.  The toolkit will be called “Got Dirt”.  Amy is asking for testimony about gardens in schools and the positive health affects.  She is also looking for people to review the tool kit.

David Ballman said that he has only been able to get one person from the Council to be involved with gardening.  She gardened last year at Sheboygan.

In Attendance-

Paul Bittorf              Pathways of Wisconsin             paul_bittorf@...

David Ballman        Wisconsin Council for the Blind  dave@...

Sheri Harper           Bayview Foundation                  sherishadow@...

Amy Meinen           Department of Public Health       meineam@...

Carla Wuennenberg Campus Compact –UWEX VISTA     wuennenberg@...

Sandy Miller           Wisconsin Youth Company          smiller@...

Mary McCarty       UWEX-VISTA                            mary.mccarty@...

Ashleigh Ross         CAC VISTA                                growedibleflowers@...