Boston Hunger Banquet Brings Global Hunger Home

By Zoe Johannas

Once numbers get to a certain size, they almost become unfathomable. While I can picture several miles of landscape from plane window and remember my surroundings in a stadium filled with thousands of fan, the larger things get, the harder it is to understand their magnitude. It’s the same with stats. Understanding that 3.5 billion people, half the globe's population, make under $2.50 a day leaves me stunned and indignant and driven to do more, yet I can only picture a small percentage of the word "billion". I can hardly imagine the population of a city, let alone the world, and this means that something as incomprehensible as half the planet can sometimes take a back seat to the smaller, more graspable world that I can see and feel around me.

However, in a room of only 45, everyone is visible. At the Boston Action Corps’ Oxfam America Hunger Banquet, global poverty was put in context in an effective, observable, and powerful way where the planet sized numbers were brought down to size and made starkly real.

Suddenly, the numbers and statistics on global poverty became reality as only 15% of the attendees were a part of the high income group, only 35% were middle income, and the other 50%, cramped and sitting in the center of the floor, represented those in the lowest income group. Suddenly 3.5 billion was shrunk down to 24 participants with small cups of rice, with a table of only 6 looming above them with a full meal of lasagna and salad. 

Once I could see the simulated separation between the world’s poorest and wealthiest, the stats and numbers that were almost unfathomable began to resonate in a new way. Having been placed in the middle income group, I hardly felt average with my meal of rice and beans, and realized anew that half the world was sustained on much less. What was even more hard-hitting was watching the high income group- the group that consists of almost every person I interact with- consist of such a small percentage of the participants. What’s more is that this group contains even many of those who are relatively poor by US standards. The world's high income category contains everyone with an income over $12,000, a salary just over half of what constitutes the United States poverty line.

Of the others attending the events, everyone had their own interpretations and takeaways from the scene unfolding around them. While some felt guilt about being placed in the high ranks of simulated society, others wondered how we could bridge the gap between the worlds’s wealthy and poor on the global scale and make the issues so visible within one room, visible across borders and oceans. Still others talked about more practical points of the issue, discussing food aid and the roles of local NGOs, showing not only how complex poverty can be, but also how we can all play a unique role in its solution.

As a part of a nearly 40 year tradition, The Oxfam America Hunger Banquet may not have been a perfect simulation of the devastation and horrors of worldwide famine and poverty, but it was a resounding success in bringing global hunger issues home. Suddenly, 50% of a population was a visible and comprehensible statistic and I was able to put something as large as half the world into perspective like never before. I gained a new understanding of the size and mass of this issue and what it will take to overcome it. Though simulation can only make us go so far to feel the strain of poverty, it was one small step towards overcoming the common practice of keeping the hungry out of sight and out of mind. Explaining and showing this issue in a whole new way helped us to see and grasp the magnitude of this issue, and helped us begin to grapple with the monumental solution that it requires.

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To do more, I encourage you to host your own Oxfam America Hunger Banquet or vow to skip meal and donate the money you save to Oxfam. Or, for a more creative way to give back this holiday season, check out Oxfam Unwrapped to give a gift that counts

Check out some more of the pictures from the Boston Action Corps' event below:

Seeing Red

 Susan Tamoney is a guest blogger from Boston, Massachusetts. Not only is she an avid member of the Boston Oxfam Action Corps,but is also a local food lover.  Read her previous posts on how she makes the most of her CSA here and here.

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By Susan Tamoney

I’m seeing red and it’s not because it’s the color that Valentino just sent down the runway in Paris or because of my frustration with the latest goings on in Washington.

I’m riding an end-of-season wave of tomatoes. And because I’m trying to incorporate the GROW Method into the way we shop and eat, I’m determined not to let a single one of them go to waste!

Trying to reduce food waste is an important part of Oxfam America’s GROW Method initiative in support of the GROW campaign. I was astonished to learn that an estimated 40% of the food that we grow in the US ends up as “waste.”

But back to the tomatoes. As you can see from the picture, this year’s crop, of which this is but a fraction, was especially beautiful - red, lush and plump.

So, after we had eaten our fill of fresh tomatoes, I set out to find a quick and easy way to store the rest for later use.

I considered the “home canning” route, because I love the way that the finished jars of sauce look on the pantry shelf. Fresh Preserving has everything that you need to get started and Food in Jars is a really helpful “How To” blog. But this season I had not planned ahead and time was not on my side. The tomatoes were red and ready to go!

So, I went with the quickest and easiest cooking method. I sliced the tomatoes into ¼” slices and arranged them, single thickness, on a parchment lined baking sheet. Don’t even think of not using parchment paper. Just take my word for it, parchment works better than foil. I coarsely chopped 4 or 5 large cloves of garlic and sprinkled them over the tomatoes. A drizzle of olive oil, some coarse salt and a grind of black pepper finished the job. 

Bake the tomatoes in a 350degree oven for about 25-30 minutes or until the ones at the edges start to caramelize. Watch them so the garlic doesn’t burn. 

We ate some of them straight from the oven, but they are equally spectacular piled on top of a skinless grilled chicken breast. And if you’re looking for “Meatless Monday” recipe ideas, these roasted tomatoes are wonderful tossed into pasta, on top of pizza dough or, if you prefer, as a “ragu crudo” on spaghetti squash. They’re great in an omelet and add extraordinary savory flavor when layered with slices of grilled eggplant and mozzarella cheese in a quick eggplant Parmesan.

For longer storage, just cool the tomatoes on the tray, then pack them in an airtight container. They last for two or three weeks in the refrigerator, months in the freezer.

And those green tomatoes? Don’t throw them away! Although by the end of the season, you may be tempted to just toss them into the bin, fried green tomatoes really are delicious. Slice the green tomatoes thinly and dip them into a bit of beaten egg. Then coat them with some seasoned breadcrumbs, add a sprinkle of coarse salt and fry them in a bit of olive oil until they’re golden.

Here’s another trick that a wise old gardening neighbor once shared with me:

Wrap each green tomato individually in a bit of newspaper and store them in a cool dry place. Believe it or not, they continue to ripen inside the newspaper. Because they are individually wrapped, if one spoils, it doesn’t affect the others. I have to admit to a bit of skepticism the first time that I gave this trick a try, but weeks after tucking them away, I carefully unwrapped a tiny package and voila! A red tomato! It was magical.

Give some of these ideas a try. I promise that you’ll find that this is one time when it’s great to be “in the red!”

Susan

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What's your favorite fall meal?  What your your tips and tricks to make sure a veggie never goes to waste?  Email them in to actioncorps@oxfamamerica.org

The Happiest Day of the Week - Part 2!

By Susan Tamoney

 Our latest guest blogger, Susan Tamoney, is an active member of the Boston Oxfam Action Corps! In the previous post Susan discussed both why she loves her CSA, but also the challenges one faces when trying to use up all of the beautiful produce that a CSA delivers!  In this post Susan not only gives her tips from her experiences with a CSA but also some more incredible recipes to help us get the most out of our fall produce! See her part 1 post by clicking here.

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Here are my tips and advice, as well as a another recipe:

Be prepared.

A day or two before CSA pick up, work at using up the produce that you already have on hand. It helps a lot if you’re not trying to find room for all of your beautiful fresh produce in an already overcrowded fridge.

Pull together a supply of clean linen towels and plastic bags for wrapping and storing produce.

Consider investing in some tight seal glass storage containers for the produce that will be precooked or frozen. (As a matter of personal choice, I prefer glass over plastic, but certainly either will work)

Sort

As soon as you get home, sort your produce: “for immediate use”, “needs a bit of precooking prep” and “will last a while as is” worked well for me.

A friend told me about the book The Farmer’s Kitchen by Julia Shanks and Brett Grohsgal. at the beginning of the season and I found it had some really helpful and practical advice on food storage, plus there are lots of recipes:

Do some pre-cooking and freezing

Grill or pre cook for storage and later use. For me, this was probably the step that took the most discipline, but I got better at it and it was definitely the step that is the biggest help in putting together quick weeknight dinners. It works especially well with eggplant, squash and zucchini. I should say up front that I really love to cook, but in the summertime quick and easy is always best; no one wants to heat up a kitchen on a hot summer day and there are almost always other summer activities beckoning outside. In the fall, this step makes dinner way easier on a busy work and school night.

Eggplant Prep: 

1.  Wash and dry eggplants. 
2.  Slice off the stem end and then slice the eggplant into ¼” thin slices the long way.
3.  Lay the slices in a single layer on clean towels. 
4.  Lightly salt both sides of the eggplant. 
5.  Allow them to sit for an hour or so until you see beads of water on the eggplant.
6.  Pat the slices dry.
7.  Now rub both sides of the slices with a bit of olive oil and then grill them either on an outdoor grill or on a stove top until they have some nice grill marks on them, but are still firm.
8. Allow the slices to cool on a plate.  
9. Then layer them into a storage container and keep in the fridge until ready to use later in the week.  (I've kept them for two weeks and they were still fine, just saying)

Yum!

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For another great recipe, check out Susan's Kohlrabi Chips! Also found in her previous post. For more awesome recipes, check out the Oxfam America Pinterest Site.

What are your favorite recipes? What would you bring to a GROW themed potluck? Send your recipes, stories, and meal ideas to actioncorps@oxfamamerica.org and see them posted here!

And don't forget to sign up to host your own World Food Day dinner!

The Happiest Day of the Week!

By Susan Tamoney

Our latest guest blogger, Susan Tamoney, is an active member of the Boston Oxfam Action Corps as well as a member of a local CSA! In the following series of posts, Sue will share a look at the rich variety of local options and how she has chosen to play a larger part in her own food. Below, Susan shares her tips and tricks to following the GROW Method with her CSA produce, not to mention some delicious recipes with some unlikely vegetables.

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For me, the happiest day of the week is Tuesday. This is the day that I pick up our CSA share at Land’s Sake Farm. For anyone who doesn’t know, purchasing a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share allows small scale farmers to plan their growing season more efficiently by having shareholders pay for their entire season of produce up front, in advance of the growing season. Supporting and connecting with local farmers is one important part of Oxfam America’s GROW Method initiative in support of the GROW campaign.

But back to my happiest day of the week. It wasn’t always this way. Don’t misunderstand; it’s easy to look forward to going to the farm to pick up your CSA. The beautifully organized tables with baskets of produce spilling over their edges. The just harvested vegetables, practically crying out for their moment in the spotlight, begging to be photographed. The sunburned, enthusiastic farmers, proudly explaining what produce is in our share this week. The friendly neighbors exchanging recipes and making cooking suggestions. What’s not to love?

All of this against a backdrop of neatly tended rows of vegetables and colorful fields of flowers is pretty hard to resist. Toss in a bit of happy background noise as children, arriving with their parents, take off laughing to check out a fluffy farm rabbit and some elegant chickens clucking softly in their coop. What’s not to love?

Like many, we’ve always done a bit of backyard gardening at our house. The easy stuff: tomatoes, peas, a bit of bib lettuce, some basil. It was enough to toss together an impromptu Insalata Caprese. We’ve always sought out produce from small local farms and farmer’s markets. But this year, inspired by Oxfam and GROW, we decided that it was time to step up and commit to a CSA share all our own.
So, here’s a picture of our share for one week:

Looks like a good amount of produce for a two to four person family, right? Surprisingly, I found that there was a bit of stress involved. When I first start buying produce this way, I felt a bit overwhelmed by what I brought home in my bags, which can vary greatly for week to week. The good news is that with a bit of advance preparation and a tiny bit of practice, it was all very doable.

Be advised, if you, like me, have ever felt guilty at having to pitch into the compost (or even worse, into the trash) a head of lettuce that wilted before it made it into your salad or the zucchini that was in the back of the vegetable drawer and is now beyond salvation, even for soup, this feeling of guilt will be even worse when something from a CSA ends up in the bin. Not sure exactly why, but it definitely is. Maybe it’s picturing the sweat streaked faces of your farmers, all of whom you are on a first name basis with by the middle of the summer.

So, I decided early on in the season to make a kind of challenge of it.

The challenge:

• Use only what we get in our share, no running out to Whole Foods to buy what we might “feel” like having for dinner tonight, 
• Use everything in the share, even the things that we don’t have a clue what they are (“Oh, so that’s a kohlrabi.”), 
• If we absolutely can’t eat something, share it with friends or neighbors.

These are kohlrabi. I’ve already removed the leaves. Aren’t they a beautiful color? They transform into beautiful chips with a purpled ruffled edge, very Prada!

The great news is that we did it! And not only that but I can say with complete honesty that we have never eaten better than we did this summer. We had some truly amazing meals, and they were all simple and delicious and healthy and VERY easy to prepare. It took a bit of experimentation and “tweeking”, but by end of the season, I’d finally got it down. Supporting lots of parts of the GROW Method in the process and eating some amazingly delicious food. Now that REALLY makes me happy!

Kohlrabi Chip Recipe:

1. Wash and dry one or two kohlrabi. 
2. Thinly slice them into discs using a mandolin (careful of your fingers!). 
3.  Put the slices into a bowl and toss them lightly with a little olive oil, just to coat. 
4.  Place them in a single layer on parchment (very important) covered cookie sheets and bake in a 425F oven for about 5 minutes. You should keep an eye on them. Keep them in longer if you like them crispier.

I made these a lot this summer because they are great to serve as a little nibble before dinner or on the side with an entrée and because everyone loved them. So, I hit on a sweet and salty version that I liked even better:

1. After tossing the kohlrabi slices with olive oil, sprinkle them with some coarse salt, some ground cinnamon and a bit of granulated sugar. 
2.  Keep a close eye on them while they’re in the oven, they can burn quickly with the added bit of sugar.

Hope you like these as much as we all did! Kohlrabi got the prize in our house for “Vegetable That We Never Would Have Tried Without A CSA” and now it’s a hands down favorite!

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Susan introduced us to what her CSA looks like and what her challenges were in using up all of her delicious produce!  Next she'll reveal her best tips and tricks for getting the most out of a CSA!  And of course more great recipes!

Have your own tips and tricks? What about favorite recipes for our lesser - known veggies? Email them in to actioncorps@oxfamamerica.org!

A Look at Juribidá, Colombia

Carolina Garcia, a Oxfam Action Corps leaders in Boston, Massachusetts and FAST Program Assistant at Oxfam America, recently returned from a trip to Juribidá, Colombia. Read on for Carolina's fascinating experiences and insights, beautiful photos, and inspiring GROW Method take-aways.

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This summer, I had the privilege to visit Juribidá, a small town in the wonderful Colombian Pacific Ocean where, in almost every garden and backyard, one can find raised beds with herbs and vegetables for personal consumption.

In spite of the many problems this entire region faces -mainly government neglect-, towns like Juribidá have managed to subsist almost entirely on their own resources for centuries: catching their own fish and growing basic produce like plantains, onions, peppers, etc. Unfortunately, the commercial fishing industry has proven to be disastrous for them, as it has nearly depleted their waters of many of the species that used to inhabit them.

But this post is about positively inspiring us to GROW our own food, locally and seasonally, and to support those who do it at a small scale, so here it goes.

That's a drill!

By Carolina Garcia, Boston Oxfam Action Corps

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What did you see this summer that inspired you to GROW? Whether in your backyard or across the globe, let us know how what new experiences you've had this summer! Send them to actioncorps@oxfamamerica.org.

Boston Grubwithus Dinner Success Story!

The Here is a post from August 17,2012 from the Boston Action Corps blog. On August 23rd, the Action Corps hosted a fun and highly successful Grubwithus dinner, a great way to bring like minds together and discuss GROW. What's even better? It counts towards our ever increasing World Food Day dinner count! 

Want to grub in your hometown? Go to  https://www.grubwithus.com/oxfam  to get started!

Last night, we held our first Love Food, Hate Injustice dinner at City Table in Boston. It was a wonderful and enriching experience. Thanks to Grubwithus for picking a restaurant with great food and a beautiful atmosphere.

At first, we were not sure how the evening would unfold, but we were soon reminded that as long as there is good food and kind people sharing the same interests, good times and interesting conversations are sure to follow. 

We were lucky to have Susan Tamoney with us, an incredibly engaging speaker (we even suggested she should consider a career in radio broadcasting), and one of our biggest supporters in community outreach in Boston. Susan came with two wonderful guests, Ed Barker and Melanie Hardy from Land's Sake, who helped us generate ideas for upcoming events like World Food Day, and kindly invited us to pick up tomatoes at their farm in Weston. We will be posting more on all these exciting news soon!

Thanks to all of those who joined us. It was a pleasure sharing good food and ideas with all of you.

Oxfam America Hunger Banquets throughout the U.S.!

Another amazing blog post by Drew Love of the Boston Oxfam Action Corps!

Think Fast, Imagine 1.85 Billion Hands 

by: Drew Love 

Can you imagine my two hands? Of course you can. They look, by all accounts, similar to your two hands. Although I don’t trim my nails as often as I should, and I’m terrible at moisturizing. But for the most part, you can imagine what a pair of hands looks like. 

What about your hands and my hands? The mental arithmetic becomes slightly more difficult, but not terribly so. Yet at some point, if we continue to add pairs of hands to this mental image, there comes a time when you reach the limit of your imagination. We can only imagine so many hands at a time, and it’s usually a very small number. 

So if I ask you to imagine 1.85 billion hands, is it even worth the question? 

And if I tell you that those 1.85 billion hands are a part of the 925 million people who went hungry last year, can we really understand the scope of that hunger?  

The challenging part is that even if we could understand the depth of that problem by reading a statistic, we would reach that understanding alone, most likely in front of our computers and in silence. 

Now that’s depressing. 

But there are better ways to understand the challenges we face. The most visceral form of learning is to go through an experience, not just read a statistic. The most empowering way to resolve a challenge is to do it with a sense of community, not in isolation. 

So would you like to learn about hunger in the only way we can, by experiencing it? And would you like to learn about it in the only context that will ever create a solution, with a community? 

We ask you to become part of that experience, part of that community, and part of the solution of reaching out to those 1.85 billion hands, so that 925 million people no longer have to go hungry. 

Learn more about this experience: host your own Hunger Banquet and attend Boston's Action Corps Hunger Banquet this weekend. 

 In addition to Boston's Action Corps Hunger Banquet, there is an upcoming Oxfam America Hunger Banquet hosted by the Madison Oxfam Action Corps.


The Oxfam Action Corps teams in Minneapolis, Chicago, and San Francisco have already hosted powerful Hunger Banquets this season, as has Iowa, pictured here.  

Find an Oxfam America Hunger Banquet in your area in the ACT FAST calendar, Change the world. Start here.  

Boston GROW Training and World Food Day Celebration for Local Boston Volunteers

Boston Oxfam Action Corps World Food Day Training- October 16, 2011

This blog entry comes to us courtesy of a Boston Oxfam Action Corps volunteer, Drew Love, who attended the GROW training session held on World Food Day!

The food movement, and other progressive movements, speak eloquently about the importance of “community.” But no matter how much ink is spilled over the issue, community is something that can only happen by people showing up.

So on Sunday, October 16^th, I decided to show up to the Boston Oxfam Action Corps training along with dozens of other people from the Massachusetts area.

What brought me there was a journey I started about two years ago while reading, volunteering, and interning for food justice projects.

There seemed to be plenty of bad things happening in the food system, and I wanted to do something about it. To name just a few:

·      Agriculture is a major contributor to climate change

·      About 33% of US Adults are obese, a problem strongly correlated to the food we eat

·      From seed sales to organic food production, power and ownership in the food system has become increasingly monopolized

And of course I could go on about all the bad stuff, but I showed up that Sunday to learn more about the good stuff.

Fortunately, I was far from the only one.

The round table introductions revealed a group of people who were born in all parts of the country and in some cases from other parts of the world. There were people in their early 20’s, and people in their 50’s and 60’s. There were different genders, races, ages, accents and viewpoints.

Yet we had all come there with a shared value. We knew it was important to create a just and sustainable food system.

We wanted to learn how that could be done.

Just one of the impressive projects we learned about was theSystem of Rice Intensification (SRI), an innovative approach to rice production that could increase yields by 50% while reducing water usage by half.

So you’d have to wonder what kind of fertilizer, pesticide, and/or multi million dollar machine could lead to these miraculous results.

And you’d have to keep on wondering because SRI is simply a method. The method is taught from one farmer to another, forming a global patchwork of farmer communities. These communities are bound by their shared livelihood, the shared educational experience of learning about SRI, and the shared benefits of living better, with a smaller footprint, on their own farms.

A similar sense of community came out of the Boston Oxfam Action Corp meeting that Sunday. Even though we began with introductions that revealed just how different we might be, we ended that workshop as a community of people brought together by shared values, and bonded through a shared experience.

That Sunday gave us the opportunity to create community, and as that community starts to flourish there is no doubt that it will make significant contributions to the food justice movement that Oxfam and so many others are dedicated to.

-Drew Love

Oxfam Action Corps Volunteer

World Food Day Events: Boston, New York City, and Chicago, and more!

World Food Day is just over a week away!  What will you be doing to celebrate?  Why not attend one of these unique and exciting events before or after hosting your own Sunday Dinner?!  A GROW training session in Boston, a film screening and discussion in New York City, and a Crop Mob in Chicago!  Not near any of these cities?  Check the ACT FAST event calendar, Change the World: Start Here, to see what is happening in your area!  


Boston: 

The Boston Oxfam Action Corps is a group of people from diverse backgrounds who come together as volunteers to help Oxfam campaign and win policies that will help tackle hunger and poverty on a global scale.

Join us for a special gathering this World Food Day, October 16. Together with Oxfam's senior organizing staff, we will provide an afternoon training on Oxfam's new campaign on global hunger – GROW – dedicated to taking action for food, fairness and the future of our planet. This is a great opportunity for anyone who wants to learn more, meet other Oxfam supporters and get involved.

The training includes an optional dinner to celebrate World Food Day. We hope you can join us.

What: Free training for Oxfam supporters in the Boston area. 

Topics: We will learn about the GROW campaign, share ideas and make plans to address global hunger through action with Oxfam Action Corps in Boston. 

Who: You! Open to Oxfam supporters, members and leaders of allied organizations. Also feel free to bring friends who are equally committed to fighting hunger and poverty. 

When: Sunday, October 16. The training is from 1:30-5:30pm. This will be followed by an optional dinner with tasty food and a chance to chat informally. 

Where: Oxfam America's office – 226 Causeway St., 5th Floor, Boston, MA 02114. 

Cost: Free. The training and dinner are free of charge. Bring yourself and come ready to participate! 

RSVP: Please click here to RSVP online (or email me the organizers boston@oxfamactioncorps.org). Specify whether you will attend the optional dinner and if you have any dietary restrictions. Please be sure any interested friends do the same. 

For more information: If you have questions about the training, please contact Oxfam's Brittany Collins at bcollins@oxfamamerica.org and 617-517-9439.

This is a great opportunity to join a community of action with Oxfam in Boston. We hope to see you there!

Emily Hubbard and Christine Ellersick, Oxfam Lead Volunteer Organizers

New York City: 

Oxfam Action Corps NYC, together with American Jewish World Service, The Hunger Project's Young Professionals Committee, and Union Theological Seminary, is hosting a US film premiere and discussion about how to change our global food system.  Check it out and learn more about why this issue is so important and what you can do to help.

What: World Food Day celebration and film premiere, discussion and recipe tasting.  The film, “Hunger in a World of Plenty,” addresses why, in a world that has enough resources to feed 12 billion people, nearly one billion people are chronically hungry.

When: Sunday, October 16 at 4:00pm – doors open at 3:30.

Where: James Memorial Chapel at Union Theological Seminary, 3041 Broadway at 121^st Street, New York City

Speakers: We’ll hear from Dr. Idrissa Dicko, Vice President for Africa Programs with The Hunger Project, Stephanie Ives, Director of Education and Community Engagement with American Jewish World Service and Rohit Malpani, Senior Campaigns Advisor with Oxfam America, who will discuss topics addressed in the film and ways in which attendees can take action on a local level.

Cosponsors: This event is cosponsored by the Brooklyn Food Coalition, Buddhist Global Relief, DIG (Development in Gardening), FeelGood Columbia University, the Hunger and Environmental Nutrition Special Interest Group of the Greater New York Dietetic Association, the International Youth Council, the Small Planet Institute and WhyHunger.

RSVP: This event is free and open to the public – please RSVP today.

Want to help prepare some of the tasting dishes for the event?  Please contact Arielle Cahill Hassid at newyorkcity@oxfamactioncorps.org.

Chicago: 

Join us for the second annual Crop Mob to Spence Farm!  Sponsored by Chicago Oxfam Action Corps, White Oak Gourmet, and the Spence Farm Foundation, we'll be celebrating World Food Day helping out on the farm.

Click Here to Register on Eventbrite

You'll be joining other Chicago area residents who are committed to a sustainable food supply. We'll be taking a bus from Chicago to Spence Farm 100 miles south of Chicago. Spence Farm in Livingston County was first settled in 1830. You'll be joining the Travis Family; Marty, Kris, and Will, descendants of the original settlers. We'll assist them with harvesting organic farm produce and with fall clean-up chores around the farm. Spence Farm supplies leading restaurants in Chicago like Frontera Grill and Blackbird with specialty produce and its famous Iroquois corn.

Because the farms are typically family owned and operated, most of the labor is done by hand. The term "Crop Mob" was coined by city dwellers who have an interest in sustainable agriculture and would like to help more than just by going to the farmer's market or joining a CSA. The "Crop Mob" gives the farmer(s) a valuable source of volunteer labor.

You'll need to bring the following for the trip:

• Packed Lunch
• Hand held gardening or pruning shears to help with the harvestng
• Sturdy shoes or boots and a change of socks.
• Gardening or work gloves.
• A re-fillable water bottle.
• A hat & sunscreen.
• A sweater or light jacket.
• Snacks for the trip down and return home.
• Money in case you'd like purchase some products from the farm. 

Spence Farm will provide beverages and snacks.

Children are welcome, however, but because the bus trip is 2 hours, and the inherent risks of working on a farm, this trip is more appropriate for children over 12 years of age.

The bus will depart from City Provisions Deli & Catering, located at 1818 W. Wilson, Chicago (Ravenswood) at 9:00 a.m., so please arrive No Later than 8:30 a.m


For those traveling to City Provisions via the CTA, they are just steps away from the Damen Brown Line stop, and the Damen bus. For those in vehicles, There's parking for your car anywhere in the gravel parking lot behind the shop (please don't park under the EL! City Provisions cannot be responsible for damage caused by tar falling from the tracks). For those on bikes, there are ample bike racks to lock your bike securely for the duration of the day.


Questions, need to carpool in from the 'burbs?  Don't hesitate to phone Organizer Tom Leavitt at 847-754-0708.

Click Here to Register on Eventbrite