S.O.U.P. – Springfield Ohio Urban Plantfolk – is a community based, urban agriculture approach to food security for residents of the south side of Springfield, which is an official food desert. It includes garden and food education components for adults and children, gardening setup and assistance, farm stand with EBT capacity, cooking classes, among other activities.
Although our focus is food security, we seek to accomplish it through the context of community that is already present within the neighborhood, using a variety of activities around food and gardens. We are addressing long term program sustainability via an urban agriculture approach. Our program is multifaceted, with overarching broad goals, and several program components driven by the needs and interests of the residents.
Program components include:
Community Interfusion
We approach our work from two directions: an overarching “umbrella” of concepts from the urban ag/organic/sustainability world, and more importantly a “ground level” base of desires/hopes/needs of the residents, interfusing food security with the sense of community and place that is already present.
Monthly meetings are held with a group of neighborhood women to determine the direction of the cooking classes, one school/community combination garden, the farm stand operation, and children’s activities during garden events. These women have also participated in the greenhouse plant maintenance and plant sale, and help when possible at the production garden. We have found that borrowing space within the local churches allows us to stay in closer touch with the community we serve.
Soil Building/Remediation
In collaboration with The Arthur Morgan Institute for Community Solutions – our supporting nonprofit – we are working to build organic, living soil in places where heavy metal contamination and/or prior demolition leaves soil unusable for growing food, where that is possible. Strategies such as deep mulching and use of compost for soil quality and water retention are taught. We work with the county health department and a geology class at Wittenberg University to retain lead testing services and seek to partner with Central State or Wittenberg to achieve an ongoing soil testing program designed to document our soil remediation efforts and to educate our constituents about soil biology/components/quality. We garden above ground level where that is necessary, but have found that we still need to build living soil and attend to soil quality in that context as well.
Urban agriculture approach
We work with our local land bank and Community Solutions to acquire vacant lots in order to assure long term stability and to avoid loss of assets. This is done with an eye on potential community partners in proximity to these lots, to ensure community engagement, development and longevity of that resource. Water capture is an integral piece of this, in the interest of sustainability, resilience, and cost. Plans are in place to create a “resource depot” where residents have access to resources such as wood chips, hay/straw, and compost. Composting coffee grounds from Wittenberg University is being explored as a resource.
School, Community, Backyard and Production Gardens
School gardens at Perrin Woods Elementary and Hayward Middle School are supported and operated by our efforts, in cooperation with the community members and school personnel. A large production garden site, on loan at this time from a local church, is the primary site to grow vegetables for the local farm stand and flowers for a Hayward Middle School student to learn flower arranging and sell her work. We assist residents, as we discover them, to begin backyard gardens, and are in the process of assisting a local church begin a garden as well.
Farm Stand with EBT capacity
Our farm stand operates on site of Perrin Woods Elementary School and has EBT capacity. Our leftover produce at the end of each week is donated to the Free Store, a place where household goods and produce are available each Saturday for free to neighborhood residents. Residents are part of the operation of the farm stand and this is also a place for a middle school student to sell her flower arrangements.
Urban/Rural Partnerships
We have now partnered with a vegetable farmer in the county to purchase some of his “seconds” for the farm stand. Through this process, he also donates a portion of these seconds to us, which were formerly given away to a hog farmer. This allows him to receive payment for food that he typically “throws away”, and allows us to obtain very useable produce for the farm stand at a reduced rate. It also allows us to vastly improve the quantity and variety of produce we sell at the farm stand, which aligns with our primary goal of getting fresh, healthy food into the inner city at affordable prices.
Procuring large round bales of spoiled hay is also accomplished with the help of county farmers, which are then unloaded at garden sites and used for water retention and soil improvement.
Cooking and food preservation classes
Summer classes, in our third year, are focused on food preservation. Our winter classes, just finishing our first year, are focused on selected vegetables, with growing and cooking information for that veggie. Classes are held in two different neighborhood churches.
Education
We maintain a small, mobile lending library of books – cooking, gardening, and general food system topics – that residents can borrow books from.
We teach a series of “garden science” lessons in the entire first grade of two elementary schools in the south side- Lincoln and Perrin Woods – in the spring of each year.
We oversee a weekly student directed garden club at Hayward Middle School, finishing its second year, which meets over the summer as well as during the school year.
Education about gardening is done in a naturally insidious manner as well, during seedling production in the winter and gardening in the summer, which is more socially acceptable to the residents than formal classes due to its informal, imbedded nature. It is done in situ, where they are most comfortable, and is provided within the context of the ongoing activities, where learning is natural and more meaningful.
Education about soil quality and development is included in school and community garden programs, complete with hauling in composted manure to enrich gardens.
Seedling production and plant sale
Seed starting is done in conjunction with Strive, the day program of Champaign Residential Services, which serves adults with developmental disabilities. Approximately 60 flats of vegetable plants are started and maintained in their greenhouse, and a plant sale is held in the spring as part of a fund raising effort. We provide plants, seeds and seed potatoes for our school/community/production gardens, as well as several backyard gardens.
Farm to School work
As part of a prior planning grant, we participated in rejuvenating the Wellness Committee in the city school district and conducted an exploration of potential inclusion of local food in the cafeteria and snack programs. We have written an implementation grant and were awarded that grant in June 2017. Within this grant process we are seeking to include the two other south side elementary schools, as well as potentially the early childhood center, within the city school system. We are also expanding programming with an eye on increased capacity building and community involvement.
Flower arranging
Held for the first time this year, was a small class on flower arranging, sponsored by SOUP and guided by a volunteer who taught the basics of flower arranging. This component, as with many others, was spurred by the voiced interest of a resident – a student in our garden club at Hayward.
