MCTC Urban Farm Collective

07/29/2021

The Garden is looking good. Also feel free to join us tomorrow (Friday) at 1pm, during our weekly club meeting.

07/23/2021

I apologize for not keeping up with updates, but I'm here to let you know that the garden is thriving. Here's what it looked like when we started this year.

05/15/2021

Come on down to the Global Market on Sunday!

Join us this Sunday from 2-5pm at Midtown Global Market for Black Girl Joy! Our event was curated by Super Women Achieving Great Goals (SWAGG) and is funded by our friends at The Minneapolis Foundation.
Free for all ages, and although we are exclusively commemorating Black women, all are welcome and encouraged to attend.
Spread the word!

04/09/2021

Seedlings are sprouting! We will start transplanting out to the garden beds in early May!

07/20/2020

Things are going well!

06/18/2020

"To my MCTC colleagues in particular-- please spread the word:

Though MCTC's Students Against Hunger and Homelessness (SAHH) is unable to operate its own food pantry (Amy's Food Depot) this summer, it is happy to report that the food pantry operated by the college's Student Support Services office will now offer students the opportunity to order food for pick-up on Wednesdays from 1-4:30 outside of T.2300. Below is the link to the pantry order form for Wednesday, June 24, 2020. The form will be updated weekly and orders for June 24 pick-up must be submitted by 11:59pm Tuesday, June 23, 2020. Please spread the word!"

- Lena Jones, Community Development Club

06/18/2020

Starting to look like a garden!

10/02/2019

Meet us at the pile of dirt near the horse shoe courts in Loring Park to fill our garden beds with soil!

09/20/2019

08/29/2019

The garden beds are built in Loring Park!

2 days of construction after 2-3 years of navigating board approvals, getting support from Friends of Loring Park, Citizens For A Loring Park Community, local businesses and neighbors all around. Going through policy and procedure development at the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (we're one of the first gardens to do this with their new Urban Ag policies, they didn't even exist when we started, we actually got to have a hand in creating them.), and logistical negotiations with Minneapolis College.

We'd like to thank Facilities at the college for hanging on to the beds over this process, and helping us donate them to the Park Board.
Ellen Kennedy and MPRB's urban ag committee members, for their work at developing the these policies and procedures.
Rebecca Gross (seen in photos with bandana) for helping us smooth out all the logistics of cement, transportation, and carrying the beds into their new home. Among many other things, she really is a hero in this saga.
Conservation Corps Minnesota & Iowa and Volunteers (Also seen in photos), for helping us transport and build the garden beds.
Tiffin Man for providing us pizza yesterday.
Katherine A Kragtorp and Nick Deacon for their investment as advisors to the club.
Tara Stormoen Martinez, Minneapolis College Student Life for always being their with constant support through this entire process. As was the various members of the MCTC Student Senate.

We'd also like to thank all of you for your support of us, as well as urban ag in general. It did make a difference, because there seemed to be a swell of support for urban ag at the park board as we started this process, and it is why a pathway was created.

There's still a lot of work to be done, but the garden is built. With that, let me describe some details about it. The Urban Farm Collective will oversee the 8 beds around the fence line through a Stewardship agreement (still being worked on), and ofcourse we are happy to join up with other clubs and utilize these beds as an MCTC community. We've already been talking to MCTC 3-Legged Frog Club, United Nations of Indian Tribes for Education (UNITE), and Students Against Hunger and Homelessness-Student Life MCTC.

The other 14 beds that are not by the fence, are able to be applied for here: https://www.minneapolisparks.org/volunteer_and_give/garden_volunteers/gardens__bird_sanctuaries/community_gardens/

MPRB will be assigning beds based on criteria developed by the MPRB Urban Ag Committee, Staff, and Board. As of right now, there will be a yearly rotating roster, but essentially anyone in the neighborhood is able to sign up for a bed, students of Minneapolis College included, to get on that waiting list.