Women's Environmental Institute

2012 CSA Information

zita — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:42:02 -0600

It is THAT time of year again -- Yes, we know it is only January, but we are hard at work planning for another fantastic CSA season at the Amador Hill Farm at WEI. Check out the value:

Certified Organic Fruits and Vegetables grown with care on our East Central Minnesota farm and at select Organic-certified partner farms.
18 week season starting in mid-June and ending in mid-October
Harvested and delivered to a drop site near you each week -- it doesn't get much fresher than this!
Rebates available for farm pick-up, participating in our Farm-For-A-Day program, and keeping your WEI membership current
3/4 bushel of produce each week (about a brown paper grocery bag-full, on average)
Supports your local farming community
Newsletter in each delivery with news from the farm, recipe ideas and information about the produce in that week's box
Only $576.00 for the entire season
Special members' only pricing on produce for canning and freezing, and special members' only events at the farm.
Organic apples in your share in the fall
15 workshare positions available for this season. Trade work on the farm for your CSA Box!! Call us at 651.583.0705 for more information.

You can't beat the convenience, and the taste and freshness are out of this world! Join our CSA. Make a difference in YOUR community. Click on the links below for more information:

What is a CSA? Order a CSA Now 2011 Dropsite List (some may change in 2012) Look at our CSA Brochure Contact CSA Coordinator

2012 Farm Internships at WEI

zita — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:41:15 -0600

This year WEI will be able to support up to six interns for on-residency farm education and training in organic farming. The internship includes a season-specific curriculum, hands-on skill building, educational classes when Organic Farm School is in session, experience working as a member of the farm crew and at farmer’s markets, and a research project. Includes up to 24 hours of direct-paid farm work per week in addition to the educational component of the program. On-site residency at WEI available: Monday evening through Friday afternoon for Spring and Summer internships.

Farm Internships available in 2012:
Spring Term (April 23 - May 31- one intern)
Early Summer (June 3 - July 13 - two interns)
Late Summer (July 16 - August 24 - two interns)
Autumn Orchard Internships (September 7 - October 14 – one intern; Fri-Sun and local residents only). Summer Farm Interns receive a weekly food basket from the farm to help cover meal costs.

For more information and list of desired qualifications, click here.

2011 Growing Power Training Weekend at WEI a HUGE Success

zita — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 13:39:22 -0500

This year’s Growing Power Training Weekend on September 24 – 25, 2011 was a rousing success with over 100 people who came to the Amador Hill Farm at the Women’s Environmental Institute to learn sustainable farming methods and practices for urban and rural farming from Will Allen, his Milwaukee WI Growing Power Staff, and WEI’s Staff from the Minnesota Growing Power Regional Outreach Training Center. Participants included a multi-cultural, multi-generations group of emerging farmers, educators, representatives of NGOs, non-profits, corporations, sustainability organizations and schools, along with other community leaders and individuals involved in the struggle for food justice in the Twin Cities, the region and around the world.

A Huge THANK YOU to our Scholarship Funders for this year's Growing Power Training Weekend. Scholarships were awarded to over 20 individuals who applied for special financial assistance to attend the event. To see a list of the organizations and businesses that sponsored students at the training weekend, click on SCHOLARSHIP FUNDING ORGANIZATIONS
The weekend training offered multiple hands-on workshops presented by Will Allen and his Milwaukee-based Growing Power staff, beginning with the hoophouse/aquaponics construction project on Amador Hill. This was a training opportunity for participants to develop the skills needed to build hoop houses at their own local farm projects—mostly in our underserved urban neighborhoods. Will Allen presented his workshops on Microgreens and on Composting and Vermiculture. Growing Power Staff member Sara Christman offered information to those interested in bee-keeping as well as in the composting workshop. In addition, WEI-affiliated local instructors presented other related farmer-training workshops on root-cellar planning and building, organic garlic growing, organic herb growing and gardening, and organic orcharding practices.

Attendees liked the “mix of hands-on and talking, literature recommendations,” “the in-depth info…,” “instructors were excellent teachers and builders (the hoophouse building workshop),” the “education, knowledge/skills building network among all of us together…look forward to the next conference.” Participant enthusiasm and the excellent meals provided by chefs Mariano Espinoza, Sarah Hollows and Carlyle Bowker kept us filled and greatly enjoying each other’s company. Around the bonfire on Saturday night, participants had the opportunity to discuss next steps for spreading the Good Food Revolution, and how to keep networked for future projects and conversations. We look forward to to doing more of this pro-farmer green justice work in the forthcoming year.

Breaking News: PFC Breakthrough -- a Missing Credit to Dr. Fardin Oliaei

zita — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 08:05:16 -0600

The Women's Environmental Institute has been working for more than four years to bring PFC awareness to locally affected communities through our environmental justice work. Now we are in the unexpected company of a powerful lawsuit aginst 3M. In the coming months, we seek to have Dr. Fardin Oliaei recognized as a pioneer whistle-blower on this issue, returned to a job at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, and given access to a lab to complete and support her critically important research on the effects of PFC contamination in soil, plants, water and fish, and potentially in humans. It is also necessary that her new position with the agency enable Dr. Oliaei to provide policy leadership that maximizes her new public policy expertise. At the WEI website, watch for a petition of support for Dr. Oliaei that you and your organization can sign, and watch for WEI's upcoming conference on current PFC researc. Download WEI's recently released PFC Update.

WEI endorses OCA New Year's Resolutions . DONATE NOW (last day for 2010 WEI)

2010 Open Letter from WEI Executive Director, Karen Joy Clark

zita — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 13:16:28 -0600

Creative Ways You Can Help WEI Grow DONATE NOW

Welcome to the returning post-solstice sun. In looking back, 2010 has been both a challenging and an exciting year for WEI! Like most small non-profits, WEI’s been challenged by hard economic times, especially to adequately meet our operational costs. Determined to become more financially sustainable, WEI went to work forging more opportunities to partner with allies. We can report great progress in 2010! Exciting new multi-year federal grant awards for our projects plus our first work-place giving campaign: 1) a USDA grant to partner with Environmental justice Advocates of MN (EJAM) for our cross cultural/cross neighborhood Urban Community Food Justice Council we initiated last year and 2) a U.S. EPA Community Action for Renewing the Environment) grant to partner with Hennepin County for expanding our environmental justice mapping work in Phillips. 3) WEI also competed successfully to become part of the Minnesota Environmental Fund’s work-place giving campaign and 4) Healthy Legacy Coalition awarded us a joint grant with EJAM to continue our policy work. And what makes us so happy, WEI was honored with the prestigious Ann Bancroft Award for our environmental justice work in support of girls and women.

WEI’s two Environmental Justice Education and Advocacy Collaborative (EJEAC) Projects also gathered momentum: 1) Phillips EJEAC, with the leadership of our community-based PESCI organizers, helped successfully change state public utility policy to challenge the environmental injustice of siting high voltage electric transmission lines through Phillips and WEI has become the “incubator” for a project with the Allina Backyard Project focused on safer home product workshops in the Latina/o community. 2) WEI’s East Metro EJEAC hired a new intern-coordinator and our Principal Investigator sparked new interest from the Obama administration’s federal environmental agencies (EPA and NIEHS) and with local Hmong health professionals to help promote our research on toxic exposures to Hmong farmers.

WEI’s own Farm Program bloomed in 2010: bountiful crops at Amador Hill fed a successful Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) project and our three culturalheritage farms (Indigenous, Latino, Hmong) expanded to four, adding an experimental Mexican peanut growing project. The highly successful launching of WEI’s new Regional Outreach Training Center in collaboration with Growing Power, Inc was an October inspiration. WEI’s Organic Farm School’s fifth season convened at the Midtown Global Market and WEI’s public policy work with Healthy Legacy continues. WEI’s Land Registry Project gained membership and the North Circle Project may find new life as part of a farming cooperative development. WEI’s most exciting partnership with Little Earth of United Tribes Urban Farm and Food Justice Project continues to inspire with the Little Earth Women’s Group taking strong leadership. This project and these urban farmers are the grounding team for WEI’s educational certification/accreditation work ahead.

These projects and programs surviving with the hard work of WEI volunteers and minimal staff. Though we are celebrating the success of these terrific projects, it’s important to share that WEI is seriously struggling with infrastructure, administrative and operational costs because these are not currently being fully funded by our granting sources. WEI is fulfilling its mission with our unique coalition of rural and urban, Indigenous, low income and communities of color, ensuring that women’s voices and priorities help lead the way to change lives as well as public policy. We know we cannot maintain the momentum without the ongoing generous help and participation of our members and community supporters, so please stay with us as we close out 2010 and begin 2011. Your contributions and donations will make the difference. All gifts to WEI are tax deductible.

For a full copy of the 2010 WEI Newsletter, click here. Photo:Little Earth urban farmers, Dawn Segura and Sindy Wright,
with Jacquelyn Zita and Dan Halsey, mentor farmers, and Karen Clark at the 2010 High Tunnel Conference.

WEI Releases PFC Update by Dr. Fardin Oliaei

zita — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 14:42:22 -0600

Dr. Fardin Oliaei, Principal Investigator for WEI's East Metro Environmental Justice Education and Advocacy Project, has created a new update on her Perfluorochemical (PFC) fact sheet, entitled UPDATE ON PFC INVESTIGATION AND HEALTH RISKS (2010). This document summarizes research revealing human health concerns regarding PFC exposure. PFCs products are persistent, long lasting man-made chemicals produced for use in commercial and consumer products which have now been mostly phased out of production but have been found to contaminate ground and surface water near the East Metro production facilities and in human and animal blood throughout the world. Health risk levels are still being researched and established. Read more.

AMADOR-SUNRISE LAND REGISTRY

zita — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 12:07:00 -0500

“Dedicated to the ideals of good water quality in the Sunrise and St. Croix Rivers, the preservation of habitat for native plants and wildlife, and a vibrant rural/farm economy that embraces sustainable agricultural practices.”

The Amador-Sunrise Registry was launched in 2008 to support the conservation efforts of private landowners with property in Amador and Sunrise Townships of Chisago County. An informal membership-based program, the Registry brings together people who share an appreciation for the rural and natural heritage of the area, and are interested in caring for their land in ways that project these values. Read more.

For even more information, click here.

MOTHER BRICK PROJECT

zita — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:05:40 -0600

WELCOME to The Mother Brick Project

A celebration of the nurturing spirit, fostering aculture of caring for each other and the earth

VIEW TRIBUTES

WHAT IS THE MOTHER BRICK PROJECT: For a new and meaningful twist on gift giving, check out our new MOTHER BRICK PROJECT. If you join in this large collective effort, you can honor a mother, grandmother or other nurturing individual by dedicating a virtual brick in their name and submitting a written tribute and/or photgraph that will be permanently posted to the WEI Mother Brick Website. Mother Bricks may be dedication as a gift or memorial, and particpants so honored will receive a Certificate of Dedication as a keepsake or gift enclosure. The posting of these tributes recognizes your tax deductable contribution to help build and strenghen the place of WEI on the planet and your support of our environmenal and agricultural justice work. We honor the mothers all as we honor the Mother Earth and build our strength together.
Read More.

WEI 2012 Membership Drive

zita — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:05:40 -0600

BECOME A WEI (NEW or RENEWED) MEMBER WEI is a membership-driven organization. We are opening the year of 2012 with a renewed membership drive to help bring in more supporting members and offer you as members more opportunities to participate in WEI events, planning meetings and happenings. In addition, WEI offers many optional benefits to members as well as the knowledge that your membership keeps us connected and keeps WEI going. Check out our membership page for more information. Encourage yourself and your friends to find a place with WEI. If you are a current member, consider an early renewal in 2012.

Individual memberships @ $48/year and double memberships for you and a friend @ $58/year. Memberships are available on-line or by mail (send check and your e-mail address(s) to WEI, P.O. Box 128, North Branch, MN 55056).

PHOTO: Will Allen and Jacquelyn Zita at the compost pile (WEi/Growing Power Weekend Training, Oct. 2010)

Chisago County Press on the Land Registry Program

zita — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 11:57:39 -0600

August 14: Composting Workshop with Professor Pat Farrell

zita — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 12:40:48 -0500

Join us for some practical bin building and working on the compost rolls. This hands-on workshop is available to Organic Farm School Students free of charge. Unregistered students: a $15 donation is requested. Lunch included.