Hi everyone: I wanted to extend an invitation to the folks on this list to help out at our crop mobs this year.
For those who don’t know it, the Denver Crop Mob program seeks to help with urban agriculture and food justice efforts by coordinating volunteer days. We’ve built raised beds and hugelkulturs, sheet mulched, planted gardens, gleaned post-harvest crops and sometime just pulled weeds and cleared land for future urban ag endeavors, on behalf of organizations and individuals – for or not-for-profit – involved in and serious about this movement.
We’ve taken the old fashioned Amish barn raising as a model, thinking that a good way to build community is to work side by side for 4 hours (mobs run from 8 – 12) – and then relax and eat side by side, as the host serves a hot, sit-down lunch after the work is done. Through these interactions, we make and solidify our connections with the others in our community, explicitly asserting our commitment to the reality of interdependency that defines a robust community.
As I understand it, this is a part of what David means as he talks about nurturing healthy relationships, increasing or range of interactions, and so forth.
In other words, if we’re serious about building community, then showing up when our fellow community members need our help will naturally one of our primary care-abouts.
And so I would encourage you all to consider participating in the crop mobs program this year, as both hosts and volunteers where applicable. After all, in the Amish model, it was primarily farmers and their families, as well as other community members and craftspeople, helping other farmers. We’re going for the same dynamic here.
I have 3 crop mobs currently scheduled, although I generally only post one at a time (to keep up, you can join our FB page here, or simply keep an eye on the Greater Denver Urban Homesteaders meetup schedule – it’s a gold mine for cool events.
This spring’s first mob will be at Ekar Farm, an org that donated over 11,000 pounds of fresh produce to the hungry and in-need last year, well worth your support! You can find more info and a link to register here. I hope to see many of you this season at crop mobs!
Peace, Oz Osborn