August 31, 2016
Bringing ‘fresh’ to Ferguson Learn & Play
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Simple steps to smarter snacking
Community Voices
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By Maida J. Coleman
Submitted photo In addition to growing produce, EarthDance Farms also provides farming education. “Because we’re a farm school, we teach people of all ages where their food comes from and how to grow it themselves,” said Katie Adams, Youth Educator for EarthDance Farms.
EarthDance Farms grows produce for the community with the goal of making Ferguson a better place to eat
Around Town
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School
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‘Celebrate Safe Communities’
By Sara Hardin A Saturday morning tradition takes place May through October in Ferguson’s Victorian Plaza, where early weekend risers can enjoy music, homemade foods and crafts and the company of their neighbors. Among the loyal vendors is EarthDance Farms, the beloved local farm that has offered its produce to market goers since its inception in 2008. Thousands of pounds of fruits and veggies are carefully tended to by hundreds of farmers and volunteers each season on the farm’s land, and are then harvested and distributed to shoppers, schools and restaurants in the surrounding communities. “At the [Ferguson Farmers’ Market], we share our produce that has been grown throughout the season,” said Katie Adams, Youth Educator for EarthDance Farms. “Here at EarthDance it’s not just one or two people growing all of our organic produce. It’s actually close to 1,000 hands from across Ferguson and around St. Louis who help bring that produce to market. We grow 153 varieties. On any given Saturday at the farmers’ market you can find ground cherries, kohlrabi, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants - basically anything you can think of, we’re growing it here on the farm. Our farm is 14 total acres and we actively grow on about five
of those. Last year, we grew over 50,000 pounds of food.” EarthDance has cultivated a reputation of being incredibly communityoriented and sensitive to the needs of its people. Their partnership with Fair Food Network allows them to offer a Double Up Food Bucks booth at the Ferguson Farmers’ Market every week. Those who use Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) can use tokens from the booth to double the amount of money that’s available for them to spend on fruits and vegetables being sold by any Ferguson Farmers’ Market vendor. EarthDance has also been providing its produce to the Ferguson-Florissant School District and to various St. Louis chefs and restaurants. Its community food assessment, funded by the USDA Community Food Projects grant and launched earlier this summer, will assist EarthDance in recommending changes in produce availability to Ferguson residents. “Our aim is to make Ferguson a better place to eat,” said Adams. “We’re asking Ferguson residents what’s working with their food system and what’s not working, and then how we can better address it as a community and EarthDance as an organization. We are distributing
surveys that we’re encouraging Ferguson residents to take to let us know what they want in terms of food access in their own town. We are also doing grocery store audits and seeing what is actually available now on the ground. It’s still being conducted, and we will be compiling the results in the fall and winter and then releasing recommendations once we have that data tracked.” See FRESH page 2
Hazelwood teachers prepared
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