Produce Farm / WOOF

[superblue]

http://www.wwoof.net/

 

I was curious if anyone has heard of , seen or know anyone who has done this before...Then I am also curious, to the opinions of the pros an cons  , of having a produce farm for the poor, on monastic property.

An thinking as I am composing this and surfing the net i just found this .... http://www.communitycrops.org/farm ( a place like this could help a community learn to make a produce farm come about ) So take out the expense of needing to find land. Equipment, Seeds, Storage . water..How does one convince a community that such an project is worth while ?  Where I am has so so much potential that isn't being used, I see things being wasted if anything. The main issue one might have at first is : who is going to do the work, and where is the money going to come from for everything else.

Volunteers and donations, start small and grow / is my answer in short.

Food is always in demand for the poor and those in need, from the low income in our own parishes, etc... an I find it frustrating that something can be done, but instead, time and money are being focused on rather superficial things that I can not discuss here as it would be giving out too much information.

I think the last thing would be to look into local laws in regards to growing food for distribution to the poor. An that should be easy enough to find out, plus there are orgs out there like Food Not Bombs who walk the line to feed the poor an homeless so there is no need for a well established place where I am at to fear anything.

Basically what I see here is if the Abbot is not on board obviously it isn't going to happen, and if it his not his idea he is even less likely to be even willing to take the idea serious.  

So basically this idea is for years down the road when I have some weight in the game. If I knew someone with a pot of money I am sure it would gain traction mighty fast. 

 

[Luigi]

I couldn't copy and paste just part of this article, so here's the link: https://www.marianist.com/files/2015/10/Lohrenz-obit.pdf

It's the obituary of a marianist (Brother of Mary) who live in one of their houses in San Antonio for a long time. He was an avid gardener, and all the produce he grew was donated to the poor. 

It wasn't a monastery, but it was a religious community. So there is some precedent for doing this kind of thing. 

[CatherineM]

We have that here. There are several urban community farms that supply the food bank and soup kitchens. There's also a near by farm that dedicates a four of his yield to them. 

[superblue]

Catherine  your comment , had triggered a thought that one thing would be to look into first, is where in the area that I am in, are the food banks / or soup kitchens getting some of their produce from, or what they are lacking, so research would be needed and not just arbitrarily growing produce and being like here ya go.

Though i guess one could, and give what ever produce they have to local parishes and then let them distribute it where needed.

[CatherineM]

The farmer who plants for the Catholic soup kitchen puts in a field of potatoes and carrots. We have to harvest, but it fills the root cellar at the mission for the winter. Last year they gave us a huge box that didn't fit since they know how many street kids we feed. The kids are afraid to eat downtown with the hardened street people. They're too easy a target, especially those with developmental disabilities. 

[superblue]

that is sad to hear Catherine ,

A sketchy idea i was thinking, also, would be how some prisons have inmates do the work, and then that food is delivered to food banks etc... It in theory shouldn't be a problem, as inmates with good behavior , and go through programs before hand and are evaluated etc for such programs..... It would to me if something like i am talking about here could develop in such a way if volunteers could not be found, to have that kind of program set up and it become a winning situation all around.

For what you are talking about Catherine, to me a solution for that is to have a soup kitchen for women and children only and perhaps have it to where the facility has a delivery van that can be used to transport food to where those in need are, so they do not have to risk their safety by traveling downtown and then to deal with the hardened street people.

 

Bloody insane , if it isn't bad enough to be poor and homeless, now one has to fight other poor and homeless to just get basic help.

 

God help us.

[CatherineM]

When I lived in St. Pete, the St Vincent de Paul homeless shelter had volunteers who went out to pick citrus off people's back yard trees. Lots of older people can't pick them and letting them fall can lead to fruit rat infestations and citrus canker I think. A local juicer would let them use the equipment for a day or two and they'd freeze the juice to use all year.

In Oklahoma, our shelter got backyard apples and peaches. The apples got made into apple sauce and the peaches got made into cobblers and both got frozen. We had a gang of older women who'd come in when the peaches were ripe to make the cobblers. They were an army and we stayed out of their way or else. 

[blazeingstar]

that is sad to hear Catherine ,

A sketchy idea i was thinking, also, would be how some prisons have inmates do the work, and then that food is delivered to food banks etc... It in theory shouldn't be a problem, as inmates with good behavior , and go through programs before hand and are evaluated etc for such programs..... It would to me if something like i am talking about here could develop in such a way if volunteers could not be found, to have that kind of program set up and it become a winning situation all around.

Actually, there are many places where inmates grow their own food in order to save the county money.  Sometimes excess food is donated.  It all depends on the space and the climate that the prison is in, however, some places are just not conducive to growing various foods.

[superblue]

that is the other thing to research, is the area i am in conducive to growing, potatoes, wheat, corn, what////