 Hello and welcome! I'm Erin Schneider. I am an administrative associate with the North Central Sare program. I also farm in South Central Wisconsin and I am excited for you all to join us with this episode of Farming Matters. I'm also here excited to be here with Marie Flanagan who is the North Central Sare communications specialist and she helped produce the show and is here to co-host with us today. I'm here today with Danielle Guerin who is the farmer as well as the executive director of Soul Food Project and she's here to share with you all what she's learned and what is she is helping co-create in her neighborhood through her specifically about her farmer rancher grants, the Near Northeast Community Supported Agriculture program but also Danielle we're happy to hear you wherever you want to take that story about your grant and what you would offer to other farmers so thanks for being here. I'm Danielle and I I founded Soul Food Project in 2017. I had just returned from Peace Corps serving as a farm and ag wisdom advisor and I was finishing up my master's degree in nonprofit management and sustainability and sustainable development and so I was really interested in food security and food deserts and so I kind of realized that like there you grew up in what is the food desert. I was very lucky as a child to always be part of a two car household so I never struggled with food access and getting and having food access. I had a car we drove to the grocery store so I moved back home I was just like yes I am starting a farm and everyone had pretty much told me that like it was the worst idea possible to start a farm in our neighborhood that the neighbors would not support it, would not come out to support it, they wouldn't care, the prices would be too high, like if they wanted food but they just wouldn't, it's in the neighborhood for that you would have an organic farm in like that's what I was told by everybody and I was just like well that makes no sense I'm gonna prove everyone wrong and still do it and so I found it Soul Food Project in 2017 and I mentioned the foster wellness and activity by increasing access to local food and offering hands-on educational opportunities. So I chose this as a mission because I want to increase the well-being through our food. Soul food and things like that are called Soul Food because well I know like food feeds your soul and like different ways you can do that or feed your soul but also education feeds your soul as well and so for the Soul Food Project because we're feeding the soul through food and educational opportunities opportunities and so that's kind of what we started with and just started farming in 2017 and just building up their sites. We have three sites in the city now and we just kind of I just kept growing and adding more sites because I needed more space to grow food because people were wrong they people were supporting they were wanting food but people were still kind of being kind of like naysayers and saying hey like it's not really gonna work like they're not gonna support you fully all the time it's not gonna be sustainable and so I decided to get a stair grant because I want to see like whether like a farmer's market or a like CSA was more economically viable in our neighborhood and I wonder like what for everyone's saying you can't do either but I was just like well maybe you can do one like maybe one maybe a function doesn't work or market doesn't work but maybe I guess CSA does work so yeah I was saying I was facing our access to local food and not for educational education that's kind of where the CSA came out of play because with the CSA I can do like educational opportunities also increase access to local food and so I thought the stair grant was helping me do research and figure out like how how it can happen and so when I launched the CSA we had the very first year we only had what I think seven members the first season and the 12 week CSA like every other week as well um seven members year two we launched it we had 10 we had 10 members that year but it grew to 12 and this is year three of our CSA and we're up to like 35 members of our CSA and the neighborhood um and so we and we've had like different things down and I was and now it's a 20 week CSA so now it starts in May 19th and like generally in mid-May and then it goes into October and then we have our supplier we did I made for the for that and we passed out to neighbors with a QR code approaches to share and then websites and where to pick it up at and now like our goal is to get to 65 shares like next year so and we're as possible so we're growing a lot now that we had our three sites it just put a high tunnel Tuesday at our farm so I'm really excited about that so we have a high tunnel now and we have a greenhouse too as well so like we're just expanding a lot and so with our CSA we do give them like a weekly newsletter with that which hung what they get in their CSA each week and they also get recipes for the items that they're getting so they can kind of use those recipes to do different things and we also sent them this guide to storing food um for the to be used at each beginning of the season and that kind of shows them how to best store their the pros that they're getting from us because we give so much and they're always just like that's a lot how do I keep this the last and so we heard that having an idea how to store it was the best way to do it so we created a guide for them to store the food like what they can sort of tomatoes and different things like that so it's kind of helps them follow um we're turning into a magnet this year I think because to pass out so people put in their fridges so it's more accessible instead of having to print off themselves or be a magnet for your fridge so I'm really excited about that but yeah we just kind of like the CSA was just made because I felt that that was the best way for us as a non-profit organization to like actually um grow community as well growing community because we are a non-profit and our sites are all in neighborhoods like we are surrounded by houses and all all of our pond sites are so like we are we're neighbors as well and so we the CSA helps us to engage with community that way and help us help them have educational as well and helps us to serve in a way that I feel like really happy about serving in that in that direction and so with our project it's shown to us that like the neighborhood will support these types of projects and like especially the neighborhoods are considered low-income or like get prominently black neighborhoods they will support these projects if you say it a certain way so I call it a veggie box I don't really call it a CSA I call it a veggie box um because it's more palatable that way and that makes sense so you're like oh a veggie box description I know that is but when you say CSA it means it has to get to go do what that stands for and then explain what it is and that's just a lot more of what you were saying a veggie box description then they is more open people to understand it and also I accept a lot from painting plans as well we do painting plans we do a sliding scale um we do we accept SNAP for it as well and we're actually um the health department actually is part of this never next year to offer another different better deal for a half off for SNAP participants who want to buy a CSA next year and you mentioned like you know your first year can you talk a little bit about like how how you went about like you know just getting the word out as well as like finding neighbor you know finding like where to farm too like like getting like a hand access in your neighborhood to do that like I feel like that those are big hurdles and how to go for you yeah yeah so land access for me is I'm like I'm like a like odd one out with land access because I don't have trouble finding land like land finds me in a way so like the far first site I like I searched for someone to like looking for the property like I need property to find this prop to grow on my first garden and then someone has said like we have a community garden space that we're not using I do want to use it and that's how I got that for our first site and then within a couple of months all right pretty extension reached out to me and was just like we know another site that needs help with help managing the garden you won't take over that site as well and I was like sure so I had those two sites so then the first year then like by like 2020 I was at capacity and then like our newest that we get we are working on right now my family actually owns and they pretty much were kind of like we teach your capacity we have this plot of land that we just cut in the grass line do you want to farm on there too and I was like sure so like I don't really have trouble finding like getting land access people just ask me that like how do you find land and I'm just like it kind of just finds me and he would just ask and then what's getting the work out for our first year they let a Facebook ads and like neighborhood association groups emailed them and then just like talk people about it and just like spread the word that way that we were it was happening because we were already we were already doing like at that point had already been farmers markets so we had like a already a small like customer base already so we had to be I said newsletter out to the customer saying we're trying to see you stay next year like so we're doing um so they knew already and it's kind of like shared it that way and that was how we first started yeah I noticed on your logo that the word youth comes before food yes can you talk a little bit about why youth are so important for your organization I think they're very important for us because like I'm I feel like as a younger as a younger person who was starting a farm um I started when I was like I was 26 27 I started um I'm just fresh from the city and like there's a lot of doubters with me and stuff and so a lot of people doubted and doubted that I could do it that it was like oh you have the experience you never been a farm before they worked on farms but I didn't do a full season before I started our farm and so like they're always a lot of people doubted me with that and our youth program kind of started the same year as our farm so like it was kind of something that was like that was given to me too when I inquired that second site that year they had a youth program happening and they kind of were like with this site comes this youth program that you're going to manage too and so that kind of just like came as part of who we were when we first started we were always a farm plus this youth program and they're important to us because they do a lot of the heavy lifting in the year like when I'm I'm typically I'm not as a solo farmer up until this year now I have employees and stuff but for the first like four years like it was just me like plus the teens out at the farm and doing all of this and throwing all the food and harvesting so they're just like a really important part of it and the skills they're learning and this and become the leaders they're becoming in the community are really important and so like we're developing leaders we're not developing farmers um that's how I say this like they they want to farm they can farm but like they're gonna be community leaders when they're done with them they're done with me and so that's kind of how I father father first because food is important but that's not all we do and that's not everything we are and like when I measure our success like I don't measure how much food I grew this year anymore that's just not how much success anymore I measure everything else I do all the impacts I'm having as well so we have the youth are and they're all W2 employees um so something I'm big about is equity and the food system and so everyone's a W2 employee the starting pay for the youth workers are is $10 an hour um what they're making um and so the other their employees um so they get their set hours each week and then in the summer and then so they're the ones up until 18 years old after you turn 18 you're still into it you still want to farm so you're like I want to farm more we just lost our apprenticeship program so year-long apprenticeship program for the farm we'll have three spots open at the moment but yeah well they're they're full but yeah and that's what we do for the adults or 18 or older who want to learn how to farm early get dive more into like the whole farming thing and like running a farm they pretty much just like follow me around every day and just kind of learn do everything I do and and see and get that experience one question I have and many other farmers might be curious about as well is like how do you how did you arrive at that kind of sweet spot with different payment options for veggie box subscriptions and then how do you kind of say no to people who found you that were outside your neighborhood kind of they were just like exploring that space a little bit um well I don't say no to the neighborhood but I do don't I don't offer them the discounts though ever like so I if they're outside the neighborhood and I know where they live if I don't they don't tell me then I just like what I kind of figured out but like most people cut the neighborhood I just don't offer them a discount and so they get they pay the full price like the $400 for the share um but for I came up with the prices so I actually was looking at Soulfire Farm did a SAIR project as well like CSA boxes so I definitely referenced them a lot when I came to like deciding figuring out prices and things on each area but I kind of like looked at the price so like the box what it was valued at and then I just worked it backwards and then I figured out the price of the box was valued at was $400 and then I figured out the lowest I could accept for like the see for the SNAP benefits though it's just like that made it make sense financially that well they were still getting a really good deal and I figured out that price and then I just kind of in between made little notches so we have like our SNAP shares like 150 and then our low income share is 200 and then our medium income share is I think it's it's 250 then high income is like 300 and then like 400 is like the solid it's kind of a solidarity share like you know you can pay a 4400 what you're gonna pay and you can you can afford to pay and have pay a little extra and so that's kind of how I came up with the prices is kind of just figured out the differences that way and how much how it made sense and was easy enough to like do like the weekly purchases too because it's SNAP benefits they can't pay all the upfront it's not allowed they had to pay a day of and so I had to figure out a good number that they could use to like that works out for them they can easily remember remember the amount and it wouldn't be a weird number after 20 weeks like other paying I think I would add that anyone who was like interested in doing a csa could like to remember that first word is community remember that that what that means and to try not to like do things to the community but do things with the community I'm wondering if you've had to tackle any concerns around soil health or soil quality given the fact that you've got urban lots yes short answer yes long answer yes yes yes um so our first set it's like was pretty good easily it was a house was there but like the soil tested it was fine no heavy metals um our newest site where the high tunnel is and things like that are just our biggest site um definitely actually had lead in the soil um we I knew about it there was like a lead plant burnt burnt down in like the 70s in the neighborhood and so all the lead soil in that neighborhood has been like contaminated and the EPA has come through and fixed a lot of the residential areas but if they were baking lots they was kind of like well it's just vacant lot we don't have to fix this so no one's living here so they are that site still has um this lead in the soil um I had the option of getting them to like come in and remediate it for me but then it was just like would have put us back a season I'm using that site and slash is like no I'm not gonna do it so I just built up um and so we've added about a foot of mulch onto one site and now this high tunnel is we're gonna add another like foot to mulch in the high tunnel we're actually gonna put fabric down first under the high tunnel and then add mulch on top of the fabric then build the beds on top of the mulch just to be on the very safe side that nothing to grow in there will hit that lead um but we've I worked a lot with Purdue University um this past two years putting a trial on carrots um and how carrots operate in soils with heavy metals and so we've been planting a lot of carrots in my farms the past two years been Purdue University just a test yeah and it's been fine they haven't they haven't pulled up any they haven't reached down to the native soil yet to pull out so we're pretty I'm pretty happy that we maybe eventually at our main site um we'll be able to get like started with growing more root crops at that site like there's some things that are really unique to an urban farm area then like kind of more rural or peri urban space that you have to tackle as well like um yeah yeah we don't have like none of our sites have like water on their actual site um so the one that I met right now like I live next door to it so we run the water from my house to the site next door um our main site that like I call our main site on Sheldon I we run the water from across the street to this to the farm and other side third side they have a building like further away that we run the water to just like we could like five hoses together to get water to that site to water it um so yeah water is definitely an issue um I am going to get water installed on our biggest site with a high tunnel list because it's just like now with the high tunnel there and all the there's like 25 beds there then plus the high tunnel now um so we just need like consistent water access so like that's our next thing is like getting water installed what's kind of next in in store in the season ahead for like for your personal food project what's happening next yeah so yeah we we just put our high tunnel on Tuesday um so that just got like literally all the entire day up in a day it was great um and so we're going to work on building out those beds this next couple weeks um and then we're going to just try to like get some stuff in the ground a night tunnel and we're going to try to grow all winter inside um I made you like a salad csa um this winter um is all I feel on his growing um but like that is kind of like farm wise that's kind of the goal we're slowing down a little bit for the season but not really because I just I want to be like one of the only like year-round non-profit farms in the city um a lot of the farms a lot of the profit farms slow down they stop growing in the winter time because it's just hard to be sustainable and financial sustainable unless you're like a for-profit farm and so I want to try to my goal is start to become that one of the first financially sustainable like non-profit farm this year around touch apartments around the corner from one of our sites and so they've like a lot of them a lot of their employees joined our csa this year because they're like they can walk from off into office pick up their share and like make a little afternoon break and so now that they're really involved when we do they have a program where they at farmers markets they do like if you have fresh snap you do the fresh bucks program so that you have snapped they'll match you up to twenty dollars you use twenty dollars and snap and food stamps and so they're trying to fairway they can incorporate that into our csa program so they can get more people who are on snap to um be able to purchase and for the csa shares and be sustainable that way and so that is kind of our goal right now um I am probably going to find a third a fourth site soon um I wasn't orchard I don't have like we don't have any like a lot of fruit and so I think I went up a fourth site where I can have at least some trees out there and get some fruit going for us much abundance to you and your neighbors and community and with the season ahead and I know um the dormancy months per lack of better word but it sounds like you're you've got things to keep the season going you're round so that's great and just wishing you much much good cheer for that so thank you