Blog

The Titty Bar in Hammond

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 23:08:00 -0400

Around noon on July 12th, 2010, several organizers on the Food Justice Summer 2010 met with a dairy farmer in Hammond by the name of Jay Ernst. Although I’m not an ordained organizer I was privileged enough to comfortably tag along. Jay informed us that he was a traditional “country boy” and began detailing his life as a dairy farmer and as well as his political views. We absorbed every word of his lecture on pasteurization, welfare, and universal education. He provided copies of “The Fifteen Things That Pasteurization Kills” by Mark MacAfee in which Jay Ernst validated his philosophies on the raw milk revolution. We harvested 12-inch Italian Long Beans and although I was reluctant to wholly integrate myself in the farming experience, the beans were delicious. Subsequently we were given two gallons of raw milk to enjoy at our own discretion. Jay Ernst invited us to shovel cow manure in solidarity with him at 3 PM. Arriving on time, myself and an organizer returned to Jay’s dairy farm anticipating grueling farm work. The odor from the cow manure was rancid, but I was mentally fortified to challenge my environmental discomfort. Being a southern gentleman, Jay offered me his other available pair of farmers’ boots, and I accepted. We walked over to the cow manure collection center, and lo and behold, mounds of dung were patiently waiting. As a result of our wild shoveling, iotas of manure were all over our bodies, clothing, and hair. In between hauling, Jay talked to us about dairy farmers, and the sometimes non-chalant attitude that plagues most dairy farmers today.

We spoke about Monsanto, genetically modified seeds, and sustainable development and independence. We recognized that food education and accessibility empowers young people like myself. I told him that the likelihood of this (shoveling manure) occurring in New York was close to zero. Then we loaded buckets of water and carried them to the calves’ living space. On the way to their shed I clumsily spilled an entire bucket of water over myself. Unabashedly, I continued on; the calves were very responsive to our caresses, as I saw their colors the group’s previous discussions of racism jumped in my thoughts. One was ebony, the other mocha, and the other was caramel. “At least they’re integrated,” I thought. After this Jay instructed us to densely pack four buckets of hay, and then fill three buckets with feed, with the feed going on top of the hay. I wasn’t aware of how hay was engineered, or naturally occurred. Jay told us that it was simply dried grass and I felt uneducated. Not in that moment, but sometime during that day Jay urged us not to become “stupid smart people”, especially with my desire to pursue law. When you separate hay after it’s been rolled, it tends to release hay powder that hinders your visibility, which soon happened to me. I sat on the buckets to maximize the capacity and Jay commented that he’d never thought of sitting on the buckets as an effective method of densely packing the hay. By the cow’s positive response we received after dumping the hay in the cows’ feeding bin it was blatant that the feeding had been highly anticipated. Since I was wearing farmer Ernst’s boots I had the grand privilege of being in a mud & manure standing ground in order to use the hose to fill up the watering bins. After completing the task an organizer arrived to ‘collect’ us just as Jay announced that it was time to milk the cows! I invited myself to this rare opportunity, and it was truly gratifying. Jay called it his Titty bar “because” he says, “I’ve got my girls, a cold one and music,” which he did. First we hosed down the area where the udders and teats are located and Jay told us that the cows are stimulated by the hose pressure which compels them to produce more milk which is produced via their mammary veins. I laughed hysterically and it’s probable that my laughter roused the cow that I was hosing to stomp cow manure straight into my right eye. The laughter was contagious and soon the two organizers, Jay, and the observing customers erupted into laughter. Jay taught us how to milk the cow by hand, as we tilted the teats (udders) towards us out squirted raw milk onto our clothes and skin. Sincerely appreciative for the experience we departed and both parties were mutually contented. -Group 2 Participant (Kimberly White)

NY2NO

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 23:40:00 -0400

When i stepped off the NY2NO bus the community around me was shocking. I was slapped in the face hard and continued to be overwhelmed by the issues in New Orleans that continues to pile up upon each other. It disappoints me to say that i was blind to the issues at hand. Thankfully this organization has changed my whole outlook on the problems here and life all together. By learning so much about this city and all it's history, in a way it's too much to wrap my mind around. The hardest part of this trip for me is that the progress is not apparent right away, but i've also leaned that the process is slow, but definitely rewarding. I have come here a blank slate and I'm returning home with more than i ever expected to learn. What i hope for is that when i come back i'll bring with me more knowledge and experience than i have left here with. NY2NO is a life changing experience and is for sure one that i would like to experience over and over again.

Adventures in Hammond

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 22:21:00 -0400

For the last five days I've been in Hammond, a town about an hour away from New Orleans. The town is filled with fast food restaurants, Winn-Dixies and Wal-Marts, but the place my group was staying was entirely different. The woman with whom we were staying is named Sunflower. Before Hurricane Katrina, she had a store that sold natural products and clothing. After the storm, her shop was destroyed and Klan members stood at her exotically painted gates, warning customers away. While at Hammond, we worked on cleaning up Sunflower's property by cutting grass and underbrush. We cleaned up trash. We played with her seven adorable puppies, lay on her hammock, and enjoyed her wonderful Cajun cooking. For my last night I am back at OSBG. We are about to have the most important debrief of all-the one that addresses how we are going to bring what we learned on our trip home. We may also watch the Matrix, depending on whether anyone is going to bother sleeping before getting up at 3:30 for our flight home.

A Different and Diverse Education

Sun, 04 Jul 2010 01:26:00 -0400

The definition of education is: 'the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgement, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life.' But when we think of education, the majority of the population tends to associate it with the image of school. On this particular NY2NO trip, I was shown that a huge portion of our teachings originate from what we take from our personal experiences, as well as what we learn from the experiences of others.

Coming into this experience, I expected to potentially reconstruct houses and work in gardens in areas of New Orleans devastated by Hurricane Katrina, and leave knowing that I contributed to helping the community. I never could have prepared myself to receive an education and knowledge so unconventional and disparate that it could only have been acquired on this trip, and not in a classroom.

Originating from the suburbs, my entire education has consisted of teachings by people of the same kind- others generally of the same race, financial position, educational level, etc., who were also raised in the suburbs. I'd never been exposed to much diversity in my community, and was constantly subjected into an environment where most aspects of people's lives were identical to mine. I hadn't anticipated a colossal portion of this trip would relate to learning so much solely because of the diversity of the group. This type of education was all about sharing experiences, and discussing very real, uncomfortable, and controversial topics relating to not only New Orleans, but the everyday life relating to people in general-- the topics that are almost taboo for teachers in schools to even touch on.

In addition, there was evidently manual labor involved; we helped Our School at Blair Grocery manage their urban farm. The difference about this trip was that we didn't travel to the Lower 9th Ward here to exclusively mow lawns and then leave. Aside from the manual labor, we had group discussions each day and night to help us recognize exactly how our work was benefiting the community, and the specific problems we were empowered to slowly work towards fixing. Just as gardeners pull the weed by the root in order to keep it from re-growing, we work together to understand the root of the problems facing this community (financial, educational, etc.). We worked towards patching these problems, and discussed how to work towards preventing these issues from occurring again. Although New Orleans is a distant and foreign community, the difficulties and obstacles it faces (although the severity may be greater) are similar to those in other states-- such as those in my own, personal state of New Jersey. Because of this, I had a greater connection and a greater motivation participate in the movement for the progression of New Orleans.

There is an endless amount that I could write about this trip, but to summarize certain important aspects, I took so much away from it as a person. I learned such an ample amount-- information wise, and intellectually as a person. This trip has allowed me to come to terms with reality and realize a lot of things about the world, about myself, about others, and about the relationship between the three. I feel that from this trip I have become significantly more mature, and have grown as a person. I plan on returning in the future so I can continue this journey, continue this movement, and sustain the drive that so many youth and adult volunteers have exerted towards this cause.

Kristin Skelton

Youth, Adults, and lots of Compost

Sun, 04 Jul 2010 01:14:00 -0400

It is Day 6 here in New Orleans and I am spellbound by all that I have experienced here, especially in the debriefs. Over the course of the past week we have worked here with Our School at Blair Grocery (OSBG). Being a native New Yorker, this experience thus far has definitely persuaded me to change my eating patterns and to be appreciative of what I have back at home.

Today’s workshop was the top seller (at least to me) education-wise. Today’s was about the WIDE gap between adults and youth. Growing up in New York and given all my opportunities, I have not experienced any form of discrimination, but rather a welcoming agenda. This workshop consisted of selected youth, one being me, discussing the gap between generations in front of the entire NY2NO group. Then we switched it up and had staff here from OSBG talk about working with youth. This was an amazing opportunity to see and hear from different perspectives about the gap between us. I spoke of my amazing experiences in New York and how they have helped constructed the person who I am. I have always had a fear of becoming an adult, I felt that there would be no more security and no one to guide me into my future. But the staff here at OSBG spoke about how GOOD it felt to no longer suffer from insecurities and finding out who you are. Once entering adulthood you have a different perspective and I have dreaded experiencing that perspective until today.

Earlier in the week we have been doing a ton of work here at OSBG. My favorite activity is composting, which consists of the most physical labor, and my least favorite is harvesting sprouts, mostly because I am not good at cutting the sprouts at the roots. Compost consists of us throwing a ton of food waste from local groceries and Whole Foods onto a mountain of debree, (soil and wood chips) covering it with coffee beans and then covering that whole set up with wood chips. This activity is the most fun of all because it promotes a greener lifestyle by replenishing nutrients in the soil to continue to grow nutriuous, organic foods here. I also find this fun because of the team work. There are so many ways to do it. Everyone can do the same task or we can do an assembly line. Although there is a ton of shoveling and other physical labor, it makes me the feel the most satisying because it feels as if I am leaving a mark here in New Orleans to help the citizens of the Lower Ninth Ward have a good meal to eat and good soil to grow in.

I am excited for this overall experience. In my head I constantly think about coming again (if my funds were to allow that.) Before I came here, everyone I spoke to said I was coming here to help with the oil spill. Little do they know that Hurricane Katrina has still left an impact on others lives. The storm that happened five years ago has still left people in a state of shock, especially those that come out here to volunteer with organizations such as NY2NO. We are off to the Village of Tangipahoa up north and will be working on farms. I have never done work like that in my life and it will all be documented in my video diary which I am doing mainly for my funders. This experience I’d say has changed me for the better. Minor things (such as my eczema outbreak) usually stop me from focusing on my main purpose out here, but I got to continue to have my eye on the prize and that’s to make a change here. Two weeks is not a long time. But it is indeed time and it’s precious! I am going to make the most of these final 8 days toward a better New Orleans.

John Dargan

Oh the possibilites

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 08:50:00 -0500

Today, Nat Turner, teacher at Our School at Blair Grocery took our BC/Wes/Pitzer group, representatives from National Youth Leadership Council and others on a field trip!

So we went down to Tangipahoa, aparish with about 2,000 residents [about a quarter of whom came from New Orleans after Katrina], a parish with a 40% poverty rate and a median incomefor a family of three at 17,000. We went there and saw acres of land. That is what I would’ve said if I had driven past it. But today we saw and learned allthat the parish of Tangipahoa could be. What we saw out there on the great stretches of land that had thepotential to link the urban farm to the rural and vice versa. A place to expandthe work we’re doing and in doing so build with so many more people. Monday I probablywouldn’t have believe the words I’m typing , but currently , I know it’ll happen. Nat Turner and the Mayor of Tangipahoa, Michael D. Jackson (former NFL player) showed us the possibilities of using 40 acres of land to work towards food sovereignty in the rural town and in the Lower Ninth Ward. That would mean complete community control over good healthy food (production and distribution). The connection between Tangipahoa and the Lower Ninth would be not only built through a farm on that land but also would provide jobs for more then 300 young people as well as working towards rural and urban youth empowerment through service learning project together. Our School at Blair Grocery is making many partnerships with different organizations, restaurants and schools in Louisiana and after seeing Turner's vision. I believe that this is possible. OSBG is attacking inequality from all fronts: education, employment, food, housing and health this is a model that we hope to bring home to our own communities.

Then we went down to TREE [Teaching Responsible Earth Education] and learned of new ways to learn about the earth and understand how important our involvement in it actually is. The change theearth undergoes has everything to do with us, and it is when we understand that, that we realize we have to take steps in creating a better world.This organization uses alternative education and experiential leanring to teach 5th and 7th graders about responsible energy consumption through awesome and engaging activities. I wish I had gone to a school like that! OSBG is partnering with them and plans to take young people from the L9W and Tangipahoa on field trips in order to learn and grow together.

And partnerships are important inall of this. You can’t make changes alone and if you try, there’s a good chanceyou’ll burn out. This is a fear a few of us here have. We’re here now andcurrently being surrounded by other students interested in organizing hashelped us stay focused. But Saturday we leave, and then what? It’s so easy togo back home and forget about the problems addressed in our stay here. That’s the luxury so many people have and I think it’s one of the primary reasons change isn’tmade. Because the problems are so easy to ignore back home, even while thosevery same problems are a real possibility anywhere. The Lower Ninth Ward is notin the state it’s in now simply because of a really bad hurricane and really weak levee. It’s because the residents were ignored.

-Biola

OSBG & NY2NO met with National Youth Leadership Council and Mayor Michael D. Jackson in Tangipahoa, LA to discuss Food Sovereignty and Rural/Urban Youth Empowerment

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 19:56:00 -0500

Wesleyan University, Pitzer College and Brooklyn College Joint-Trip- Day 5

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 00:09:00 -0500

This morning we were tasked with tackling a difficult question: What are we going to do?

Turner gave us an assignment:

Imagine you are a community organizer and you have arrived in the Lower Ninth Ward after Hurricane Katrina.

a. How will you engage with the community?

b.Will you be a non-profit or a for-profit?

c. What will your goals be?

d.Who will you partner with?

e. Develop a first year plan

Needless to say, at first it seemed to be a daunting task. Where do we even begin? The infrastructure that led to the devastation that we are addressing today stems from such deeply embedded historical roots. What could a group college kids possibly do now to undo the damage? How could we revitalize what had once been a thriving community?

It began with a lot of questions. Once we began talking, however, the tools that we have gained from Our School in the short time we've been here kicked in. Ideas were flowing, and every member contributed such an enormity of potential resources and solutions. The hour and a half that we had to formalize our ideas flew by in the healthy dialogue. I was amazed at the creativity and inspiration that our group provided, because everyone drew upon their past experiences and their own unique perspectives to create a model that would nurture and restore this broken community. For that hour and a half, I truly felt that our group of eight individuals might have just created a viable solution for empowering the remaining community of the Lower Ninth Ward.

We finalized our ideas and were ready to present them to representatives from the National Youth Leadership Council. Nat Turner began with story of The Lorax. This Dr. Seuss book, one of my childhood favorites, had never seemed more relevant. It's a story about the destruction of a forest of Truffula trees by a careless Once-ler looking to make a profit, ultimately displacing the native Bar-bo-loots and Swomee-swans. It was said that this community could not be restored because of the environmentally devastating consequences of the Thneed factory, and its endless BIGGERING and BIGGERING. The Lorax, the speaker of the trees, leaves the Once-ler a cryptic message:

UNLESS.

Unless someone like you

cares a whole awful lot

nothing is going to get better.

It's not.

We care. A whole awful lot. And it showed in our presentations. The three groups had unique approaches in addressing the needs of this community. One thing the models all shared was a respect for the people who live here, and the need for their input in every step of the way. When I was listening to people discuss their creations, I was shocked at how so many of us have developed the basic tools of community organizing in the five days that we've lived here.

After that we composted, we sifted soil, we learned. The people of these three separate colleges have become a family, a big boisterous monster that gets things done and talks about what else could be done and is ready to do more. We all have a deep respect for the staff here and their knowledge. I discovered a question that I love and that I feel reveals a lot about a person: If you had a garden all to yourself, what would you plant? Hopefully we'll all be able to make these dream gardens a reality someday.

Debrief tonight was deeply personal. The simple question of "How are you feeling?" made us all reflect on how we've developed in the past five days. We talked about ourselves and each other and how our assignments from this morning should be a reality. The amount of love that I feel for this inspiring group of young people is enormous. We are all hopeless confronted by the fact that we only have three days left in this place.

Three days of organizing/thinking/learning/composting/sifting/absorbing/raising hell ahead.

Let's make them great.

Book List #2

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 19:08:00 -0500

Our book list has grown quickly, and our second installment is full and ready for viewing:

"Interpreter of Maladies" - Jhumpa Lahiri

* Great anthology of short stories.

"The Yarabian Building" - Asya Al-Aswany

* A great look into the eyes of modern Egypt.

"Orientalism" - Edward Said

* Just read it if you have the slightest interest in the Middle East!

"The Respectful Prostitute" - Jean-Paul Satre

"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" - Robert Pirsig

* Mind-blowing philosophy, societal interpretations

"Things Fall Apart" - Chinua Achebe

"Mountains Beyond Mountains" - Tracy Kidder

"Song of Solomon" - Toni Morrison

* Speaks of the importance of your roots! self-love!

"Under the Feet of Jesus" - farm works in Cali. Awesome book!

Book List #1

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 09:41:00 -0500

We here at the alum blog decided that it would be great for ourselves to create a group booklist of interesting and relevant reading material. So, we've all been writing down some of our favorite books on a piece of paper taped to the wall, and we thought it would be fun to share what we've come up with. Each book is followed by a short descripion for your enlightenment (when available). So without further ado, here is the first page:

"The Little Prince" - Antoine de St.-Exupry

* Beautiful things can be said simply.

"Cloud Atlas" - David Mitchell

* Relates to the future of our world & the power of the individual in the grand scheme of things.

* Fictional novel, but beautifully written.

"A Raisin in the Sun" - Hansberry

* Play about a Black family in NYC in the 1950's!!!

"Earth Democracy" - Vandana Shiva

* A book about justice, sustainability, and peace through embracing our connection with the Earth.

"Zeitoun" - David Eggars

* A story surrounding a man who went missing in Katrina.

"End Game" by Derrick Jensen

* Culture of Make Believe

"The Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" - Michael Chabon

* Must-read if you're a Brooklynite! Best. Book. Ever.

"The House of Spirits" - Isabel Allende

* Family, history, and culture - can I say more?

"Brief Interviews with Hideous Men" - David Foster Wallace

* A look at gender relations through fictional interviews, along with other short stories about life

and self.