Thank you, Mr. Anonymous, whoever you are

Last week we received an anonymous phone call from a man in Oregon who had recently read about us. He spoke briefly about wanting to donate a compost tea system to our project, and told us about Eugene, OR based Growing Solutions Inc., which manufactures and distributes commercial compost tea systems. (Note: compost tea is essentially liquid compost, all organic, which can be sprayed on plants and soil to increase fertility.)

Later that day we got an e-mail from Growing Solutions and they verified that the anonymous man had purchased the Compost Tea System10 model, which runs about $500, and it was en route to Ohio the following day.

Sure enough, it arrived on our doorstep yesterday afternoon.

This will be perfect for our community garden as well as our backyard garden project. Eric, our resident compost and vermiculture expert, was pretty excited with the new toy, and wasted no time setting it up.

To Mr. Anonymous: if you're reading this, thank you again. Your contribution is much appreciated and will go a long way in creating sustainable growing practices in Clinton County.

December & January Newsletter now available

The Grow Food, Grow Hope newsletter for December & January is now up and available for viewing, downloading, printing, distributing, et cetera.

For those of you who read this blog regularly, most of the content in the newsletter won't be news. But there is some new information pertaining to our backyard garden project and our community garden expansion, so make sure to read it regardless!

You can view it here, or by clicking the image above.

Welcome Aileen & Jessica!

On Monday of last week, we welcomed two new Grow Food, Grow Hope VISTAs to the team, which rounds out our staff of 9 AmeriCorps* members. Aileen Ash, originally from Philadelphia, will be our Grower's Co-op Coordinator and will be working with the Clinton County Fresh Network, among other projects. Jessica Braun, from Wapakoneta, OH, will be our Food Distribution Coordinator, and will be working specifically with Your Fathers' Kitchen and other area food banks.

We're excited to have Aileen and Jessica on board and relieved to finally have our team complete. Stop by the 'Meet the VISTAs' page to read a little bit more about them, and if you see them around town or on campus, please welcome them to Wilmington!