Winter Farmers' Market, Read & Seed and Earth Hour at Wilmington College

This weekend, the campus and the community were buzzing with activity that started Friday night and carried into the early hours of Sunday morning. We celebrated two nights of Earth Hour events, we had our last Winter Farmers' Market at Swindler & Sons Florists, and we held the third of three 'Read and Seeds' for the week.

To kick off the weekend, we hosted a 'Dinner in the Dark' at the TOP, the main dining hall here at Wilmington College. It was the first of four events in conjunction with Earth Hour, the global awareness campaign that aims to bring light (pun intended) to energy conservation and climate change by urging citizens to shut off their lights for one hour. From dinner, we moved down to the lower campus athletic fields where we played glow-in-the-dark Ultimate Frisbee, using a light-up disk and a bunch of strategically placed glowsticks. The college's 'Lil Sibs' weekend fell on Friday and Saturday as well, so we drew a lot of participants from students and their sibs. Both events were well attended and a lot of fun.

Saturday morning, the Winter Farmers' Market set-up shop at Swindler & Sons Florists for the last time this season. The market will be back in April, but at a new location.

Community Garden mentors needed

Our community garden season is right around the corner, and plots are still filling up fast. Because we're expanding the garden to 60 plots this year, we also need to expand the number of volunteers who help mentor our families on Tuesday nights during the growing season. In the past, we've relied on the Clinton County Master Gardeners, who have been exceptionally helpful. Unfortunately there are not enough master gardeners to go around, so we are putting out a call into the community for help.

Garden mentors help families weed, harvest, transplant and answer any questions they might have about their garden. It's a very laid back atmosphere, and involves more conversation than back-breaking volunteer work.

Are you a gardener? Would you or someone you know like to help out for one hour a week, on Tuesdays during the late spring and summer? Then let us know! Below is a link to our mentor "application," which is more of a sign-up sheet than a competitive application. Mentors don't need to be experts by any means, but a basic understanding of gardening principles and a willingness to teach are two helpful attributes.

Click here to fill out a 2010 Community Garden Mentor application.

We are also still looking for families to maintain plots in our community garden. Please spread the word that we have these plots available, completely free of cost to families, and we'd like to have them filled well before we begin to plant.

Click here to view and print a 2010 Community Garden application.

Earth Hour at Wilmington College

This year, we will be hosting a series of events in conjunction with Earth Hour, the global awareness campaign that challenges us to turn off everything and unplug for one hour on March 27. After the jump is an excerpt from our Upcoming Events page about Earth Hour.

Choice Comes to Clinton County

Today's post comes from Jessica Braun, our Food Distribution Coordinator.

Today marked the first day of a Choice Pantry system at Sugartree Ministries on Main Street. (In a previous post here, we discussed the benefits of choice pantries.) The clients who came in expecting their usual standardized bag of groceries were extremely pleased to find shelves full of items for their choosing.

Serving over 100 clients in under an hour can be a challenge even in the simplest of pantry systems. The Sugartree volunteers, however, took the new choice pantry idea in stride assisting clients in how many and which items to choose.

"This is only the second time I've been here to get groceries," one client said. "But this is much better than last time, I'm going to bring back the things I won't use from last week's bag."

But she wasn't the only enthusiastic client today. Many were delighted with the idea of being able to choose their own groceries to better compliment what they already had in their pantries at home. "It makes you think. It's like going to the grocery store, you have to think about what you already have and what you can make when you put things together."

Choice Pantries are not unique to Sugartree Ministries. Many food pantries throughout the country have found great success in moving to a choice system. Hope Emergency Program in Lynchburg has found great success in choice pantry stating that it has saved them money because they no longer purchase items that clients do not want. Another local pantry, the New Vienna United Methodist Church also employs a choice system where clients check wanted items on a grocery list of things and orders are filled by volunteers. They find it works very well for the small space they employ but does not allow as much client interaction as could be hoped.

Director, Allen Willoughby, and the rest of the Sugartree Ministries Board have been enthusiastic about the project and are hoping to perfect the process in the coming weeks. They are also hoping that projects such as the Choice Pantry inspire surrounding communities and food pantries to see them as a model of how to make their own communities a better place.

Everyone loves Choice!

March Newsletter

Our March newsletter is now available to download and print, or you can find a copy around Wilmington at various locations. There are also copies available in the Center for Service & Civic Engagement at Wilmington College.

Click here or the icon above to view the newsletter.