Toledo Streets Issue #15

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ISSUE #15

Feeding the need in Toledo:WHAT’S GROWING ON?Featuring: Toledo Grows, Food For Thought & EnPuzzlement

ALSO:BARBARA EHRENREICHThrow them out with the trash: Why homelessne ss is becoming an Occupy Wall Street issue

Exclusive interview:

PAULOCOELHO

TO BLESS OR TO CURSECooking with the sunFIGHTING FOR FOOD JUSTICEDigging for self-sufficiencyPOETRY: MUSTARD PUDDLEThe people’s departmentGOOD EATS FROM THE STREETSHoboscopes

Toledo Streets - The Paper with a Mission Issue #15

Breaking bread and breaking barriersRelationship is the theme for area nonprofits

Amanda F. Moore,Managing Editor

While Toledo Streets is a non-profit, and paper vendors are considered

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Ask anyone who’s a regular on Saturday mornings downtown at Adams and Michigan, and you’ll likely

get a variation on the same theme, whether it’s a volunteer or a guest: I come down here for the friendship. You can feel it when you’re there. It’s not just the eight-foot banner shouting “Welcome to the Picnic” flapping in the breeze, splattered with half a dozen logos from area ministries and organizations. It’s not just the occasional colorful balloon bobbing along, attached to a child’s wrist. It isn’t even just the frequent interruptions from people eager to pass out some item—socks, or hygiene products, or candy, or bagels. It’s all this, amidst a constant buzz of conversation, smiles, and hugs. There is love here. A lot of it. In that respect, as in others, Food For Thought—the first organization to start taking food and frienship to the main library on Saturdays—has

been extremely successful in its vision to bridge the gap between poverty and prosperity. Look around, and it can be hard to tell who’s being “served.” Just the way it was originally intended. Using one of the most basic necessities—food—as a catalyst for conversation and relationship is something Food For Thought shares with some other organizations, notably Toledo Grows and EnPuzzlement. The foundational idea is the same: Take something that transcends every other human barrier and use that to build community amongst people who otherwise might have a difficult time connecting. Now they can do it by tilling and planting, tending and harvesting together. Or by both grabbing a plain brown bag lunch and sitting on a bench. Or by identifying the need of a neighbor and packing a food box to personally give to them. Of course, these nonprofits accomplish much more than feeding

people in body and spirit. Whether they partner or not—though I believe all three organizations have worked together at some point or another—they are all reclaiming the forgotten of our community; the lonely, the unhoused, those with specials needs, the vacant land, the troubled youth, the “bad” neighborhoods... the list goes on. In ancient times, sharing food with someone was a significant act within that relationship. Kudos to everyone carrying on that tradition. As a PB & J sandwich has proven...

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SMALL CHANGE.

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Cover Photo: Robin CharneyAmeriCorps volunteers Caitlin Cousino and Madhu Sankapata pause while working in the Manos Garden on Jackson Street.

The Solar Oven is a simple device that takes a plentiful supply of energy, the sun, and

converts it into heat. This heat is then used to cook foods temperatures lower than a conventional oven but more than high enough to cook food and sterilize water. It has been a revolution for people who live in areas that have a combination of chronic fuel and energy shortages as well as substantial risks of fires, such as the refugee camp in Darfur which has been issued with over 10,000 such devices. There are more than 65 basic models of the solar oven which differ in design, materials and construction but they all have got the same basic characteristics: Concentration of sunlight - by using mirrors and metals, which have a greater power of reflection, to focus the sunlight on a small area. Converting sunlight to heat energy - dark surfaces (the floor of the oven) and cooking containers inside the oven will increase efficacy in collecting and absorption of sunlight. Trapping heat - the isolation and retention of warm air is very important to the cooking process and it can be obtained by putting plastic wrap or glass panel over the box. The insulation of the solar oven is made from substances that are not a risk to health and stable under high temperatures. Combining the above principles sunlight entering into the box is converted into heat and stays “captive” in the box. It is a simple technology using a simple power source and one that can be

Food. It’s something so near and dear to all of us. Celebrations, meetings, parties, and all of our get-togethers continuously

center around one thing: food. It’s such a personal thing, such an essential thing. No wonder we have such strong feelings to what we put into our mouths. So, when you take something so basic and personal as food, and you add the element of poverty, you get a recipe for either blessing or curse. If food is a basic need, then it is necessary for survival. When we are needy, we often have to turn to others to supply this basic need for us. This is where the opportunity for blessing or curse comes in. We are depending on others.

replicated easily. Of all types of solar oven the easiest to construct is a “box-type”, and if you want to give it a go yourself you will need:

1. Cardboard boxes of different sizes2. Aluminum foil3. Old newspapers4. Black paint and glue (ensure they are non-toxic!)5. Cooking bag or plastic wrap

The size of box-oven that you need is determined by the size of the pot you will be using to cook the food, so they should be at least 5 cm higher than container. The main structure consists of two boxes, external and internal. The inner box must be less than the outside at least 5 cm in length, width and height. So you should have a box within a box, and inside that box a pot. The difference in size is 5 cm’s between each item. If you start by working up form the pot size first it should be easier. Coat the entire interior of both boxes with aluminum foil using the non-toxic glue to stick the foil on. Include the flaps of the exterior box as well. These will be used to direct the sun. Crumple newspapers (which make a good insulator, and won’t burn so don’t worry.) and place them inside the bottom of the exterior, larger, box, then put the interior, smaller, box over it.Cut a piece of cardboard which is slightly smaller then the base of the interior box, but larger than the pot you will use to cook. Coat this in black paint, or a similar black substance. This will form the heat-sink for your oven. Using a black

We are, often, trading our dignity for an opportunity to eat that day. We know we need food, we need to eat, so we endure certain injustices or inconveniences, in order to meet our basic need for survival. We will stand in long lines, ignoring our aching legs, or our full bladder, or our whining kids - because getting out of line means missing out. We will fill out piles of paperwork, proving we are as needy as we say we are, because they rarely believe we are as poor as we claim to be. We will accept food past its expiration date, because we’d rather play Russian-roulette with botulism, then have our children go hungry. We gladly take food that was donated because no one else in their right

Toledo Streets - The Paper with a MissionIssue #15

Cooking with the sunA simple and free method that reduces gas and electricity consumption

To bless or to curseDonated food can be a mixed blessing for those on the receiving end

Divna Vojinović, LICEULICEMichelle Davis

Michelle, her husband Jim, and their two children are 2011’s Tent City mayors. They are pictured here at Promenade Park, shortly before the 1Mile Matters walk to raise funds for 1Matters programs.

Photo: Harry Sandler Productions

A diagram of how to construct a Solar Oven. Photo: Divna Vojinović/Liceulice

“Blessing” continued on page 10

“Solar Oven” continued on page 10


Fighting for food justiceNavigating the food deserts of Nashville, TN

Megan Pacella, The Contributor

Digging for self-sufficiency 2.0Zurich’s UrbanFarmers is convinced they have the solution to the food crisis

Florian Blumer, Surprise

On a hot Saturday afternoon in July, a resident of Edgefield Manor on Shelby Street in East

Nashville walks into the Nashville Mobile Market (NMM) grocery truck in search of peaches. “Please tell me they have fresh peaches, today!” he says. I point to a basket near the rear door of the refrigerated truck, and he starts to fill his grocery bag with fresh, ripe fruit. At $.99 a pound, NMM not only brings fresh produce into neighborhoods that don’t have ready access to a grocery store-they also make it as affordable as possible. But the problem for this particular resident isn’t necessarily how much healthy foods cost: it’s the fact that no grocery stores exist within reasonable walking distance to his house. Without a reliable car, he (like most of his neighbors) relies on the Metro bus system to get to a grocery store. “During the week it’s not as bad; the bus comes every 13 minutes or so. But on the weekends, it’s like once an hour,” he explains. “By the time I get somewhere, buy what I need, and get back home, it

We are standing inside a greenhouse in a disused shipping container in the

middle of Zurich, and we are sweating. In front of us the Prime Tower is beaming in the sunshine, to our left locomotives and freight trains are chuntering past. “Kunst& Kommerz” (Art and Commerce) starts right behind us in the middle of the hip and urban realm of the Viaduktbogen—along with the new shops and offices that have sprung up in the viaduct arches of the railway. UrbanFarmers, the team who runs the greenhouse container, have moved in here too. Their business is still in its infancy, but they have big things in mind. The system the UrbanFarmers box uses is called aquaponics. Christian Bärtsch tells us how it works. The 21-year-old studied at the University of St. Gallen and has been on board with UrbanFarmers since its inception. At the moment he is working full-time with the business on an unpaid internship. The budding economist from the elite university talks to us this morning enthusiastically about fish farming and growing plants in an environmentally friendly way.

takes hours.” When asked if he would buy peaches if the mobile truck wasn’t available in his neighborhood, he answered: “Probably not, to be honest. I would pick up a bag of chips at the gas station down there.” He fills his sack with $9 worth of peaches, tomatoes and whole wheat pasta, and pays the two women manning the truck. Before walking home, he asks if they can try to carry fresh sweet potatoes the next week. They make a note. “That’s the great thing about Nashville Mobile Market. We get to know the customers personally at these stops, and they tell us what they want to eat,” explains Donnatesa Dean, a NMM summer intern from Vanderbilt who majors in Human and Organizational Development. The idea for NMM was first conceived in February 2010 by Ravi Patel, then a first-year medical student at Vanderbilt University. While working at the Shade Tree Clinic in North Nashville, Patel became aware of the food access barriers in the neighborhood. A study completed by Carmen Adams,

FOOD FROM THE CAR PARK Aquaponics may sound high-tech, but it is in fact very simple: fish excrete nutrients, particularly through breathing—these are used by crop plants, whose roots are underwater, as a natural fertiliser. In return, the plants clean the fishes’ water. This natural cycle doesn’t just make the use of chemical fertilisers unnecessary in conventional hors-sol production, but it also saves by way of contrast up to 80 to 90 per cent of water. The only things those who operate the unit have to do are take care of the fish food, the energy for the water pumps and the thermal heat in the winter. In return they get fish, cabbages, salad and vegetables on their plate from the back yard. All this without needing farm land which, worldwide, is becoming ever more scarce. A terrace, a large car park or urban areas that are lying fallow are all that you need. Such places are abundant in cities: for example, it is said by Andreas Graber, co-founder and technical leader of UrbanFarmers, that there are enough suitable spaces in Basle for up to a quarter of the population’s needs for fresh vegetables and fish to be met. According to Bärtsch, the Aztecs

“Deserts” continued on page 7 “UrbanFarmers” continued on page 7


Poetry

Mustard PuddleNight air so crisp,Even the stars crackle.The moon, a shavingOf effervescent hope.On a night like this, it seemsMy prayers are louder,And reach You faster ‘causeHeaven’s so near.

So I lift my eyes to the hillsWhere my help’s supposed to be,While I stumble along inThis valley I’ve found myself in.You say it takes just a grainOf a darn mustard seed,Of all things,To move these mountainsIn front of me.So, what does it mean, then,If I’m squeezing the wholeMustard bottle in a puddleIn front of me...

And still I don’t see a quiver,A budge,A wiggle,A slide,Or anything.No movementAt all.

Maybe that’s what I getFor buying generic?Or maybe just the seedIs all you require?Maybe my puddleIs a mockery,A slap in the faceOf Your parable?An excess of my impatience,And my certaintyThat I know best?

Ignore my puddle, then,And I’ll go out looking forA mustard seed.Just the seed,Not the whole bottle...

Michelle Davis


Throw them out with the trash:Why homelessness is becoming an Occupy Wall Street issue

Barbara Ehrenreich, TomDispatch.com

Image courtesy of Ashley Hemmy/Street Sense

As anyone knows who has ever had to set up a military encampment or build a village from the ground up,

occupations pose staggering logistical problems. Large numbers of people must be fed and kept reasonably warm and dry. Trash has to be removed; medical care and rudimentary security provided —to which ends a dozen or more committees may toil night and day. But for the individual occupier, one problem often overshadows everything else, including job loss, the destruction of the middle class, and the reign of the 1%. And that is the single question: Where am I going to pee? Some of the Occupy Wall Street encampments now spreading across the U.S. have access to Port-o-Potties (Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C.) or, better yet, restrooms with sinks and running water (Fort Wayne, Indiana). Others require their residents to forage on their own. At Zuccotti Park, just blocks from Wall Street, this means long waits for the restroom at a nearby Burger King or somewhat shorter ones at a Starbucks a block away. At McPherson Square in D.C., a twenty-something occupier showed me the pizza parlor where she can cop a pee during the hours it’s open, as well as the alley where she crouches late at night. Anyone with restroom-related issues—arising from age, pregnancy, prostate problems, or irritable bowel syndrome—should prepare to join the revolution in diapers. Of course, political protesters do not face the challenges of urban camping alone. Homeless people confront the same issues every day: how to scrape together meals, keep warm at night by covering themselves with cardboard or tarp, and relieve themselves without committing a crime. Public restrooms are sparse in American cities—“as if the need to go to the bathroom does not exist,” travel expert Arthur Frommer once observed. And yet to yield to bladder pressure is to risk arrest. A report entitled “Criminalizing Crisis,” to be released later this month by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, recounts the following story from Wenatchee, Washington: “Toward the end of 2010, a family of two parents and three children that had been experiencing homelessness for a year and a half applied for a 2-bedroom

apartment. The day before a scheduled meeting with the apartment manager during the final stages of acquiring the lease, the father of the family was arrested for public urination. The arrest occurred at an hour when no public restrooms were available for use. Due to the arrest, the father was unable to make the appointment with the apartment manager and the property was rented out to another person. As of March 2011, the family was still homeless and searching for housing.” What the Occupy Wall Streeters are beginning to discover, and homeless people have known all along, is that most ordinary, biologically necessary activities are illegal when performed in American streets -- not just peeing, but sitting, lying down, and sleeping. While the laws vary from city to city, one of the harshest is in Sarasota, Florida, which passed an ordinance in 2005 that makes it illegal to “engage in digging or earth-breaking activities” —that is, to build a latrine—cook, make a fire, or be asleep and “when awakened state that he or she has no other place to live.” It is illegal, in other words, to be homeless or live outdoors for any other reason. It should be noted, though, that there are no laws requiring cities to provide food, shelter, or restrooms for their indigent citizens. The current prohibition on homelessness began to take shape in the 1980s, along with the ferocious growth of the financial industry (Wall Street and all its tributaries throughout the nation). That was also the era in which we stopped being a nation that manufactured much beyond weightless, invisible “financial products,” leaving the old industrial working class to carve out a livelihood at places like Wal-Mart. As it turned out, the captains of the new “casino economy”—the stock brokers and investment bankers -- were highly sensitive, one might say finicky, individuals, easily offended by having to step over the homeless in the streets or bypass them in commuter train stations. In an economy where a centimillionaire could turn into a billionaire overnight, the poor and unwashed were a major buzzkill. Starting with Mayor Rudy Giuliani in New York, city after city passed “broken windows” or “quality of life” ordinances making it dangerous for

W hen Lincoln created the Department of Agriculture in May of 1862, he

called it “the people’s department.” Farmers, who made up 58 percent of Americans at the time, needed a source of information on how to grow their crops. Today, the Department of Agriculture continues to serve America’s people in the form of People’s Gardens, community gardens created to feed those in the community who are in need. The People’s Garden Initiative was started by USDA employee volunteers on Feb. 12, 2009 to commemorate Abraham Lincoln’s bicentennial birthday. They established the first garden at USDA headquarters here in Washington, D.C.“People’s Gardens show what the USDA does in a visible and clear way,” said Livia Marques, who has been the People’s Garden Initiative director since it started.The gardens tie in with Michelle Obama’s LetsMove! Initiative, which links gardening with healthy lifestyles. Since the program’s creation, more than 400 USDA organizations have built 1,358 gardens with at least one garden located in every state, plus gardens in three territories and five countries.

Last year, the gardens collectively donated about 130,000 pounds of produce. Each garden donates to a local food bank or shelter; USDA headquarters donates to DC Central Kitchen. “This shows that gardens can be a simple solution to multiple problems in the community from hunger to the environment,” Marques said. Volunteers use sustainable practices to nurture their gardens such as mulching, composting and collecting rain water. There are now three People’s Gardens in Washington, D.C. Besides the original garden at USDA headquarters, there are also gardens at two local schools, William B. Powell Elementary School and Brent Elementary School, that serve to educate children as well as to feed the community. “[The garden] will create teaching opportunities and authentic learning projects for all our scholars, ages three to fourth grade-about the environment, biology, mathematics and related literature,” said Powell Elementary School Principal Janeece Docal at the garden’s official opening on Feb. 10, 2011. “It will also promote our health and wellness initiatives and enable social and cultural connections among our

The people’s department:The evolving role of The Department of Agriculture in modern America

Ashley Hemmy, Street Sense

“People’s Dept” continued on page 12“Trash” continued on page 10

The fish in the Aquaponics tank.Photo: ZHAW/Sophie Stieger

already knew of and were making use of the symbiosis between fish and plants that grow underwater. In North America, aquaponics units have been on the rise since the early 1990s. It has caught on in New York, for example, in a big way. Aquaponics is a part of the “urban gardening” movement: in large cities like San Francisco, Detroit, or Toronto chickens are kept and vegetables are grown on peoples’ roofs, in their front gardens, and on other uncultivated land. Since the beginning of this year, UrbanFarmers has been the first business to offer aquaponics in Europe too - for that they won the new award for sustainability in Switzerland, the “Prix Nature”. What’s more, Bärtsch is of the view that the concept is firmly rooted in Swiss history. During the Anbauschlacht, the drive to increase food production during the Second World War in order to decrease Switzerland’s reliance on food imports, under the banner of self-sufficiency the cities were also cultivated as much as possible, Bärtsch states. The young man from Winterthur says that he feels part of a large, international movement, which together pursues the same ends but through different means. People want to know where their food comes from once again. Ever more young city-dwellers in developed countries have had enough of being at the mercy of one food scandal after another, and of feeling like they are being fed by a food industry which makes products under conditions which are harmful to humans, animals and the environment, and which are then transported halfway around the world for

good measure.

KILLING FISH, NOT VEGANISM Is aquaponics the solution to the food security problems of a rapidly growing world population that is moving to cities in ever-larger numbers? The idea may sound captivating, and the aims are noble. But will it actually work? Interest and curiosity are huge - all the largest German-language media outlets, from the news magazine “Der Spiegel” to “Zeit Online” to the state-owned German television channel ZDF have reported on the young Zurich native’s idea unwaveringly positively and enthusiastically. But some of UrbanFarmers’ potential customers are also somewhat sceptical: the fish basin, which takes up around a fifth of the container’s surface area seems rather small for the many fish to fit inside, and the hors-sol cultivation of plants gives rise to fundamental doubts. Andreas Graber doesn’t try to sugarcoat things at all. He knows exactly what he’s talking about too: he’s worked in aquaponics for ten years as a scientist at the ZHAW University of Applied Sciences in Wädenswil, and his specialism is fish and aquatic ecology. On the critical question as to whether fish farming is animal-friendly, he answers with this observation: “the concept of species-appropriate farming of animals is actually a contradiction in itself”. He compares fish farming with the farming of pigs: “if you raise pigs in a shed, of course it’s not the same as if you hunt wild boar in a forest”.


UrbanFarmerscontinued from page 4

“UrbanFarmers” continued on page 11

Desertscontinued from page 4

another Vanderbilt medical student, identified Nashville’s food deserts, and identified distance, time, child care and transportation as the top inhibitors to residents in these neighborhoods shopping at grocery stores or accessing food. After researching a way to bring a full-service grocery store into the area, Patel-with the cooperation of Vanderbilt’s Owen School of Business-settled on a mobile market as a short-term solution. “Unfortunately, the full-service grocery store model just didn’t make financial sense right away, so the idea for a mobile grocery store came into play,” explains Neil Issar, director of public relations for Nashville Mobile Market. “In February 2011, we started the mobile program with a 28-foot long trailer that we drive from stop to stop.” Carrying whole wheat bread, low-fat dairy products, eggs, lunch meat, peaches, tomatoes, peppers, onions, zucchini, potatoes and more, NMM’s grocery truck is about as full-service as it can be. Since the organization turns to wholesale grocers to stock the shelves, food prices are affordable for most residents in food desert neighborhoods. Currently, Nashville Mobile Market operates as a program within Vanderbilt University, and is predominately student-led. It operates under a board of student-volunteers, as well as one faculty advisor from the University. “Vanderbilt is our administrative support: we are utilizing a truck from Vanderbilt, and of course, to get started and get contacts, we made those through the administration,” Issar explains. “We owe the University a lot, but this is definitely a student-led effort. There is no course credit offered for helping with the program, but we do have a few interns in the summer, who will get their internship credit by working for us.” One of those interns, Betsy Wray, is getting credit towards her business degree by interning with NMM this summer. “I’m doing a lot of work with ordering the food, and stocking the shelves,” she says. “It’s a huge job, and it’s tons of work, but I absolutely love it. This is a special program: I’m on the truck a lot, so I get to meet a lot of our consumers. It’s important to me that they know that their needs are seen by us.

Seeing the reactions people make to the business changes we make behind the scenes is really rewarding.”

FULL-SERVICE GROCERY STORES While the NMM’s mobile truck is up and running-and serving hundreds of residents in food deficient neighborhoods-the organization hasn’t given up on working toward the goal of full-service grocery stores. “We’re not ideal in a lot of ways, but there are people who meet us every week with a smile on their face. We want these people to have access to a healthier lifestyle right now,” says Alex Arnold, executive director of Nashville Mobile Market. “I think that their trust hasn’t been deserved in the past, but we are trying to gain their trust now. We’ve been partnering with Community Food Advocates on their corner store initiative, which will supply corner stores in the areas we’re targeting with healthy foods.” The motto at Community Food Advocates (CFA) is pretty simple: Everybody Eats. The Healthy Cornerstore Initiative is one way that CFA works to fulfill their motto. Funded in full by the Department of Health and Human Services, as part of the Communities Putting Prevention to Work campaign, the initiative supports corner stores in North, South and East Nashville with equipment, inventory, marketing materials and technical assistance. “Up until recently, there just weren’t places to buy fruits and vegetables in some areas of town. Part of our goal through the Healthy Cornerstore Initiative is to provide assistance to stores in connecting with distributors, farmers and wholesalers-and helping to provide equipment needed to house fresh items. There are a few stores we’re working with so they can purchase coolers, and provide racks for baskets of produce and the like,” explains Miriam Leibowitz, program coordinator of Re/Storing Nashville, a program of the Food Security Partners of Middle Tennessee that campaigns to raise awareness about food access in Nashville. While some full-service grocery stores are popping up in food desert neighborhoods, mobile organizations fulfill the immediate needs of the residents who live in these areas. “The Nashville Mobile Market

“Deserts” continued on page 12

physically engaged in the process of feeding others. Volunteers gather at least twice a month to sort supplies and donations, loading and unloading trucks. One event had several volunteers shucking a large donation of corn in order to prepare it for being frozen. Photos on the organization’s Facebook page show huge boxes of watermelon, as they work closely with area farms to find use for surplus crops. The simplicity of EnPuzzlement’s program allows it to respond quickly to the needs of the community; the nonprofit often puts supplies into the hands of other area nonprofits. Tent City, held at the end of October, received a large donation of drinks through EnPuzzlement’s efforts. One need Marks identified, however, was storage. The Badenhop family, also integral in the founding and running of the organization, has donated the use of a pole barn on their property since the beginning. The success of the program is creating a welcome problem of limited capacity. There is also the need to find climate-controlled storage, so EnPuzzlement is actively seeking warehouse space in the Oregon or East Toledo area. To arrange a volunteer opportunity or to purchase a donation, you can reach Michelle Marks at 419-350-6886, or visit their Facebook page for the latest news and needs.

Amanda Faith Moore is a bear of very little importance, but she would like it very much if you would take a look at the back cover of this newspaper...


“Many people in urban areas have co ntem plated relocating to a

relatively more rural environment. For most people, moving to rural areas, the adjustments are welcome changes, but some have found the transition too much of a sacrifice. A number of people have become disgruntled, viewed the initial decision to move (out of the city) as a big mistake, sold their error at a loss, and moved back to an environment similar to the one they left for the rural area. This is partly because there are certain amenities in everyone’s lifestyle (in the city) that don’t appear to be very important, until they are given up.” This quote is from the book, “Living on a Few Acres”, by James Lewis, and speaks to a desire that lies deep in the heart of many city dwellers. It is the desire to escape the noise and smog of the asphalt jungle, and to find a new home in the pastoral folksiness of the countryside. Fortunately, there are movements afoot in the city to restore green space and the natural beauty usually found only in rural landscapes. Among the neighborhoods in Toledo where such bold innovations can be observed is Toledo’s Old West End. From community gardens like Scottwood, Glenwood, Floyd Street, and the “My Brother’s Keeper” Garden on Islington, to the restoration of ornate Victorian mansions, to the Reynolds-Jackson Arboretum, and the Toledo Bike Co-op, the Old West End abounds with urban visionaries who can be honestly called “True Believers”. For a way forward in the appreciation of art and beauty and gardening and the conservation of natural resources, one need only take a guided tour of the kitchens and bedrooms of

It was fall of 2009 when EnPuzzlement launched out of a college project April Andrus needed to see through, born

from her drive to do things for people with special needs. Andrus, along with several others, had cut their teeth on managing food distribution and nonprofit work while helping to start or being involved towards the beginning of Food For Thought’s genesis. The vision was to create a family-run nonprofit that would allow individuals or groups to volunteer, and give those with special needs opportunities for job and social skills development. “What we do is empower others to be the difference,” said Michelle Marks, who, along with her husband Aaron and two children, Josh and Leah, helped Andrus start EnPuzzlement. “All we are is an organization that helps people help others.” This is accomplished rather simply, mostly through food programs. EnPuzzlement acts as the “middle man” between suppliers and citizens who wish to “purchase food or household items for a much-reduced cost.” These items are available to donate to other nonprofits, or for anyone who wishes to arrange an appointment to visit the organization’s pole barn along Seaman Road in Oregon to build a food box for a neighbor. Marks calls this “network building,” and says it is key to the mission of Enpuzzlement—people have to be involved; they are discouraged from just turning in a check if they want to donate towards the practical needs of others. Instead, they are given the opportunity to get

the Old West End. There are trees—the stately old majestic kind —scampering with squirrels. In the autumn, the oak and maple trees (along with the onion and pepper gardens, and purple flowers, and chipmunks, and red birds), are what purifies the churning, cloudy, gray, threatening skies in the morning before it rains. It is this landscape, out of which the most charming and storied house fronts rise. This is where skilled craftsmen steered an iron blade, pulled by workhorses, to dig the foundation. Stone cutters laid up the big stones that last for generations. Well-paid carpenters assembled the heavy, wooden post-and-beam frames. And finally, gifted artisans working in brass, hearthstone, plaster, oil paints and stained glass, designed a home worthy and respectful of the resources consumed in its creation. Such a neighborhood demands a sense of community, of environmental and civic urgency. For the scene outside the frost-covered window also betrays a more sinister legacy. Poor tenements and junked automobiles beside the demolished theatre and movie house where a little girl was murdered by racists; broken liquor bottles, gunshots from somewhere down the street, tattered men wandering aimlessly in the night; and ugly, hastily-constructed concrete bureaus of the welfare state. This is why, young readers, the world needs talented and true-believing economists, and urban planners.

CHANGING THE CITYSCAPE There is an idea out there to consolidate the entire population of the city of Detroit, into eight or so neighborhoods, and to turn the vast remaining tracts of land into a giant urban farm! And as insane as this idea

William James O’Fahey Amanda Faith Moore

Farming in the city:What Toledo Grows knows

EnPuzzlement:Piecing together community

The lush urban farm close to harvest time at Glenwood Community Garden.Photo: Robin Charney

Volunteers shuck a large donation of corn in order to freeze it for use throughout the winter.Photo: Michelle Marks

“Toledo Grows” continued on page 13 ts


Food For Thought:Past, present & future

Paulo Coelho:Exclusive Interview

THE BEGGINING: Starting ArtistsIt is really a complex story. I will try to paint the story the best I know how. It began with a blank canvas—or so it seemed to me. A cityscape lacking any color or texture…one that sat void of an artist’s hand. This is how I had come to view our city, a place missing the knowing hand of an artist. What kind of an artist could re-imagine such a blank canvas? In the time that followed I somehow convinced myself that I was that artist. I would bring color and vibrancy, brush strokes; I would paint our city. Seemingly the good LORD (forgive me, I am a pastor and I blame much on the goodness of Him) had begun to surround me with various people I soon would come to see and think of as the brushes and the paint. Those willing to follow the artistic leanings of the painter. So there we began—painting. The first stroke of the brush came in the form of a lunch. We began to splash color around our canvas with sacks filled with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Those lunches would soon become our standard palette; painting the city with a simple lunch and a conversation. As time crept on more and more people began to join in…soon there was an explosion of color in the middle of our canvas. Here is where the story changes…maybe I should say this is where my understanding of the story changes. Truth be told, the canvas was never blank. The white blanket over the city was my inability to see color. Those I thought were my brushes and tools to do my bidding —they were the

The Brazilian author Paulo Coelho, whose book The Alchemist has been read by half a billion people,

is used to overcoming challenges, after being committed to an asylum and then arrested and tortured for his political beliefs. Now he wants to inspire a cultural revolution amongst millions of Twitter devotees. Speaking from Geneva, Paulo Coelho’s voice resonates with mystical wisdom, though the divine reverberations could be attributed to the echo in his “minimalist” office, furnished only with, “my computer, my bow, my arrows…” Bow and arrows? “My way of meditating is archery,” he explains. “I cannot sit down. I need action!” And in case of intruders? “Also.” Any intruders would only be clamoring for a hug from the Brazilian author of The Alchemist, the life affirming fable of a shepherd from Andalusia chasing his dreams across the Sahara, which has been read by over half a billion people worldwide, and turned Coelho into a beacon of spiritual enlightenment

THE PRESENT:A Common PlaceAn orange glow of sun peaks through thick clouds in the early horizon. Impatiently I wait as it edges over the grayness that covers most of today’s sky. The air is fresh and crisp. Already I yearn for warmth as summer has once again slipped beyond my grasp. I join my neighbors in tidying up my yard, putting away the kiddy pool and lawn furniture, covering the windows with insulation—the signs of summer’s passing. My husband cleans and organizes the garage, making space for our second car before autumn begins to lay it’s blanket of frost over the landscape. Our city prepares for hibernation, or though it seems. A flurry of shoppers gather up warm gear as seen in painted flyers pushing the season out and the next one in. I spend an afternoon in the ritual of moving my summer clothes into an extra closet, my warm clothing in its place. I notice how much I have. On Saturday I chisel out a couple of hours to drive downtown to the Main Library to mingle with

inspiring the devotional following of over two million on Twitter and 6.6 million fans on Facebook. No living author bar Dan Brown has sold more copies of a single title, and notable fans include Bill Clinton and Vladimir Putin, who demanded a private audience with Coelho in 2006 while the author was travelling across Russia on the Tran-Siberian Railway. “We spent two hours talking,” Coelho says. “Of course, I’m not going to tell you what we talked about!” Coelho’s Russian odyssey forms the backbone of Coelho’s latest book Aleph, which like The Alchemist recounts a physical journey leading to inner illumination. It’s his most personal work to date, opening with Coelho undergoing a crisis of faith, which may come to a shock given the solace his novels have provided for so many. At the time, Coelho should have been on top of the world; a happily married bestselling author. Instead, he was suffocating in his

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Mobile Pantry Director Mike Schiewer prepares the pantry for a site visit.

Photo courtesy of Food For Thought

Photo courtesy of Paulo Coelho

“FFT: Beginning” continued on page 13 “FFT: Present” continued on page 13 “Paulo” continued on page 14


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leftwing luminaries—but they have been treated with far less official forbearance than the occupation encampments of the “American autumn.” LA’s Skid Row endures constant police harassment, for example, but when it rained, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa had ponchos distributed to nearby Occupy LA. All over the country, in the last few years, police have moved in on the tent cities of the homeless, one by one, from Seattle to Wooster, Sacramento to Providence, in raids that often leave the former occupants without even their minimal possessions. In Chattanooga, Tennessee, last summer, a charity outreach worker explained the forcible dispersion of a local tent city by saying, “The city will not tolerate a tent city. That’s been made very clear to us. The camps have to be out of sight.” What occupiers from all walks of life are discovering, at least every time they contemplate taking a leak, is that to be homeless in America is to live like a fugitive. The destitute are our own native-born “illegals,” facing prohibitions on the most basic activities of survival. They are not supposed to soil public space with their urine, their feces, or their exhausted bodies. Nor are they supposed to spoil the landscape with their unusual wardrobe choices or body odors. They are, in fact, supposed to die, and preferably to do so without leaving a corpse for the dwindling public sector to transport, process, and burn. But the occupiers are not from all walks of life, just from those walks that slope downwards -- from debt,

the homeless to loiter or, in some cases, even look “indigent,” in public spaces. No one has yet tallied all the suffering occasioned by this crackdown—the deaths from cold and exposure—but “Criminalizing Crisis” offers this story about a homeless pregnant woman in Columbia, South Carolina: “During daytime hours, when she could not be inside of a shelter, she attempted to spend time in a museum and was told to leave. She then attempted to sit on a bench outside the museum and was again told to relocate. In several other instances, still during her pregnancy, the woman was told that she could not sit in a local park during the day because she would be ‘squatting.’ In early 2011, about six months into her pregnancy, the homeless woman began to feel unwell, went to a hospital, and delivered a stillborn child.” Well before Tahrir Square was a twinkle in anyone’s eye, and even before the recent recession, homeless Americans had begun to act in their own defense, creating organized encampments, usually tent cities, in vacant lots or wooded areas. These communities often feature various elementary forms of self-governance: food from local charities has to be distributed, latrines dug, rules—such as no drugs, weapons, or violence—enforced. With all due credit to the Egyptian democracy movement, the Spanish indignados, and rebels all over the world, tent cities are the domestic progenitors of the American occupation movement. There is nothing “political” about these settlements of the homeless —no signs denouncing greed or visits from

mind would want to eat it. Being on both sides of the food pantry line, giving and receiving, I know that certain thoughts and prejudices exist. I have heard such statements as: “Poor people don’t care what they eat, right?” “They don’t have preferences...” They might as well just be truthful with: “Heck, they probably don’t even have taste buds. Let’s just give them what’s at the back of our pantry, what’s collecting dust, pat ourselves on the back for our ‘charitable donation,’ and go back to our daily lives proud of ourselves.” Our family, at various times in our lives, have found ourselves in the position of needing to accept others’ help in providing food to put on the table. We jokingly remember some of things given to us, that are funny now, but so hurtful at the time. We joke about the pickled beets we received once, dated from the 1970’s on the bottom of the jar. We once received hot dogs baking in barbecue sauce for dinner, supposed to count as the meat and vegetable for the day. If you ever have been given food from a food pantry, I can pretty much guarantee what was in your paper bag: whole wheat noodles that have expired, applesauce without sugar or taste, spaghetti sauce pasty enough for your children to use for school art projects, cereal with bugs in the bottom of the box, crackers that expired two years ago, and peanut butter that no longer spreads. I don’t mean to sound like I’m complaining, because our family really is truly grateful for the assistance we have received. We have often been given some great things that have been perfect to “hold us over” until a paycheck came, or food stamps went through. But I also want to challenge those who give to really think about what they’re giving. Would their own children eat it? Would they serve what they’re putting in the donation bin to friends who came over for dinner? Isn’t that how we are to think of the needy around us anyway—as our close friends, even family? Michelle Davis and her family are frequently downtown on Saturday mornings, blurring the lines between giving and receiving during the parking lot picnics at Adams and Michigan. Michelle is an artist and writer who frequently contributes to Toledo Streets. ts ts

pot also helps! Finally construct, or find, a good cover for the whole solar oven. This should be a plastic covering that is rain and wind proof. If you are still keeping up, and no doubt getting hungry, you’ll be glad to know that it is now time to position the oven. The flaps of the exterior box which you should have covered in foil earlier can now be adjusted on-site so that the sun falls directly onto the black panel inside the base of the interior box. Cutting one away is sometimes useful, and it can be used as a side reflector (see below). Once you have the angle right you can secure it with string. Optionally, you can add side reflectors, made out of left over cardboard and covered with foil, thus increasing the cooking speed. To ensure that the converted heat doesn’t escape you can create a plastic cover for the opening at the top of the oven. The principal at work here is that light travels through glass or plastic, but heat does not (as easily). There are disadvantages to using a solar oven. They do not work without a strong and pure sunshine and they do not warm the home. Also it is necessary to chop up food because thick layers may remain under-cooked. On the other hand, these ovens do not produce smoke that can harm the health, and are ideal for camping in fire risk areas. Sustainable inventions like this are only a small contribution to he many problems facing man’s impact on the environment. It is unrealistic to expect that people will slow down their development and solve the problems of modern times by getting back into the past, but it is possible to create awareness of the power of alternatives, and also the availability of them to those who would otherwise have no ability to cook.

Translated from Serbian into English by Marijana Rakicwww.streetnewsservice.org / Liceulice - Serbia

A group of “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrators gesture peace signs toward a line of police officers during a protest in response to an early morning police raid which displaced Occupy

Oakland’s tent city in Oakland, California October 25, 2011. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

“Trash” continued on page 11


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farms engaging in organic production in Switzerland, says this is all still very new. But she also adds: “essentially there is no reason why we wouldn’t give them certification, we are open to the idea and ready to give it careful consideration.” In turn, Graber was pleased at this spirit of co-operation and claimed that he would like to link up with them.

NOT CHILD’S PLAY In the greenhouse it’s getting warmer and warmer, and a ZHAW student is hard at work tending to the plants. She is writing her bachelor’s thesis on the UrbanFarmers box and is working on improving the quality of the cultivated plants. It quickly becomes clear that an aquaponics system like this requires work. About half an hour a day, Graber says. They are targeting city-dwellers living on a housing co-operative who can operate a unit like this. However, the question is often asked: how realistic is it that teachers or architects without farming experience can successfully farm fish and cultivate plants long-term? Both Bärtsch and Graber confirm that a certain amount of know-how is needed. This is even truer when operating a larger unit that can be installed on flat roofs. It is here that the UrbanFarmers see the greatest potential. As operators of they are already thinking about restaurants or canteens there, for instance. “A rooftop farm always needs professional people to run it, trained horticulturalists and fish farmers, who are responsible for the most important operations. Other work can be carried out by guided non-specialists”, Graber says. “But we also seek to educate those people who are interested so that we can enable them to make their own

Graber is pragmatic. He doesn’t want to dissuade anybody from eating meat. But he does want to make people think about what they’re doing: “as an Urban Farmer, you must be prepared to kill a fish”, he says. Vegans are, according to Bärtsch, split as to whether vegetables produced using aquaponics are vegan or not. To which Graber says merely: “we offer a technical approach towards concrete problems. We don’t promise heaven on Earth. Harvesting, or for that matter dying, is a part of the natural cycle of life.”

ORGANIC URBAN FARMING? However, the wellbeing of the fish is fundamental to the running of things here: if they are stressed out, then they start to attack each other, eat little, and produce less fertiliser - which in turn has a negative effect on the growth of the plants. In the initial stages it was shown that, rather than too many fish swimming in the rather small pools, in fact too few were doing so. The tilapias did not form a school of fish, but rather began to defend their own territory. Therefore nutrients for the tomatoes, heads of lettuce and the basil above them became scarce. Environmental and sustainability concerns are very important to the UrbanFarmers. Therefore crop spraying is not done with poison but by using beneficial organisms, and they work on energy efficiency so that one day the unit can be powered by solar energy. UrbanFarmers is not certified organic. Andreas Graber says that aquaponics works outside established parameters: “we are taking farming out of the country and practicing it in the city and on roofs”. Sabine Lubow from Bio Suisse, the umbrella association of more than 30 organic farming organizations and 6300

simple unit”. A box has already been sold at a cultural centre in Berlin dedicated to sustainability. UrbanFarmers are also in negotiations with other interested parties. The boxes are an ideal investment -a ready to use container unit, delivered, costs around $50,000. They don’t exactly pay for themselves. But those who are purely interested in the money should go and buy their fish and vegetables in the supermarket. With rooftop farms things are quite different: larger sites can be quite financially worthwhile.

WITH OTHERS OR HOME ALONE The UrbanFarmers see another, more social, use for the smaller sites. They claim that aquaponics is an opportunity to encourage living together in anonymous big cities. Alongside working together on the container farm, it could also be possible to set up a barbecue in the corner —the green container can thus be seen as an oasis in the concrete desert. Likewise,

joblessness, and foreclosure -- leading eventually to pauperism and the streets. Some of the present occupiers were homeless to start with, attracted to the occupation encampments by the prospect of free food and at least temporary shelter from police harassment. Many others

schoolchildren can see close-up how their food comes into being. This pedagogical aspect is also emphasized by the designer Anotnio Scarponi, who in collaboration with Graber has developed a prototype of a home unit. Under the slogan of “one meal a day” everyone can, after they’ve been shown how, farm fish and grow cabbages themselves. All that is needed is a bit of money and space. Costs for materials, according to Scarponi, run to around $16,000-$21,000. The unit is about as large as two refrigerators and can contain about as much water as a bathtub. The in-home aquaponics unit, named “Malthus”, is still being developed but a prototype is already in progress. Whoever wants to try their hand at building cities anew, can also practice a food revolution out in their own kitchen first.

Translated into English by Benjamin Dennis

www.streetnewsservice.org / Surprise - Switzerland

are drawn from the borderline-homeless “nouveau poor,” and normally encamp on friends’ couches or parents’ folding beds. In Portland, Austin, and Philadelphia, the Occupy Wall Street movement is taking up the cause of the homeless as its own, which of course

it is. Homelessness is not a side issue unconnected to plutocracy and greed. It’s where we’re all eventually headed -- the 99%, or at least the 70%, of us, every debt-loaded college grad, out-of-work school teacher, and impoverished senior —unless this revolution succeeds.

Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (now in a 10th anniversary edition with a new afterword).

Copyright 2011 Barbara Ehrenreich; originally published by TomDispatch.com

Christian Bärtsch in the UrbanFarmers Box.Photo: Sophie Stieger


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multicultural Powell community.” Powell Elementary worked closely with the USDA and the Washington Capitals hockey team to build the garden. Capitals defenseman and 2011 NHL All-Stare Mike Green is on the waiting list for a plot in an Arlington community garden. “[Gardens] pop up all the time,” Marques said. “The big change is trying to get people to register their garden,” There are numerous other community gardens in the area, but it takes three special attributes to make a People’s Garden. The garden must involve a collaborative effort to benefit the community, an educational effort to teach people how to grow their own food and the garden must donate its food to a safe place in the community where people can go to claim it. “Always trust your soil,” Marques said as a piece of advice to those starting a People’s Garden. “Especially in urban areas.”

www.streetnewsservice.org / Street Sense - USA

up and honks, the people come running. “A lot of times they bring sandwiches and healthy snacks like nuts, raisins, applesauce and string cheese,” she says. “They have ice water, too, and they hand out toiletries when they have them.” Margot’s voice breaks when she talks about the food. After pausing to gather herself, she adds, “Those people are a godsend. I could never say enough to describe what they mean to me.” Like Nashville Mobile Market, Mobile Loaves and Fishes strives to bring healthy foods to people who can’t access them. But rather than bringing groceries into neighborhoods without a grocery store, MLF brings food to people who can’t afford to buy it. By tending a garden, and gleaning excess foods from bakeries, farms and the Nashville Farmer’s Market, MLF is able to provide food for hundreds of impoverished Nashvillians at a low cost. “We serve a wide range of people. Some places have dozens of refugee families from other countries; a lot of places have families with children; there are a number of elderly people in some of the low-budget hotels we visit,” explains Grace Biggs, food truck program coordinator for MLF. “Mobility is our biggest asset here. There are so many opportunities to help that open up by being able to go to where people are.” Since MLF is almost entirely run by volunteers, the organization focuses on educating volunteers about food justice issues in Nashville. Most volunteers commit to working with the organization for at least one month-and many of them

learn about the intricacies of food desert issues during that time. “We believe that food is an intersection for all people,” Biggs says. “I first became interested in food justice because of the conversations that happened when I was volunteering on the Mobile Loaves and Fishes truck. Everyone can relate to food.” Miriam Leibowitz of Re/Store Nashville can also relate. “Affordable food is one piece of poverty issues that everyone can relate to, but [food deserts] are about the equity that hasn’t been in place in these neighborhoods for a long time,” she says. While Leibowitz agrees that mobile food trucks are a great way to help people access food, she believes that it is only a temporary fix. Re/Store Nashville and Community Food Advocates are working with a handful of other organizations to find a more permanent solution. Currently, they are looking at ways to zone neighborhoods in a manner that will encourage grocery stores to open full-service stores. “I’m looking forward to the day when I’m not needed in this work, and when we talk about food oases instead of deserts,” she says. “I’m actually trying to work myself out of a job.” For now, though, the trucks are still running-and the people who live in Nashville’s food desert neighborhoods are thankful for it.

www.streetnewsservice.org / The Contributor - USA

started in response to community needs,” Leibowitz adds. “The work that all of us have done as community organizations, non-profits, university research centers-we all are working toward the same goals, based on demand from residents that there is a need for a place to buy fresh fruits and vegetables, whole wheat bread, low-fat dairy.”

A MOBILE SOUP KITCHEN While mobility is a major issue in food desert neighborhoods, the cost barrier is also a significant problem for some low-income residents. Margot Curtis has been living in a room at the Trinity Inn on Dickerson Pike for the past four years. While it’s not the most ideal living arrangement for her, she says she is thankful to be off the streets. Living in a food desert neighborhood in East Nashville, Curtis says that being able to afford food is her biggest problem. The government issues Margot food stamps each month, but she usually spends them on the children of families who live in the Trinity Inn. “I just can’t say no to anyone,” she explains. “I call this place ‘the apartments’ because so many people just live in these rooms. It just breaks my heart, because when people here can’t eat, I have to help them. I end up not having enough food stamps for everyone.” Thankfully, for the residents of Trinity Inn, Mobile Loaves and Fishes (MLF) comes by once a week to hand out sack lunches or to serve hot foods. According to Margot, when the truck pulls

Cookbook features good eats from the streets

Each chef’s recipes are framed by personal narratives about how they became homeless and what their experiences were of

Hurricane Katrina. For the most part they describe the hurricane itself as a peripheral event since they had limited access to media, though it did entail lots of MREs (meals ready to eat). More poignant, however, are challenges they faced with their families, their employment, and

their emotional well-being. The chefs bring an array of cooking experiences, from John’s work at the Gulfport Yacht Club to Bobby’s development of a mailbox oven, to Julie’s meal preparation for her son. Certain recipes accommodate rudimentary cooking supplies while others are meant for the trappings of an indoor kitchen. This spectrum represents a transition for each chef, from unhoused to housed, and now

living in the Oregon Place Apartments. A project of local philanthropists and Mississippi Cares International, Inc., the mission of Oregon Place is “to provide transitional workforce housing for homeless people so they can live in a safe and secure place while learning basic skills and/or a trade that can be used to re-enter the work place and regain their place in society.” Book proceeds go to support Oregon Place.

www.streetnewsservice.org / Street Roots - USA

Devan Schwartz , Street Roots

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Toledo Growscontinued from page 8

THE FUTURE:Questions for all of usThe beauty of Food For Thought lies not only in its purpose and mission, but also in the people who come together and create its very essence. As I reflect on the first several weeks of filling the position of Director at Food For Thought, this has become so wonderfully apparent to me. While I already knew Food For Thought’s mission was to help bridge the gap between poverty and prosperity, I did not yet know this “bridge” is made up of people. More than programs, pantries and peanut butter, we are fulfilling our mission at Food For Thought with the love, compassion and the incredible drive of so many people. The adventure in leading a movement of volunteers is the lack of control you have... and I would have it no other way! Each week there are the faithful few that come downtown and show up at the pantry to serve their neighbor with amazing consistency. Then there are also the varying myriad of groups and churches and organizations and families and students and single individuals who find their way to Food For Thought to chip in. The wonder is every hour we gather under the Food For Thought name, we are actually making the Food For Thought name! The evolution of Food For Thought has been an incredible thing to witness. From backpacks to library lawns to picnics in parking lots; we can be sure change is constant. So, what’s next? We like to say it is more about the thought than the food. But, is that true? And will it be true for the next chapter in this story? Will our food pantries be a place where numbers dictate our behavior, or will we serve people despite their zip code? Is Food For Thought going to be a group of people who love the status quo, or will we ask questions like “What more can we do together?” As someone just walking in to this wonderful organization these are the questions I find myself asking. And I’m not talking to myself either; these are questions for all of us. If you are reading this, you have a voice. Whether you live in your own house or not; pack lunches on Fridays or help with paperwork on Mondays; are a 7th grader or 71 year old. Where are we headed? This is an important question and I can’t wait to see how we answer it. Sam Melden

may sound to some, it’s just the wave of the future to the urban farmers of Toledo Grows, led by the Old West End’s own Michael Szuberla. Toledo Grows is a community gardening outreach of the Toledo Botanical Garden. Toledo Grows provides free seeds, free plants, soil enhancers such as mulch and Brewer’s yeast, and educating resources to over 100 area Toledo gardens. The urban farmers of Toledo Grows believe that “food is the key to solving many seemingly incurable social ills.” That is: better food equals better nutrition, which equals better health. Stewardship of gardens leads to better stewardship of the entire city environment. And finally, the food business equals jobs! Lots and lots of jobs! It is often reported that only 2% of America’s people are farmers. But, as Dr. Wayne Roberts has pointed out in his book, “The No-Nonsense Guide To Food” (New Internationalist Publishing), “when you provide food growing with food trucking, and food warehousing, and food processing, and food advertising and retailing, the food business is the biggest employer of American workers.” Therefore, food is the key to health, environmental stewardship, and jobs, among other city goals. Toledo Grows “works with schools, community centers, public housing sites, churches, social service providers and neighborhood organizations” to plant community gardens. These gardens “reduce hunger and improve nutrition, engage citizens to work together to improve their neighborhoods, provide safe and healthy recreational activities close to home, and provide leadership and environmental stewardship.” Toledo Grows also “operates a job training program with the Lucas County Juvenile Justice Division that provides paid employment experiences for at-risk youth”. (Source: Toledo Grows informational brochure. Toledo Botanical Garden, 5403 Elmer Dr., Toledo, OH 43615, (419)536-5566.)

William James O’Fahey can be found online at amishcountrydoctors.com or on Facebook as “Amish Country Doctors”. He frequently plays as part of a group (yes, called Amish Country Doctors) at various venues around town.

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FFT: Presentcontinued from page 10

FFT: Future

local residents who gather to share a meal, acquire complimentary items of clothing, and provide or receive information on much needed services. Catching up with friends over donated coffee and cocoa, I enjoy the exchanges of conversation and laughter. It’s a place where I feel joy and sorrow simultane-ously. I should do more. I think how glad I am that it’s Saturday and I don’t have to wor—I block that thought and amend the words in my head. I am grateful to be working. Feeling humbled and blessed, I recount my blessings. Bundled with coat, scarf and mittens, I shiver as the cold north wind whirls across the Library grounds, briskly grazing my cheeks. I sure picked a bitter day to attend this gathering. Even with two pair of socks, my feet are chilled. I stop to greet an acquaintance, a regular guest, and catch up on life, or at least the week. He wears only jeans, a long sleeve shirt, cap, and a smile. My voice quivers as I attempt to talk with him through numb lips. He merrily proclaims that Saturday at the Library is his favorite time of the week. The event is now in full swing. Mothers fill their sacks while their little ones run about playing with new best friends. Guests seek out companionship and information freely given by regular attendees, and there is a mutual sharing. Looking across the crowd I pick up on the flow of energy as friends work, serve and share conversation. The frost in my bones begins to melt and I am comforted by the simplicity of these relationships. As I meander through the crowd, taking pleasure in the jovial spirit, there is something about this place, something proverbial. Could it be the openness, the sincerity, the selfless giving? Could it be the lack of advantage or distinction? Of course….I recognize this place. This is where God walks, among his people. A special place which should not be so special at all, but commonplace indeed. It is one of the places where His children care for each other with the same compassion, acceptance and love that is meant for all, without exception. Now, that’s “Food for Thought”, isn’t it? Shar Campbell

artists. Those whom we gave a lunch were not now the recipients of technicolor—rather they were the beautiful hues and shades, pastels and fluorescents, primary and secondary colors. It is an interesting moment in one’s life when we realize it was us who could not see. Those we thought to beblind, those we thought to be following us—they were the ones with vision and they were the ones leading all along. There is a place in our city filled with deep and beautiful colors, a place dreams can’t match, a place of meaning and love being painted more and more richly everyday by a group of artists I am grateful to have met. You may read this and feel as though you don’t know any more than you knew prior about Food for Thought…but that is because I’m not the right storyteller. You must speak to the true artists and they are easy to find—you’ ll just need to lift your veil as I had to. May you join the work…may you add some color…may you become a teller of this story. Food For Thought (freelunchtoledo.com) exists because of the artists: 1Matters (1matters.org), New Harvest Christian Church (nhccoh.org), Cherry Street Mission Ministries ( c h e r r y s t r e e t m i s s i o n . o r g ) , Enpuzzlement (enpuzzlement.com), LifeLine (lifelinetoledo.com), and Toledo Streets (toledostreets.org), amongst many others. Thank you for your inspiration and for your artistry in our city. Don Schiewer, Jr., Aspiring Artist

Even St. Nick made a Christmas Day stop off downtown to celebrate with everyone during

Food For Thought’s Saturday celebration in 2010. Photo: Robin Charney


Paulocontinued from page 9

“comfort zone”. “It looked like I had no more challenges in life,” he explains. “This is not good because life is a constant challenge. People tend to stay in the comfort zone because it is safe [but] if you don’t accept challenges you are dead!” This diagnosis does not bode well for Western society, where lives are dictated by TV schedules and people are trapped by routine. By Coelho’s definition, we are not really living. “Let’s not generalise Steven,” he scolds, playfully. “Many people, but not everyone, otherwise I would not have any readers! It’s a tendency we have and we have to fight against it.” As Aleph topped bestselling charts in countries as diverse as Brazil, Serbia and the USA, it seems one question he must be asked constantly is unavoidable: what is the secret of his success? “There is no reason!” he retorts. “Reasons you give for deceits. You can give a thousand reasons to justify deceit but you never can explain success.” “Don’t ask me also, ‘What do I do with my money?’” he chides. “Everyone asks a lot of how, they don’t ask why. How did you become rich? How did you become a bestseller? How did you become a journalist? Just changing how to why makes a lot of difference to life. “All my books, and this I guarantee, I put the same enthusiasm and love,” he continues. “Having said that, you can imagine if I thought about half a billion people [reading my books] I would be paralysed. It’s natural that we try to please everybody so we cannot think about this.” Born in 1947 in Rio de Janeiro to a middle class family, Coelho was committed to a mental institution three times by his parents from the age of 17. Rejecting their wishes for him to become a lawyer, Coelho lived as a hippy until 1974 when his subversive politics attracted the attention of the Brazil’s military dictatorship who imprisoned and tortured him, leading to a fracture in his otherwise unwavering Catholic beliefs. “I totally lost my faith,” he admits. “I thought, this cannot happen to me. This is not fair, this

is not just, God does not love me. It took me seven years to get rid of this experience. “When you are in jail and you are tortured you don’t exist anymore,” he continues. “After you are released the prison remains in your soul.” But since a person is the sum of their experiences, can Coelho consider his suffering an important part of his spiritual journey towards the man he would become? “I doubt, Steven,” he sighs. “Probably my period in the mental institution was very useful for me, but I don’t think you need to be arrested and tortured to arrive where you need to arrive. This is the only thing that I would gladly erase from my past. “I see friends who never ever recovered from this. For every three people who succeeded in overcoming their ordeal, seven are broken for life. Nothing justifies being arrested [simply because] you have a different idea.” Coelho’s ideas are still being suppressed by some regimes, for example his work is outlawed in Iran, but what is it about his books that warrants them being banned? “Why they are dangerous? Ask them, ask them!” he exclaims. “Any idea may be dangerous, it depends on the culture that absorbs it. Writing implies the revolution of the writer itself. So I don’t know why some books are banned here or there. I don’t ask questions - I have internet, don’t worry.” A proud internet pirate, Coelho is notorious among his publishers for distributing much his work online for free, and anticipating that Aleph would be banned in Iran, posted a prominent link on his website for the Farsi translation of the book. “You won’t believe me,” he teases, “But we have had 317,000 downloads of this Farsi edition.” Revolutionizing how authors interact with their readers online, Coelho spends hours each day posting regular blog entries and replying to user comments. Last year he was declared the second most influential Twitter user in a survey carried out by Forbes Magazine, “More influential than Lady Gaga and Barack Obama,” he laughs. Only bubblegum popping teen messiah

Justin Bieber pipped him to the top spot. “I’m really crossing my fingers for Justin Bieber to use his celebrity to do something,” Coelho adds. “He is very young but I hope he can use his influence to do something good.” The statement almost sounds facetious, but the sentiment is sincere. Believing that art has the potential to unite humanity, Coelho primarily uses his blog to share stories from around the world and encourage others to use whatever creative outlets available to them to do the same. “At this present moment, all bridges are collapsing; economic,

political, social. There is only one bridge still standing: the cultural bridge,” Coelho says. “I may not understand your political system, I may not understand your religion but I understand your story. I understand your painting. I understand your music, your dancing. There you have this bridge. “It is my responsibility as a writer to do my best not to allow this bridge to collapse.”

Aleph (HarperCollins, £14.99) is out now. You can follow Paulo Coelho on twitter @paulocoelho

www.streetnewsservice.org / The Big Issue in Scotland ts

Photo courtesy of Paulo Coelho


HoboscopesMr. Mysterio

SCORPIO | At birth, the male anglerfish is equipped with extremely well developed sense of smell, but no digestive system. Unable to feed himself, he must find a female anglerfish, bite into her flank, and release an enzyme which digests the skin of his mouth and her body, fusing the pair at the vascular level. The male will then atrophy into nothing more than reproductive organs with which the female is able to perpetuate the species. Wow. Codependent much? Think about it Scorpio, are your relationships really going anywhere or are you just biting down for dear life because you don’t think you can make it on your own? It may be time you learn to digest food for yourself. SAGITTARIUS | Funny thing about placebos, they don’t do anything, but some of them still work better than others. For instance, studies show that when test-subjects are told that the pill they are taking is expensive, they report better results than with the same pill when they are told it is cheap. Fortunately, Sagittarius, if you aren’t in the middle of a clinical trial, you won’t be affected by this strange, psychological phenomenon, right? Unfortunately, this effect is easy to fall for even if you aren’t taking sugar pills. Why is this brand better than that one? Because it costs more! Sometimes it’s true, but, more often than not, you could spend less and still get what you’re looking for. CAPRICORN | “Mr. Watson, come here! I want to see you!” those were the historic words spoken by Alexander Graham Bell during what would later be called the first phone call in history. I believe Mr. Watson replied “How did you get this number?” and hung up. Caller ID wouldn’t be invented for more than a century. The miracle of long distance communication only works if you make it work, Capricorn. Just because you feel connected, doesn’t mean the voice on the other end feels connected to you. Stay on the line and work it out, you’ll be glad you did. AQUARIUS | Look, Aquarius, dawg, your recent performance just really didn’t work for me. It’s not just that you’ve been a little pitchy lately, though, honestly…honestly I’m not gonna say you haven’t been. When you started it was a little rough for me, you came out of the gate and were all over the place. Listen, dawg, it just hurts because I know you can do better. I’ve seen you hit your stride and it was unbelievable! When you really show up, you are da bomb. So–big deal–you hit a rough spot, but that doesn’t mean the votes won’t come out in

your favor. Aquarius, dude, what I’m saying is trust your own judgment and decide for yourself whether it’s time to sing your final song or move on to the next round.

PISCES | There’s just something about being being an independently-conscious, self-aware entity that’s enough to make anybody feel as though they might be inexplicably important in the grand cosmic scene. Well, Pisces, it turns out you are!–though perhaps not for the reasons you’ve suspected. No, you are not, in fact, the only actual living human being on a planet peopled by robots that are part of an elaborately constructed intergalactic experiment which consists entirely of measuring your responses to various stimuli. That’s not it at all. The truth is, it’s not all about you, but it is better with you in it. You may not be the driving force that’s making great things happen, or determining the course of the future, but we do all really like you and would love to see more of you when you get the chance.

ARIES | What is it that makes you who you are, Aries? Your circumstances? Your choices? Your stories? Your “Earwaxes of the World” collection? Sure, those are all important elements of you, but where would any of those be without your family tree? Yes, it’s true, you are who you come from. But what if you aren’t happy with what you see on the branches above you? Every family tree has it’s flaws, and it’s easy to focus on what that might mean about you. But there’s good things up there, too. Keep looking. Pick all the fruit you want and leave the leaves you don’t. But in any case, don’t be afraid to find out what’s up there. The more you know about where you come from, the more you’ll know about yourself.

TAURUS | Dear Taurus, I came home this afternoon to discover that my neighbor was trimming my hedges. You might think this was a nice gesture, but I was absolutely enraged! Just because I keep my lawn one or two inches higher than his, he thinks I can’t take care of my own yard. How can I tell him to keep his hedge-clippers off of my holly? . . . Wait, is this the appropriate part of the newspaper for me to be asking you for advice? Sometimes wires get crossed around here. I know you’re used to it, Taurus, people have been bringing you their problems all month. The Stars indicate that you may need to turn the tables. You know all those people who keep pouring out their troubles to you? Try letting them know what’s bothering you lately. If they listen, you’ll have a real friend on your hands; if not, don’t bother playing

the part of advice columnist every time Irritated in Erie comes knocking.

GEMINI | On April 1st, 1957, a British news program produced a three-minute segment dedicated to the humble Swiss spaghetti farmer. Complete with footage of smiling workers harvesting wet noodles from spaghetti trees, this April fools broadcast had many in England duped. Yes, some viewers actually believed that Switzerland harvested a bumper spaghetti crop due to a mild winter and the eradication of the spaghetti-weevil, but how different are you? It’s important to remember that we can all be fooled, Gemini. So where are you getting your information? You’ve got to check your facts, whether they come from the nightly news, Wikipedia or your friendly neighborhood amateur astrologer. There’s no flawless source of information we can all agree on, but there is one thing we can: there’s nothing like real homegrown spaghetti!

CANCER | The slow loris is a small Asian primate known for its large, round eyes and its slow, deliberate movements. Most biologists agree that the slow loris would look adorable wearing a fake mustache and a tiny sombrero. But before we start playing dress-up, you should know that the slow loris may also be the world’s only venomous primate. The loris secretes a poison from the crook of its elbows, which it licks to mix with saliva before biting its victim, causing a painful and swift anaphylaxis. There are some folks you just know you should avoid, Cancer. It’s easy when they’ve got spikes and claws and breathe fire. Staying away from these types is no problem. It’s the slow lorises you need to worry about. When you encounter the ones who seem cute and cuddly and you just want to scoop them up and scratch their little ears and photograph them on a tiny motorcycle wearing a little bitty helmet (metaphorically, of course) –when you come across those, just check under their elbows first. And stay out of biting range.

LEO | You took a risk, Leo. You put it all out there. You knew your days-of-the-week themed pop song would bring you nothing but devoted, screaming fans. You were certain that the nation wouldn’t be able to resist a Leo with both tiger-blood and Adonis-DNA. And then it happened, just like the song said it would. No, not a bowl of cereal, a bowl of instant karma–and “instant” is even faster than it used to be. When the public turns on you, it can be brutal. If

this experience changes you at all, I hope it doesn’t make you stop taking risks. No, if you learn anything from all of this, I hope it’s that when the teeming masses turn their attention to poke fun at a fool, you don’t have to join in. Instant karma judges quickly and there’s no need for you to be a part of that judgement. Are you really equipped to play that roll?

VIRGO | It is said by some that King Solomon was the wisest man who ever lived. On an unrelated note, it is also said that Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines. He married Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites and Hittites. (If I’m not mistaken, this is what he had in mind when he famously wrote, “I wish they all could be California girls”). He was a king, and I guess in his wisdom he figured a king could have whatever he wanted. But at the end of his life, Solomon was convinced that it was all meaningless. (I’m not sure, but I think this is what he meant by, “I feel so broke up, I wanna go home.”) This month, Virgo, try to use your good sense and wisdom to remember to take all things in moderation. Just because having one of something is good, doesn’t mean that having 700 will be 700 times better.

LIBRA | Not unlike a great punk band, a cicada will spend years developing underground. In fact, certain types of cicada will spend as long as 17 years underground, laboring in obscurity until they emerge, along with their entire brood to molt, fly, and lay the eggs of the next 17-year generation. It’s a bizarre life-cycle and it reminds me of you, Libra. I’m starting to think you’re ready to emerge, my friend. You’ve been planning, working and changing long enough. The Stars indicate that it may be time for you to start digging for the surface. I say, go for it. The good news for you, assuming you aren’t an actual cicada, is that once you make a go of it you can keep trying for as long as you want, as many times as you want and when you’re done, you can head back underground and dream up something else.

Mr. Mysterio is not a licensed astrologer, a renowned cardiologist, or a published poet.

Want more brain-beads bleating with bloated bounty?Follow Mr. Mysterio on twitter at: http://twitter.com/mrmysterio

Hoboscopes appear courtesy of The Contributor street newspaper in Nashville, TN.

WWW.LOVETHENORTHS.COM

In 2006, believing he had to try or die inside, Steve North and his family moved to Toledo, without a job or a place to live, to try to do ministry he didn’t yet know how to do, with people he didn’t yet know how to meet. For the first three years, LifeLine (Steve’s ministry) was developed in the shadow of the North family’s struggles to make it. In spite of nearly two years without a full time job, burglary, vandalism, six moves in three years and a brief period of homelessness, doors were opened for connections with people who were living on the socio-economic or spiritual margins—often both. Thanks to a group of never-say-die friends and supporters, the Norths made it through the personal struggles to experience a genuine birth of the new ministry, together with those friends and supporters.

LifeLine exists to create organic, missional, spiritual community in Toledo, and to help lift the city out of poverty. The ministry has developed in a hippie coffee house, a regional arts center, a homeless man’s firepit, and at the North’s house —possibly the most well-known part of LifeLine for its monthly community dinners. It is this house, 2055 Robinwood in Toledo’s historic Old West End, that has been left devastated by a fire. After a weekend spent outside at Tent City minis-tering to the homeless, (also his job as Director of Community at Cherry Street Mission Ministries), Steve and his family are now homeless themselves (again) and needing to start over (again) in Toledo.

But this time is different. After five years of dedicated, joyful service and building relationships with all he meets, Steve North and his family have a home in the hearts of Toledo. We, Steve’s friends (and Lyn’s, and Steven’s, and Lauren’s, and Jen’s), are asking you to join us in showing the North family some of the love they have given so freely themselves.

For a better idea of the kind of community LifeLine has built, we invite you to the following places online:

www.lifelinetoledo.com

www.facebook.com/lifelinetoledo

www.facebook.com/lovethenorths

^ To donate online securely via PayPal.

Checks can be made out to New Harvest Church, with Norths as the memo, and sent to:New Harvest Christian Church, 3540 Seaman Road, Oregon, OH 43616

The family is registered at Target for practical, immediate needs.

Toledo Streets Issue #15

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Transcript of Toledo Streets Issue #15