Choosing to Participate:
A Social Justice Service Project on Sustainability

I can’t believe this project is finally over! I thought that today went well. It was nice to be able to have a day of mostly relaxation after such a long project. In my workshop, things went smoothly. The kids were all well enough behaved and did what we wanted them to…. though not that many of them ate much fruit salad. We ended up throwing a bunch out which isn’t very sustainable I guess. Of the people who talked, I liked Josh the best. I think he was the most used to talking to groups. I thought it was unbelievable how much waste people produce every single day. And I liked what he and also Dave said about just trying to do one small thing each day. I am glad to be done with this project, but I really did enjoy it. I hope to keep connected with people like Davy, Liz Carollo, and some other farmers. Maybe next year or even over the summer I can help out again. I hope so.

At 10am on Saturday, I went to the Greenmarket again. I met up with Sophie and Sam (Lili was sick) and we called Davy. After Davy had met us at the Information booth, he took me to work with another goat farmer named Elly. As we walked over, he told me that Elly lived in Pennsylvania and sold goat cheese, but that she had been having some financial difficulties recently. This made me think about how expensive it must be to run a farm, especially if you’re just one person. It takes a lot of courage and planning. When I got to the stand, it took only a moment for her to start talking. She was quite conversational the whole time, but what she was saying was really interesting. She talked about how she was trying to make her farm entirely self-sustainable using windmills, solar panels, and well water. She talked about all the problems with processed milk and meat, and about the large differences between farmed produce and grocery store bought things. She also told me about a 20 minute documentary she was in, and asked if I would like to borrow a copy. I did because a little earlier, I had asked her if I could interview her next Saturday. She had accepted, so I figured the least I could do was watch the video to get a better sense of what she was talking about. As usual, I left at 1pm that day after planning to interview her at 9am (!) the next Saturday.

On Saturday, I went at 10am to work at the Greenmarket. When I was almost there, I called Davy who is the volunteer organizer. I don’t think he really knew who I was, but I explained myself to him (he knows Sophie) and he told me to meet him at the information center. I then called Sam and he met me there while I waited for Davy. Davy came after about a minute, and set me up at a goat cheese stand with a woman named Lynne. She told me the basics about what things cost, and right away had me selling the cheese to people. When there wasn’t a customer, we chatted. She had this cute little book full of photos of her goats, and said that there had been 50 new babies born in the past nine days. She was very friendly. At one point she even left my by myself for about 15 minutes while she went to got coffee (and kindly brought me back a hot chocolate.) After warning me to be careful for people who might “target me” and trick me out of money, she gave me a thing to wear around my waist that held all my change, similar to the one I had worn with Stewart. I stayed there for three hours, and at the end she gave me some cinnamon cranberry goat cheese to take home. It was very good! One of the things I noticed while I was there was how much the market had a reel sense of community. All the farmers knew each other, and would chat during the day. Also, all the customers were so friendly, and many were “regulars” and would chat for up to ten minutes. The whole market had such a nice feel about it.

Around 3:45, Sam, Lili, Sophie and I arrived at Liz Carollo’s office on Chambers Street. It was small and kind of cluttered, and at first she just talked to us about her various thoughts on the markets and on the office, such as allowing all the farmers to take credit cards with a special machine. Then I worked for a while on organizing various fliers by market. Then I filed them in a special shelf she had built. After I had done that, I worked with Sophie and Sam on finding possible recipes in Gourmet magazine that included lots of ingredients that were sold at the Greenmarket. I worked until about 6pm, then went home.

Sophie- after taking notes on the things that Liz pointed out about the farmers market, such as publicity, organization, and monetary needs. Then Lili and I laminated farmer’s market fliers. After Lili left, I helped organize fliers and pick out recipes that included ingredients that were sold at the farmers market. I was impressed with all the ideas that we came up with, but I was surprised at how messy the office is, and I wonder how they function during the day. This meeting gave me a real taste at what The Greenmarket behind the scenes is like. Everyone was really friendly, and we met a lot of farmers who were having a meeting in the next room. We met the head of Greenmarket, member of the farmer’s market committee, and many others. It felt good to be greeted as a fellow community member, because it was like we were already part of the group. It was amazing to see so many different people collaborate because they all care about a common goal.

Lili- When we first got to the office I had reconized farmers in a meeting. They were discussing the buisness aspect of running the market. And that is what the office is mostly about. They collect money, raise awareness and is basicly the buisness center of the market. Personally, I didn’t enjoy working there because I had alreadly expierienced the livliness of the market and found working at the office very boring. If I had to choose the hands on work every saturday morning over lamenating or organizing papers I would. The sustainable part is within the market and not the office.

I arrived at Union Square at 10am and met up with Sophie and Lili. We were supposed to meet up with someone named Davy, but he wasn’t there and we didn’t have his phone number, so we asked one of the farmers, and he took us each to work at a different stand. I ended up working at a wheat grass stand with two men Stewart and Ski. It was really fun! I got to sell the plants to people and make change for them. They had a special thing you wore around your waiste that held all the money. They also sold wheat grass shots that they ground fresh, but I tried doing it once and was too slow, so I let them do th at part. Despite the rain, there were a lot of customers, and I worked there until 1pm. However, by the time I left, business had slowed way down. It was a good first expericance because the work wasn’t too hard and the two guys I worked with were really funny.

Sam, Sophie, and I went to Union Square to help a woman named Karen who is a sheep farmer. All of her cheeses and yogurts were made with sheeps milk and she also sold lamb and sheep meat. At first we weren’t sure what to do, so we just stood around drinking cider. But after about 15 minutes, we started handing samples of sheep’s milk cheeses and yogurt to passers by and made lots of sales. It was easy, but it was also pretty fun. Sometimes I felt imposing when I would ask someone if they wanted a sample and they didn’t. They acted uncomfortable and seemed to feel obliged to then look at our stand. But most people appreciated the free samples and asked for more. It actually surprised me how many people came to our stand. At the end of the day, Karen gave us each a free piece of Brebi’s Blanche cheese.

After contacting the Community Board 4, I was invited to observe a meeting. It turns out that this was the first meeting between a small group (about eight local people, one of whom turned out to be my lower school friend’s dad) who were on the community board. When I got to the meeting, Renee Schoonbeek (who I had emailed) introduced me to everyone and then I went to sit next to a woman who was writing an article about the group for the Chelsea Newspaper.  Every once and a while she would say something to me, but I couldn’t really understand what she was saying. The community board members called themselves a “task force”. In the meeting they discussed how they wanted to find out more about what the other Community Boards were doing and see if they could unite on a cause or project. They also wanted to set up policies for applicants and developers. Part of their plan for doing this was to simply ask questions that imply necessary actions. The meeting lasted about an hour and a half, and although I didn’t fully understand a lot of what they were talking about, I enjoyed being there.