Or how disasters continue to provide us with teachable moments
Fifteen years ago this week, we were in the final stages of launching the Crescent City Farmers Market in New Orleans. It opened in September 1995.
Five years ago this week, we were struggling through August (as one does in the sticky American South) unaware of the disaster that would strike the Gulf Coast on 29 August 2005: Hurricane Katrina.
We believe that public markets are valuable in part as a window into the soul of a community. Are folks comfortable congregating in public spaces? Who is there and who is not? Why? Are there enough farmers to meet demand at an agriculturally-focused market? Are they young or old, brown or white? And so on.
Then we add crisis into this mix. Disasters like Katrina, Rita, and the recent BP Deepwater Horizon have the uncanny ability to peel away the veneer of everyday life that shields us from observing the raw and unpleasant realities of institutionalized violence, poverty, and other troubling issues.
Perhaps catastrophes carry within their trauma the gift of teachable moments.
Though by now utterly sick and tired of teachable moments in the Greater New Orleans region, we live in the nation’s most vibrant classroom. The lessons we have learned may surprise you.
In the wake of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, we seek the expertise of a professional writer to research and write our next Green Paper exploring the prospects of moving more and more fishing families out of the industrial grid and into entrepreneurial and value-added strategies that enable them to capture more wealth and control over their livelihoods.
In our attempt to professionalize the management of farmers markets, we seek the expertise of a curriculum specialist to design a teaching guide for the first module of our MarketU — peer to peer market managers' learning workshops focusing on public market innovation and evaluation.
Crescent City Farmers Markets match up to $25 in food stamp purchases per market visit
Baskets of peak-season Creole tomatoes and tender okra aren’t the only sweet deal at the three weekly Crescent City Farmers Markets (CCFM) right now. Marketumbrella.org is once again matching SNAP (food stamp) purchases up to $25 per market visit at all CCFM locations, while supplies last, through its MarketMatch program. During marketumbrella.org’s Summer 2009 MarketMatch pilot, $10,000 in SNAP purchases were matched, resulting in a 600% increase in SNAP sales during the pilot and a 300% residual increase. The 2010 MarketMatch program is made possible by generous support from the Greater New Orleans Foundation’s Community Impact Grants and the National Rural Funders’ Collaborative. Marketumbrella.org is the sponsoring non-profit for the CCFM, the first farmers market in the Deep South to overcome the food stamp digital divide back in 2005.
Over the next few weeks, under the guidance of senior research staff, trans-act’s fellow, Jennifer Brady, will design and pilot marketumbrella.org’s newest analytical tool, the Food Environment Evaluation Device (FEED). FEED will complement the work of SEED and NEED by adding the third tier, human health, to the study of the impact of farmers’ markets on the triple bottom line: financial capital, social capital, and human capital.
Love farmers markets, local food and our local community? Marketumbrella.org seeks a full-time Market Community Programmer (MCP). The MCP works as part of a team to coordinate operations for our three weekly Crescent City Farmers Markets (Tuesday Uptown 9am-1pm; Thursday Mid-City 3-7pm; Saturday Downtown 8am-12noon) and outreach programs to bring a diverse community to our markets.
This week at the Tuesday Uptown Square Crescent City Farmer’s Market, the transact team from marketumbrella.org began collecting data for the summer 2010 run of NEED, one of our evaluation devices designed to assess the impact of farmer’s markets on their surrounding communities.
April 16, 2010. Building on our vision of a global public market network working for public good, we visited Tel Aviv’s Earth Market.
It was just beginning to feel as though the tide was turning here in New Orleans. Approaching Katrina plus five, we've been licking our wounds, rekindling communities battered by nature, engineering failures, and syrupy slow government assistance. Once again, our region is plunged into ecological uncertainty. Eleven workers died in the explosion on the BP oil platform named Deepwater Horizon, sending a seemingly endless spew of oil from the Gulf's floor and towards the fragile Gulf Coast only days before the scheduled beginning of the spring brown shrimp season.
Have your say to the incoming City of New Orleans Administration. The transition team's Social Innovation Task Force is seeking input from the community.