It hasn’t been a year of meetups yet, but I sure do look forward each month to MKE Creatives at Anodyne Coffee. Really, the variety of people who show up always thrills me, and the energy that I feel when leaving – man, I get inspired. So, never let it be forgotten, that this group wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for writers, Jennifer Fink and Kristine Hansen, recognizing the value in “cross-pollinating” our networks of creatives!
At this month’s meetup there were management/biz consultants, yoga instructors, sustainability-minded IT experts, software/web programmers, writers, voice-over artists, editors (1 and 2), photographers, stock-content agents, music promoters, and up-cycling jewelry makers!
This month’s featured presentation was from Gretchen Mead, the founder of Milwaukee’s Victory Garden Initiative, a local non-profit devoted to encouraging people to get more involved with their food supply through a variety of actions. VGI is well-known for their “Garden Blitz” where they go out and help people build raised-bed gardens on their lawns. The first Blitz, in 2008, added 36 gardens to Milwaukee’s landscape – the most recent one put in 500 gardens! This has brought VGI’s career total to over 2000 new gardens in Milwaukee! How amazing is that? One of VGI’s great slogans is #movegrassgrowfood and they certainly follow through on that.
Gretchen grew up in Dubuque, Iowa, the daughter of a union man. Growing up in that household, Gretchen thought a lot about self-reliance and interdependence in our communities, and in particular, how it relates to our food systems. She went on to become a social worker, one with a strong interest in food, and how that relates to our health and wellness.
While working as a social worker, she came to believe that SAD (“Standard American Diet”) was a huge contributing factor to many problems that teachers were facing with their students. For many people in her work culture, the first “solution” to these problems was to medicate the students, and that didn’t make much sense to her. Gretchen came to believe that the better the food people could take in, the better their health would be and that there were other benefits, too – for the community and the individual.
She formed VGI, then worked to get an ordinance passed in her community, allowing for front-yard gardens, and that effort found its way to NPR’s attention! Gretchen said, when it comes to making a difference for a cause she believes in, (paraphrasing here): “I cannot concede to power – I can’t just get angry, I have to figure out something to do with that feeling.” And, regarding using our creativity to change the world around us, “creativity in activism, is activating your creativity for values…for a vision for the future; how do we turn that vision into action?”
Too, gardening doesn’t just make for great food, “getting my hands busy with gardening is good for clearing my mind, and focusing my creativity.”
I really like how she views the front-yard gardens: “growing food in the front yard is the new front porch…it’s a way to build community.”
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I like to think, too, that MKE Creatives is another great way of building community in Milwaukee. To see blog posts about past events, click HERE.
The next MKE Creatives will be Dec. 10 – and featured speaker will be Kari Couture!
