Rooftop Pantry Garden....Food Justice In Bloom!
Our 8th Year is growing!
Semi-Intensive Vegetative Rooftop Garden....a just.good.food ministy in collaboration with Divine Intervention Ministry to the Homeless!
Tippe Church hosts Milwaukee's first semi-intensive vegetative rooftop garden! We are so grateful to MMSD, Crossroads Foundation, Lake Michigan Foundation, American Rivers, and Hanging Gardens for thier financial and actual support!
This year's gardens intend to grow and give away organic produce of more than 1500lbs to a local soup kitchen and local pantry participants. Gardened by formerly "home-less" interns, assisted by many volunteers from throughout our community, come by and visit and volunteer yourself.
This year we are again blessed by the ministry of Garden Coordinator, Estelea Silva, and our Garden Community Educator, Rachel Hahn. We have a growing relationship with the BayView Community Center and will give our produce to their pantry participants while doing cooking demonstration on how to use this produce with their bag of foods, nutrition education, recipes...while we build relationships with families and individuals.
Also...Tippe is a "Cool Congregation"! Part of an ecological, environmental church movement growing us greener each day! And, Tippe was the runner up for a national recognition for Sacred Ground Greening projects 2015.
From the Journal Sentinel in July 20,2014:
2 Milwaukee churches, 2 ways of growing food and jobs
By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel
Church gardens help nuture seeds of dignity
Two Milwaukee churches active in the food justice movement are ramping up their efforts to feed the hungry and create jobs for low-income workers this summer.
Tippecanoe Presbyterian Church on Sunday is christening its new rooftop agricultural garden, only the second of its kind in Milwaukee. And All Peoples Church has finished the first phase of a plan to transform five vacant lots in the Harambee neighborhood into an urban orchard.
"This is about creating a sustainable food source and giving people the dignity of work," said the Rev. Karen Hagen, pastor of Tippecanoe, better known as "Tippe" Church, at 125 Saveland Ave. near Bay View.
The rooftop garden is the newest addition to Tippe's Just Good Food initiative, which features more than 35 garden beds on the church grounds. Those beds generated 500 pounds of fresh, organic produce last year that was distributed at nearby Unity Lutheran Church on E. Oklahoma Ave. and Congregation of the Great Spirit on W. Lapham Blvd.
The church gardens, including the rooftop space, are tended by men and women who are or have been homeless and have come through Tippe's Divine Intervention cold-weather shelter. The shelter, a collaboration of 36 faith communities, welcomes homeless adults during the winter months, then stays connected the rest of the year through Friday night potluck dinners, a weekly delivery of bag meals to those sleeping outdoors, and work in the garden.
"The focus is on dignity, and developing job skills and references," Hagen said.
Across town last week, All Peoples Church and city officials announced the creation of an urban orchard on city-owned land near N. 1st and W. Locust streets. All Peoples volunteers, many of them teens who manage the church's existing garden plots, already have planted 30 fruit trees, berry plants and nut bushes. A second phase planned for this summer will include an additional 30 trees, as well as $27,000 in storm-water management improvements funded by the city and the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District.
All Peoples plans to hire an orchard manager, whose duties will include supervising up to three employees who are transitioning from prison back into the community through the faith-based nonprofit Project Return. The seasonal work is a good fit for transitional employees, said All Peoples pastor, the Rev. Steve Jerbi.
"It provides a nice chunk of steady work for a short time. But the worker is not locked into that job while they look for other opportunities," he said. "We want to show that this can be a viable employment opportunity for people in the city. That you don't have to move out to a farm to make a living doing this."
Both projects were ambitious undertakings for small congregations of modest means, made possible in each case with a patchwork of grants. In addition to about $10,000 in MMSD funds, the orchard received more than $27,000 in grants from the Greater Milwaukee Synod, the nonprofit Victory Garden Initiativeand the city's HOME GR/OWN and Strong Neighborhoods initiatives.
At Tippecanoe, members raised about $28,000 for the rooftop garden, which included contributions from MMSD, the Lake Michigan Foundation, the American Rivers Foundation and the Presbyterian Church USA. The plants were donated by Plant Land, a local nursery. And the church's members and homeless friends pitched in on the labor.
The 30-by-30-foot space was developed by Hanging Gardens, a Walker's Point company that provides environmentally friendly systems for managing stormwater runoff. Hanging Gardens CEO Anthony Mayer said Tippecanoe's rooftop is only Milwaukee's second all-agricultural garden — after the Walker's Point restaurant Braise — and that it incorporated some innovative technology.
Hagen and gardener Nancy Hartmann recently checked the progress of the rooftop plants — fledgling rows of tomatoes, radishes, lettuce, cucumbers and more. In addition to supplying the church food pantries, Tippe is in talks with Braise and other restaurants about growing specialty produce for their menus.
"If we can grow purple carrots and sell that to Braise, then that helps fund our ministry," she said.
That, in turn, invests in people like Nancy and Larry Hartmann, her husband of one month.
Longtime friends, the two had come to Divine Intervention in the winter of 2011-'12 from a tent camp in the woods. Both were alcoholics, unable to hold jobs for any length of time, or cobble together the resources needed to find a place to live.
They are sober now. They've traded the tent camp for more comfortable, if modest, housing. And in June, they were married at Tippe, surrounded by church members, volunteers, Divine Intervention guests and others who have walked alongside them these last few years.
Larry is now an elder in the church and manages its property maintenance. In the winter, they check new guests in each night at Divine Intervention. And in the summer, Nancy tends the gardens.
It is often solitary work, leaving her much time to think, as she makes her way between the boxes with the garden hose.
"I think about how much better I am now, I suppose," she said as she rested on a picnic bench in the shade behind the church. "I'm thankful there was a place like this."
This year's gardens intend to grow and give away organic produce of more than 1500lbs to a local soup kitchen and local pantry participants. Gardened by formerly "home-less" interns, assisted by many volunteers from throughout our community, come by and visit and volunteer yourself.
This year we are again blessed by the ministry of Garden Coordinator, Estelea Silva, and our Garden Community Educator, Rachel Hahn. We have a growing relationship with the BayView Community Center and will give our produce to their pantry participants while doing cooking demonstration on how to use this produce with their bag of foods, nutrition education, recipes...while we build relationships with families and individuals.
Also...Tippe is a "Cool Congregation"! Part of an ecological, environmental church movement growing us greener each day! And, Tippe was the runner up for a national recognition for Sacred Ground Greening projects 2015.
From the Journal Sentinel in July 20,2014:
2 Milwaukee churches, 2 ways of growing food and jobs
By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel
Church gardens help nuture seeds of dignity
Two Milwaukee churches active in the food justice movement are ramping up their efforts to feed the hungry and create jobs for low-income workers this summer.
Tippecanoe Presbyterian Church on Sunday is christening its new rooftop agricultural garden, only the second of its kind in Milwaukee. And All Peoples Church has finished the first phase of a plan to transform five vacant lots in the Harambee neighborhood into an urban orchard.
"This is about creating a sustainable food source and giving people the dignity of work," said the Rev. Karen Hagen, pastor of Tippecanoe, better known as "Tippe" Church, at 125 Saveland Ave. near Bay View.
The rooftop garden is the newest addition to Tippe's Just Good Food initiative, which features more than 35 garden beds on the church grounds. Those beds generated 500 pounds of fresh, organic produce last year that was distributed at nearby Unity Lutheran Church on E. Oklahoma Ave. and Congregation of the Great Spirit on W. Lapham Blvd.
The church gardens, including the rooftop space, are tended by men and women who are or have been homeless and have come through Tippe's Divine Intervention cold-weather shelter. The shelter, a collaboration of 36 faith communities, welcomes homeless adults during the winter months, then stays connected the rest of the year through Friday night potluck dinners, a weekly delivery of bag meals to those sleeping outdoors, and work in the garden.
"The focus is on dignity, and developing job skills and references," Hagen said.
Across town last week, All Peoples Church and city officials announced the creation of an urban orchard on city-owned land near N. 1st and W. Locust streets. All Peoples volunteers, many of them teens who manage the church's existing garden plots, already have planted 30 fruit trees, berry plants and nut bushes. A second phase planned for this summer will include an additional 30 trees, as well as $27,000 in storm-water management improvements funded by the city and the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District.
All Peoples plans to hire an orchard manager, whose duties will include supervising up to three employees who are transitioning from prison back into the community through the faith-based nonprofit Project Return. The seasonal work is a good fit for transitional employees, said All Peoples pastor, the Rev. Steve Jerbi.
"It provides a nice chunk of steady work for a short time. But the worker is not locked into that job while they look for other opportunities," he said. "We want to show that this can be a viable employment opportunity for people in the city. That you don't have to move out to a farm to make a living doing this."
Both projects were ambitious undertakings for small congregations of modest means, made possible in each case with a patchwork of grants. In addition to about $10,000 in MMSD funds, the orchard received more than $27,000 in grants from the Greater Milwaukee Synod, the nonprofit Victory Garden Initiativeand the city's HOME GR/OWN and Strong Neighborhoods initiatives.
At Tippecanoe, members raised about $28,000 for the rooftop garden, which included contributions from MMSD, the Lake Michigan Foundation, the American Rivers Foundation and the Presbyterian Church USA. The plants were donated by Plant Land, a local nursery. And the church's members and homeless friends pitched in on the labor.
The 30-by-30-foot space was developed by Hanging Gardens, a Walker's Point company that provides environmentally friendly systems for managing stormwater runoff. Hanging Gardens CEO Anthony Mayer said Tippecanoe's rooftop is only Milwaukee's second all-agricultural garden — after the Walker's Point restaurant Braise — and that it incorporated some innovative technology.
Hagen and gardener Nancy Hartmann recently checked the progress of the rooftop plants — fledgling rows of tomatoes, radishes, lettuce, cucumbers and more. In addition to supplying the church food pantries, Tippe is in talks with Braise and other restaurants about growing specialty produce for their menus.
"If we can grow purple carrots and sell that to Braise, then that helps fund our ministry," she said.
That, in turn, invests in people like Nancy and Larry Hartmann, her husband of one month.
Longtime friends, the two had come to Divine Intervention in the winter of 2011-'12 from a tent camp in the woods. Both were alcoholics, unable to hold jobs for any length of time, or cobble together the resources needed to find a place to live.
They are sober now. They've traded the tent camp for more comfortable, if modest, housing. And in June, they were married at Tippe, surrounded by church members, volunteers, Divine Intervention guests and others who have walked alongside them these last few years.
Larry is now an elder in the church and manages its property maintenance. In the winter, they check new guests in each night at Divine Intervention. And in the summer, Nancy tends the gardens.
It is often solitary work, leaving her much time to think, as she makes her way between the boxes with the garden hose.
"I think about how much better I am now, I suppose," she said as she rested on a picnic bench in the shade behind the church. "I'm thankful there was a place like this."