One of the questions, Hub City Farmers’ Market staff often gets, is, ‘when it’s not market season, what do you guys do?’ Well, the HCFM three-person team definitely continues to work, on everything from our community garden program to fundraising to developing new fresh food outlets like our new CSA program. But one of the most important things we work on is planning for the next season of our farmers’ markets.
From November-April we’re working on growing…on growing the amount of market vendors, the amount of produce at market and the amount of Spartanburg residents eating fresh, local food.
From November-April we meet more farmers. Not just because we think they’re cool but also because we want to connect them to our farmers’ markets and to the Spartanburg community. The more farmers we have growing and selling their produce, the more healthy food is available to residents. Once we get to know a farmer we also like to create network opportunities for them where they can learn new practices and how to increase their capacity. And then we like to hang out with them during our “farm visits” where we make sure our vendors are growing what they sell at market.
From November-April we’re working on creating more opportunities for Spartanburg to get fresh fruits and vegetables. We’ve moved our Wednesday market to a lunchtime slot so more people can conveniently pick up their produce while grabbing a bite to eat downtown. And, after a successful pilot program, we’ve planned our first full season of our brand new Mobile Market. This Farmers’ Market on wheels will be rolling into the Northside, Boiling Springs, Pacolet, Woodruff and Inman communities in July through September.
But now it’s May and Market Season has finally arrived! Our first market has a great line-up of events that includes live music, cooking demos and story time for kids. And most importantly there’s a fantastic line-up of vendors who will be selling local produce, breads, meats, eggs, plants and much more. And if you can’t make it out to the first market, we’ll have events and more vendors joining us throughout the season. Thanks to the support of the community, including the Mary Black Foundation, we have been able to grow and we hope the 2011 market season is the best one yet!
-Ana Parra, Executive Director, Hub City Farmers’ Market
2011 Market Schedule
Saturday Market
8 am- noon
May 14- November 12
Magnolia Street Train Depot
Wednesday Market
Noon- 2 pm
June 1- Sept. 28
Morgan Square, downtown Spartanburg
Mobile Market
July-September
Northside, Pacolet, Woodruff, Boiling Springs and Inman
It is that time of year again: May is National Bike Month and brings us a wealth of bicycle-related opportunities in Spartanburg. The most exciting downtown sporting event of the year will be held Friday, May 6: The Spartanburg Regional Classic Criterium. The Criterium is a closed-circuit, multi-lap cycling race: think NASCAR on two wheels, as professional cyclists race in a half-mile loop through downtown, making hairpin turns!
The race starts at 3:30, with a new race starting every thirty minutes. The men’s pro race starts at 8pm and wraps up the evening. To find out more, visit http://www.biketownspartanburg.org/.
Check out the action from last year’s race in the video below – and come downtown Friday to witness the fun in person!
“In the long history of human settlements, this connection between the land from which directly or indirectly we all get our living and the achievements of human society has been deeply known.” -Raymond Williams
I grew up in Spartanburg. As I transitioned from nature-loving little girl to surly teenager, my mantra became, “There is nothing to do in this backwoods town.” I hightailed it out of here at age 17, with nary a backward glance. I enjoyed over a decade of city life in Boston and Philadelphia before returning. I rode the subway, my bicycle and the bus daily, I loved being around hundreds of people at all times. I lived in giant apartment buildings. I never went barefoot…I even shunned house plants. I earned a Masters in City Planning. Suffice to say, I love cities. And in the time that I left Spartanburg, until I returned in 2006, my town became a city. A city I fell in love with, a city that makes me extremely proud, a city of great places and even greater people.
When I read this past Sunday about my friend Tammy Stokes’ Third Places Project for Spartanburg, I immediately began my own list of “good great” places here in our community. As I started ticking places off in my head, I realized how many of them were green, not gray. Spartanburg has made me, the city fanatic, into a prodigal treehugger.
The Cottonwood Trail: only a mile from my house; the Shoals at Glendale: a ten minute drive from home; the Mary Black Foundation Rail Trail surrounded by towering trees: a half mile walk from my neighborhood; and Croft State Park: only a ten minute drive from home. All these places, in both city and county, make Spartanburg a greener, greater place to live. And they all provide an opportunity for each of us to be active while also communing with the environment.
I am currently training for a trail marathon next month. I have found that putting in many, many miles of running on trails in Spartanburg is an amazingly easy feat from a logistical standpoint…the physical part is another story entirely. The amount of open space available to us thanks to groups like Spartanburg Area Conservancy, Upstate Forever and others is just one more reason why I am proud to call Spartanburg the best city of “backwoods” in the country, and even better: my home.
It’s March and that can only mean one thing – it’s time for me to get really, really, really excited about college basketball. After all, there are two things that dominate conversations in my world… basketball and reproductive health.
An odd mixture of conversations for sure, but today the two issues collided and I am therefore compelled to blog about them, together. Those of you who are not die hard college basketball fans like me may have missed the news coming out of Povo, Utah today. Brigham Young University (BYU) is having an absolutely remarkable basketball season and has been ranked as high as #3 nationally… yes, BYU! But, this post isn’t about the team’s unprecedented basketball prowess, rather about the university’s honor code. News broke today that one of the team’s star players had been suspended for the rest of the season. Pat Forde of ESPN broke down the situation like this:
“Key player on probably the best team in school history gets in trouble in the final week of a 27-2 season. With a Mountain West Conference title and a probable No. 1 NCAA tournament seed there for the taking, the school learns of an honor code violation on Monday, a violation that school officials said was not a criminal offense. On Tuesday, Davies is suspended for the rest of the season.”
That report from ESPN was before we learned that the violation was… wait for it… wait for it… young Mr. Davies was busted having premarital sex with his girlfriend! Yikes! Are you serious?
So here we go, let the debate begin. Was the suspension justified? Was it too harsh? The kid’s a sophomore in college, what’s the big deal? It will make for interesting dialogue on the sports blogs for sure, but here’s the deal: BYU has a standard, an honor code, and expectation of its students. Davies didn’t live up to that standard and he was dismissed from the team. He knew the expectations, was well aware of the code and chose to violate it.
What if we all held young people to a standard and let them know there were associated consequences? What if conversations about love, sex and relationships included our young men at the same level they target young women? What if all young men, especially young male athletes, knew they weren’t exempt from the rules? What if…
By the way, as I write this post BYU is well on their way to losing a basketball game tonight (their first post suspension) ostensibly crashing their dream season. But, tonight’s lesson is about much more than wins and losses on the court. It’s about expectations for our young people, and a reminder that indeed we can have them!! What if…
-Forrest Alton, Chief Executive Officer, SC Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy
Molly Talbot-Metz, Laura Ringo, Shelley Robbins and Philip Belcher observe the demo
Spartanburg will have a new kind of infrastructure this summer: BCycles! I had the privilege of attending a demonstration of the BCycle program yesterday in downtown. It is exciting to know that both residents and visitors alike will have quick, easy access to bicycles in our City soon.
Bikes can be checked out using a debit card or membership card
The Mary Black Foundation awarded a grant to Partners for Active Living for this automated, public bicycle sharing program. The purpose of the grant is to make bicycle transportation in the City of Spartanburg more accessible to the general public. The grant fits several of the Foundation’s strategies, including supporting activity-friendly projects and increasing the use of places for physical activity. Partners for Active Living has done a terrific job bringing this concept to Spartanburg. The project has also been supported by the JM Smith Foundation and City of Spartanburg, and will launch in July or August of this year.
For more information about the system and a demonstration of how it works click here to watch the video below from WSPA’s Amy Wood.
The Herald Journal also published this article in today’s paper about BCycle.
“B” on the lookout for the new cycling stations in downtown Spartanburg later on this year!
I read an article this week about two studies showing that high-fructose corn syrup, a food additive, contains mercury. Mercury, as you may know, is toxic at any level and in all forms. According to the studies:
“Almost half of tested samples of commercial high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) contained mercury, which was also found in nearly a third of 55 popular brand-name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first- or second-highest labeled ingredient. On average, Americans consume about 12 teaspoons per day of HFCS, but teens and other high consumers can take in 80 percent more HFCS than average.”
Over years of eating, that amount of toxic mercury will undoubtedly add up.
When I was pregnant I gave up sushi because fish, especially in raw form, is known to contain mercury. Since my daughter began eating solids, I’ve tried to keep her on a mostly local, organic diet. We eat apples instead chips, we talk with her about how food is supposed to be fuel for our bodies, and we want to maximize the amount of energy we derive from each meal. Of course there are visits to the downtown bakery, and her grandmother always has a special stash of something sweet for her. But we try. Eating fresh foods is not always the fastest, easiest endeavor. Eating unprocessed, organic foods is even more difficult, especially given the price tag.
However this week I also heard about Lisa Leake, a woman who just over a year ago radically changed her family’s diet by cutting out all processed food and refined ingredients. You can follow her family’s real food journey on 100DaysOfRealFood.com. I thought, okay, 100 days of Real Food, if you have the money. But she also did 100 Days on a Budget, allocating just $125 per week for a family of four: less money than one would receive for food stamps. I realize she probably had the time to source and cook the food, which is often a luxury many do not have. But, it is possible.
Luckily, here in Spartanburg, we have the Hub City Farmers’ Market to provide fresh, local produce, meat and other products to us on a bi-weekly basis beginning Saturday, May 14. The market is also selling Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) shares where you can receive an allotted amount of vegetables over the course of the growing season. To learn more visit their website: http://www.hubcityfm.org/.
The next time you begin cooking, or tear open that “healthy” granola bar, take a look at the ingredients list. That way, you can take an informed bite.
Well our African journey is quickly coming to and end and I will return to Spartanburg early next week.
Just yesterday I stood on the summit crater of Mount Kilimanjaro with many new friends. Some seven different countries were represented on this Kilimanjaro Initiative (KI) climb. As I have mentioned before 12 of them were youth from both Kenya and Tanzania. By the looks of the folks we saw on the trail we were about the only group that included East Africans. There is something special about this I think. KI was started to give agency to youth around Nairobi who are disenfranchised. This work I think can be summarized by Joyce, a Kenyan cyclist, who has joined us since we left Nairobi some 12 days ago. I walked out of the woods with her today and here is what she said: “The climb was the hardest thing I have ever done. You know the mountain is a lot like life, when things get tough you have to believe in yourself. You also have to work together. This is what we did and we accomplished our goal.”
This story is echoed by everyone on our trip – whether you made it to the summit or not we all worked together and pushed ourselves to the limit. As I often do I thought about our work in this context – what about our work with youth and the efforts to reduce adolescent pregnancy? What could be our collective Kilimanjaro? And better yet how can we learn from Tim Challen and the Kilimanjaro Initiative to bring such a diverse group together to accomplish the goal?
We have lots to do, but I think Joyce is spot on: we will have to set a high goal, push ourselves beyond anything we thought possible, and if we work together we will be successful!
Sitting at dinner last week with Auma Obama, I listened to her share the following story about Independence Park in Nairobi, Kenya. The park was established around 1963 and has been a beacon for freedom ever since. Recently, new elected officials decided to develop this park. The community did not want to see their park destroyed, but how could they stop the development? Local tradition states that men cannot see women elders naked. Local women banded together and met at the park. And what did they do? Yep, they stripped down to nothing as the police approached. The police immediately turned around and left.
This week in Kenya and Tanzania I witnessed this power of women first hand. From our visit with Box Girls in Kariobangi, Kenya to meeting Joyce, a Kenyan cyclist traveling with us to the base of Kilimanjaro, I have witnessed the empowering effect of combining sport and women. I ride through village after village close behind Joyce and see the girls cheer her on. I see the smile on her face when she slows down, quickly telling me that she is waiting on me – not that she is tired. I saw it in the eyes of a Masaai mother to whom we presented a bike that will be used to care for her family.
These experiences have made me think about the work we do. Especially with women. I think about the childcare providers and the challenges they face in their work to provide quality care on a tight budget. I think about the mothers BirthMatters serves and the women that they train to be doulas. They have power – but still face struggles. Struggles for their choices to be heard and accepted. I also think about our other partners working for change in roads, trails, or policies in the County – or in places like the Northside of Spartanburg. I think about our work with teen pregnancy prevention and in particular with youth. I think about the power of talking about the issue and just doing something. Sitting in the bar of Buffalo Camp on the long dusty road to Tanzania I noticed a box of condoms by the beer. I thought: what would it take for the Spartanburg to have easy access to contraceptives like this remote bar?
We all have power, and just like the Kenyan women in Independence Park and Joyce: we should use it.
Not sure where to start about today’s activities. After over 24 hours of travel – and only some mild travel disturbances – a security guard at dulles who didn’t think we should be playing frisbee in the terminal and a late plane to London – we started what we came here for – to give away bikes.
We started at the Intercontinental Hotel in Downtown Nairobi – the bike recipients were to come and there were folks from the media there. The highlight, hands down, was walking outside of the hotel to see 68 youth on brand new bikes. The name of the bikes – VICTORY!!! It didn’t go unnoticed. For the past six years, in my capacity as program officer at the Mary Black Foundation we have worked to make Spartanburg more bike friendly. globalbike was started by a group of friends heavily involved in the effort to make Spartanburg more bike friendly. To see 68 bikes stop traffic on a major downtown artery made me think about what we could learn from this. Faced with ever growing transportation costs – Kenyans realize the true power of a bike. We got to interview most of the bike recipients and a common refrain was – I can use this bike to get around – traffic is heavy and transportation is expensive. I wonder how we can learn from this to continue the push in Spartanburg.
After the bike handoff we headed to Kibera where Kilimanjaro Initiative does quite a bit of work. Kibera is one of the largest slums in Sub Saharan Africa. To put the experience into words is close to impossible. To say that life there is a contrast is an understatement. Faced with what seems like suffocating poverty there was great joy. We walked for several miles to a new futbol (soccer) field that KI was responsible for. It was full of young children happily playing. It took two seconds for my backpack to come off and to be on the pitch with the children. They actually passed me the ball – actually there is some disagreement amongst our team about this – some say the ball dribbled away from the youth and I took it. Regardless, this field was a since of community pride, joy and recreation. All of the KI staff come from this community and have such pride for their hometown. It couldn’t help but get me thinking about home – about our work – about Spartanburg and whether or not we find the things to be positive about and rejoice in them, with them and mostly for them.
I am sure the lessons from this day will take time to fully register – thanks for reading.
The title of today’s blog came from many of brainstorming sessions at Café Ishi, a former downtown coffee spot. The proposed tagline was mentioned in 2007 for globalbike – just an idea among 6 friends.
At the time the Mary Black Foundation, Partners for Active Living, the City of Spartanburg and many others were working toward making Spartanburg a nationally-recognized Bicycle Friendly Community. While heavily involved with that process, several of us were interested in reaching into the developing world with bikes. Soon we pooled some money and bought 10 bikes for caregivers in Zambia and the rest is globalbike history. Learn more at globalbike.org.
In 6 days, 2 participants in those Café Ishi planning sessions, Jean Crow Crowther and Kelly Lowry, will head with me to Kenya to make that tagline a reality. Over the years and growth of globalbike, we have consistently and intentionally remained focused that our idea was born, bred and continues to grow in Spartanburg: SC’s first bike friendly city. We do this because we are proud of the support we have received from Spartanburg – from both individuals and institutions. More importantly, we are excited that the idea grew here and we think it is a story worth sharing.
Over the next couple of weeks, I plan to keep everyone updated during our trip—that is, if the technology works like I have been told it will. I hope to report on our press conference at the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Nairobi—there we will give 90 youth the life changing power of a bike. I hope to report on our multiple tree planting ceremonies where we will plant close to 1000 trees – Noble Ones without a doubt! I also plan to tell you what it is like riding 250 miles through Kenya and Tanzania. Lastly, I hope I will be able to put into words the feeling of reaching the rooftop of Africa with a group containing 10 youth from organizations to which we will have just given bikes.
One of the questions, Hub City Farmers’ Market staff often gets, is, ‘when it’s not market season, what do you guys do?’ Well, the HCFM three-person team definitely continues to work, on everything from our community garden program to fundraising to developing new fresh food outlets like our new CSA program. But one of the most important things we work on is planning for the next season of our farmers’ markets.
2011 Market Schedule
