Two Saturdays ago, I was fortunate enough to take what I consider the most productive study break of my college career thus far—serving the William Byrd Community Farmlett.
The Farmlett serves local Richmond residents by providing gardens in which they can grow their own fresh vegetables and herbs in an urban farm setting. Urban farming is becoming increasingly significant in the modern world, as about half of the world’s population lives in urban areas and approximately a billion people are suffering from mal-nourishment (http://dp.biology.dal.ca/reports/simovic2st.html). Not only does planting yield food, it can also help filter the runoff that will eventually go into our waterways. This site provides for an essential need and gives residents the ability to take ownership of a plot of their own, all while cleaning our watershed.
The farmlett also works in conjunction with the William Byrd Community House program in which young children can learn about farming and growing their own food (such as making a pizza garden—growing tomatoes and basil). The farmlett has several current projects, including building a worm composting center and weeding the rows, which the Earth Lodgers and myself had fun working on for a few hours.
Mike and I chose to do the less popular activity of dismantling and categorizing windows that were donated to the Farmlett, and will be used to build their first greenhouse. We blasted 103.7 The River on the radio while we unscrewed latch after latch, and measured about 100 window dimensions. Once we were finished, every window was ready to be installed and was organized according to size.
Though we only had a few hours to give, Earth Lodge made a significant dent in the work that was given. I had a great time both dancing it out with Mike in the window room and seeing the fruits of our labor (pun intended :).