Hillview Urban Agriculture Center’s Market Baskets Program

We are excited to introduce the Market Baskets Program an easy, fun, and interactive way to bring low cost, tasty, and nutritious meals to family’s tables in the La Crosse area.  Designed to appeal to all ages, the Market Basket classes and demonstrations are created to quickly teach participants how to prepare great meals with minimal preparation and clean-up using one-pot slow cookers.  Our goal is to make healthy affordable food available along with recipes and wholesome low cost ingredients such as rice and beans. 

Generous Support

Thanks to the generous support from the Robert & Eleanor Franke Charitable Foundation, Hillview Urban Agriculture Center’s Market Baskets Program is up and running.  The goal of the program is to distribute FREE SLOW COOKERS to families throughout the La Crosse area.

In addition to distributing the slow cookers we’ll also be hosting cooking demonstrations at various locations starting in March.  On the schedule so far are events at the La Crosse Boys and Girls Club, Logan Middle School After School Cooking Class and the La Crosse Area Family YMCA.  We’re also participating in West Salem Elementary School’s PTO Nutrition Night and have partnered with the University of Wisconsin Extension Head Start program; providing free slow cookers to participants in their new mom’s cooking classes.  Other demonstrations are scheduled for early Spring.

Thank You to Our Partners

We’re working with some great partner organizations to help with the project; the People’s Food Co-op has pledged to provide 100 pounds of grains and beans to include in the Market Basket bags  They are supporting the project by providing additional purchases at their wholesale cost.  To help with getting our goal of 800 Market Basket bags packed and ready to hand out to class participants, the RSVP group (Retired and Senior Volunteer Program) has stepped up and offered to provide members and space to tackle this task.  We extend a huge thank you to both the People’s Food Co-op and RSVP!

If you know of a community group that might be interested in helping coordinate a demonstration and slow cooker give-away please contact us.  Also, we’re always looking for energetic volunteers to help with events.

Mel Hoffman, Executive Director of the Robert & Eleanor Franke Charitable Foundation, announced at a press conference on Friday, December 21st at Nell’s City Grill that the Franke Foundation will be awarding a $100,000 grant to fight chronic hunger in La Crosse County!  The $100,000.00 Coulee Collaboration Award Food for All Project will be awarded in March 2014.  Hillview Urban Agriculture Center was invited to attend the announcement along with other non-profit organizations and agencies in the area that have been actively involved in working on issues relating to food-insecurity in La Crosse County.  Mel said these organizations and agencies “will likely be involved in the project either in the development or implementation phases, or maybe both.”  Thank you to the Franke Foundation for the amazing commitment towards helping to end hunger in La Crosse County!  Pictured:  CJ and Mel Hoffman.

Earlier this week, Senator Jennifer Shilling and Assistant Kara Pennoyer visited the greenhouse to find out more about the efforts of Hillview Urban Agriculture Center.  We were excited to share with them all the wonderful things we have in the works.  In addition, we shared holiday bags of our VermiGold, worm castings.

Washburn Neighborhood Garden Hoop House

Collaboration at its best!  Mayo Clinic Health System-Franciscan Healthcare (MCHS-FH) purchased the hoop house that was put up last weekend at Washburn Neighborhood Garden on Division Street, in La Crosse - an area declared by the USDA as a food desert.  Andy Novak, Hillview Urban Agriculture Center Community Garden Chair said, It was an exciting weekend! With the help of fourteen volunteers over the course of three days, we were able to get the frame for our first hoop house constructed.  We will now be able to put the poly cover over hopefully sometime after the holiday in January.

The garden space itself belongs to MCHS-FH. In addition to donating the property, they have put significant effort and time into turning the once empty lot into a community garden.  Western Technical College provided a large cadre of capable and dedicated volunteers.  This is the first of many forthcoming efforts that are part of the collaboration between Hillview Urban Agriculture Center, MHCS-FH and Western Technical College to create a healthier, food secure community.

A Collaborative Effort Between Mayo Clinic, Western and HUAC

The local media was there to cover the joint effort which brought together volunteers from all three organizations and the community.  THANK YOU to all of the volunteers that helped out:

Zack Gaugush – HUAC Vermicompost Manager, Jared Barkheim – Community, Judson Steinback - Coulee Region Ecoscapes, Mike Pelech – Community, Joyce Cielecki – Western Technical College faculty & HUAC Board, Eric Karbula – Western Technical College student, Joe Kotnour – HUAC, Randy Magno – Washburn Neighborhood Association, Pete Beemis – Western Technical College faculty, William Brendel – Western Technical College faculty & HUAC Board, Karl Green – UW Extension, Troy Steers – Mayo Clinic Health System-Franciscan Health Care Grounds Crew, Seth Bossert – Landscape Architect.

http://www.ballpublishing.com/growertalks/ViewArticle.aspx?articleid=19487

Caring for the Community

Like a well sustains a village, Hillview Greenhouses in La Crosse, Wisconsin, has been the lifeblood of the community since 1907. As a farm and greenhouse with various owners over more than a century, its bounty has fed people in the area through plentiful times and in the lean years.

Two of the owners, Joel and Jean Olson, purchased Hillview Greenhouses in 1987. In November 1991, writer Kathleen Pyle featured the growers in Under an Acre. At Hillview Greenhouses, a 75% retail operation, variety is the theme. According to Joel, who propagates almost everything himself, “we offer too much variety; more than we should.” He grows bedding plants for spring sales, but also expanded his product line to make limited production space pay off year round.

In 2004, Joel and Jean began growing organic produce. A few years later, the couple decided to retire and in 2008 a group of friends and neighbors purchased the greenhouse. One of the friends was Dr. Tom Klemond, an internist and palliative care physician, who had a desire to assist the elderly in the area with a community house destination.

With organic growing assistance from the Olsons, the group formed a nonprofit organization and called it the Hillview Greenhouse Life Center. From a July 2008 article in the Co-op Shopper: “The Hillview Greenhouse Life project seeks to utilize the growth and sale of organic produce to provide practical social support for our aging population, nourishment for our local community and meaningful activity for all its members.”

Retirees and disabled persons volunteered in the greenhouse, but after three years Dr. Klemond and the board of directors knew they lacked business and horticultural expertise, says Leanne Carlson, president of what is now the Hillview Urban Agriculture Center.

The people who formed the Hillview Urban Agriculture Center in La Crosse, Wisconsin, after receiving the start-up grant from the Chad Erickson Memorial Fund and the Morris Foundation (both part of the La Crosse Community Foundation). Dr. Tom Klemond (Founder), Vicki Miller (Current Vice President), Joe Kotnour (board member), Leanne Carlson (president), Sara Sullivan, (past board member), Sheila Garrity (Director, La Crosse Community Foundation), and Dave and Barb Erickson (Chad Erickson Memorial Fund).

“The HGLC had an elderly mission focus. We wanted to create a physical space where the elderly and the specially abled could garden and act as volunteers. What we learned was that it took a lot of resources to coordinate and educate volunteers,” says Leanne.

“Three years ago there was much interest in an urban agriculture center concept. A public meeting was held and 70 people said they would work with it, so we changed the mission to focus on feeding people of all levels food that is good for them,” says Leanne. Consequently, the name of the organization changed (Hillview Urban Agriculture Center), as well as the mission statement: To create a healthy community through a local, sustainable and accessible food system.

HUAC received a $25,000 grant from the La Crosse Community Foundation, which was used to pay expenses and the mortgage interest, plus it gave the people involved time to develop a business plan and avoid the sale of the land. A second grant for $30,000 from the Robert & Eleanor Franke Charitable Foundation for Market Baskets: From Hopelessness to Hope provides slow cookers, whole grains, legumes and recipes to low-income families.

Hillview Urban Agriculture Center volunteer Cheri Schuyler shows children the benefits of compost. Plans are in the works to build a new greenhouse on the Western Technical College campus in La Crosse, Wisconsin, where HUAC will have the largest vermicompost unit in the Midwest.

“HUAC has formed unique partnerships with a grassroots food justice organization, a large local healthcare system and a technical college,” says Leanne. “Out of these partnerships, the existing greenhouse property, which is located in a quiet residential neighborhood, will be transitioned into four single-family, highly energy-efficient homes of which only 12 currently exist in the United States … the existing greenhouse property is to be used as a demonstration and teaching site for [Western Technical College] construction students and regional contractors to learn how to incorporate sustainable and energy-efficient building materials and methods. In return, Western Technical College will build a state-of-the-art greenhouse near the downtown campus that will house HUAC and its rapidly growing horticulture program, providing a much greater level of visibility and accessibility for both programs,” she says.

This past June an auction was held at Hillview Greenhouses to sell the containers, shelves and supplies to area greenhouses and farmers. In a few months, after the glass is removed from the original greenhouse, the space will be demolished. Local artists will decide what to do with the century-old glass.

The new greenhouse is still in the design phase, but once it’s built on the Western Technical College campus, the students will grow the plants
grown in the original greenhouse: greens and tomatoes. Leanne says after they explore the market, they will add more plants and sell their produce to grocery stores and restaurants. Three year-round employees will manage the greenhouse when school is not in session.

The new greenhouse site also will house a 5 ft. x 35 ft. vermicompost unit—one of the largest in the Midwest. “We add pre- and post-consumer food waste from the university cafeteria into the vermicompost unit and then sell worm castings. We bought $2,000 of worms to start, and one and a half years later we are not at full capacity. We’ve sold $600 worth of worm castings at the local farmers market. People want to garden organically instead of using Miracle Gro,” says Leanne.

The elderly and the specially abled will still be involved at Hillview. “Tables can be moved so wheelchairs can pass and then be returned without compromising the growing space,” says Leanne. “It is a respite, nourishing physically and emotionally.”

“We’re growing to feed the community, but our work is to develop community gardens and educate those who have gardens to be self-sufficient, to prepare and preserve their own food,” continues Leanne.
“Good food should not be a privilege—good, healthful food should be available to everyone.” GT

Pam Buddy-D’Ambrosio is a freelance writer in New Rochelle, New York.

Reposted from GrowerTalks: http://www.ballpublishing.com/growertalks/ViewArticle.aspx?articleid=19487

Hillview Urban Agriculture Center Board Members
Front: Leanne Carlson President, Joyce Cielecki, Beth Piggush, Andy Novak and Jenny Nustad
Back: Vicki Miller Vice President, Margi Hanson Secretary and Joe Kotnour
Not shown:  Bill Brendel, Marilyn Huckenpoehler Treasurer, Ann Kotnour, Deidre Kruser and Joan Mueller

Our new Market Basket program was recently featured on WXOW. The program will provide 800 slow cookers, as well as beans and whole grains, to low-income families. The program is trying to help parents make healthy, inexpensive food, that kids will actually eat. We kicked off the program by serving two nutritious recipes prepared in slow cookers to the Boys and Girls Club. The kids LOVED the chili and it is amazing to see that, if the recipe is served over brown rice with vegetables that are home grown, the cost of this nutritious, easy-to-prepare slow-cooker meal is only $0.31/serving!

We are sharing the recipes here for you to prepare at home.  Enjoy!

Slow Cooker Chili

Adapted from cleangreensimple.com

Makes 6-8 servings

Ingredients:
2 carrots, diced
2 stalks of celery, chopped fine
1 onion, diced
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
3 medium tomatoes, chopped or 1 28oz. can diced tomatoes
2 c. dried kidney beans, soaked overnight and rinsed
1 1/2 c. dried black beans, soaked overnight and rinsed
1 1/2 c. frozen corn (or about an ear’s worth of fresh)
2-3 Tbsp Chili Powder
2 Tbsp Cumin
1.5 tsp salt
Pepper to taste
7 c. vegetable broth or water

Directions:
Add all the ingredients into your slow cooker and cook on high for 6-8 hours or until the
beans are soft and the chili has darkened to a nice deep brownish red. Leftovers keep
well in the fridge for about 4-5 days. Serve over cooked brown rice to stretch the meals
6-8 servings to 8-10.

Optional Toppings:
1 avocado, sliced or mashed (optional, as topping)
Corn Chips
Sour Cream or Plain Greek Yogurt
Shredded Cheese
Fresh Tomatoes, diced
Jalapeño, diced

Cost Breakdown of Slow Cooker ChilI

Kidney Beans – 2 c – 2 1/2 c per bag – $1.39 = $1.12
Black Beans – 1 1/2 c – 2 1/2 c per bag – $1.29 = $0.77
Carrots – 2 – 8 per bag – $1.19 = $0.30
Celery – 2 – 10 per bag – $0.89 = $0.18
Onion – 1 = $0.78
Garlic – 3 – 12 per head – $0.39 = $0.10
28oz can tomatoes = $0.99
Frozen Corn – 1 1/2c – 2per bag – $0.99 = $0.50
Chili Powder – 3T – $0.89 = $0.45
Cumin – 2T – $0.89 = $0.45

Buying Vegetables
$5.64 per 6-8 servings
$0.94/serving for 6 servings
$0.76/serving for 8 servings

Growing Vegetables
$2.79 per 6-8 servings
$0.47/serving (6 servings)
$0.35/serving (8 servings)

Served Over Brown Rice ($0.11/serving when purchased in bulk):

Buying Vegetables
$6.96 per 14 servings
$0.49/serving

Growing Vegetables
$4.33 per 14 servings
$0.31/serving

Cinnamon Sweet Potatoes

adapted from About.com

Serve as a winning side dish or a fun fall dessert.
Makes 4-6 servings

Ingredients:
4 to 6 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and sliced
1 c. brown sugar or less to taste
3 Tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 to 2 Tbsp butter

Directions:
Lightly butter the slow cooker/Crock Pot; add sliced sweet potatoes and
sprinkle with salt. Combine sugar, cornstarch and cinnamon; sprinkle over
the sweet potatoes. Dot with butter; cover and cook on low for 7 to 9 hours.

The Hillview Urban Agriculture Center Display at the Care & Share Expo with:
(left to right) Margi Hanson, Leanne Carlson and Vicki Miller.

On Saturday, December 1st, Hillview Urban Agriculture Center had a booth at the 2nd Annual Care & Share Expo put on by the Robert & Eleanor Franke Charitable Foundation. We were among 25 local organizations as part of the Franke Foundation’s mission to promote collaboration and to educate each other and the public and to make them aware of local non-profit organizations so they can get help or learn to how help.   During the event, $1,000 was donated to HUAC with a matching $1,000 given by the Franke Foundation.  We are honored to be part of this great caring and sharing event for our community!

Fat Sams will be using our mint for their Fattoush Salad: A classic Arabian bread salad with chunks of baked pita and chopped romaine with fresh mint and cilantro, kalamata olives, English cucumbers, tomato and red onion, tossed with a lemon vinaigrette and crumbled feta. 

The People’s Food Co-op is using our basil in their deli for various salads, pastas, spreads, etc.