— Photo provided by L. Ouding
Let’s Build Garden City!‘s huge citywide workshop series How to Make A Million While Selling Your Crops in the Hood is the gift that keeps giving! Here’s our Q&A with Food Matters, LLC. founder & nurse Laurie Ouding! Stay tuned for more gem-filled interviews with farmers in your area! See you next Spring ^_^
THE Q&A
Would you like to introduce yourself?
My name is Laurie Ouding. I’m a pediatric nurse at Rush, I’m also a legal consultant nurse for a law firm and I have a legal consulting business along with the urban agriculture stuff that I’m doing. I am also an Associate Board member at Advocates for Urban Agriculture.
What are you up to in 2020? Tell us about Food Matters, LLC!
The Food Matters space is a new construction project that’s pretty big. A shared community kitchen so we can teach people, and a 3,000 sq ft greenhouse so we can show people: This is how you grow food year-round. The indoor farmer’s market [will have] food available everyday all year. Fresh produce grown here but in collaboration with all the local farmers in the community and the Chicago area.
So there’s access. We’re addressing the access problem. There’s [also] going to be a rooftop garden with an event space.
What advice do you have for students starting out?
My advice is for students to connect to people who are Doing It. People like LBGC!, Advocates for Urban Agriculture, the University of Illinois Ext. Group. Spending time with people who are farming so you can see what the work is actually like.
Also: learning the whole food cycle. What it takes when you grow something. The planting of it, the harvesting of it, and then what happens? Is the farmer selling it to a grocery store and what does that look like?
If they learn the whole thing they can find their niche.
What are some local resources you think students should know about?
AUA is probably my go-to. Bronzeville actually has Bronzeville Neighborhood Farm which is like a block and a half from me. And the guy that runs that, Johnny, is great. I’ve volunteered over there with AUA and so, like today, they have a spinach sale going on in their hoophouse. That’s a great resource.
Perry Farm, I think in Woodlawn, they have a great program that works with Sweetwater Foundation. They have a farm and farmer’s market onsite but they also have a Woodworking program and they do other classes out there. They’re
doing an amazing job of helping people in their own community.
Do you have any advice for students just looking for a fun service learning project to do?
You could really do it inexpensively if you wanted to. You could do aquaponics: get a small fish tank! There’s a lot of science involved and math involved and learning but I think it’s in a good way where they get excited about that.
It’s really rewarding when you take these seeds and you grow it into something that you’re now eating. You have ownership of that. And I think that kids nowadays, they don’t necessarily get that opportunity to have that power in their life. To have something that they have taken care of, they’re responsible for. And then at the end you have this great product that you can now feed somebody.
I think that can be really rewarding and pretty simple.
What’s the secret to students treating each other right?
As a pediatric nurse I have patients from babies to even 30 year olds sometimes. And I think you have to meet people where they are. I’m not gonna talk to a 15 year old the same way that I talk to a 2 year old *laughs* So meeting that person where they are and trying to find out what they’re looking for.
If people see that you care and see that as an example then you create a space where that’s the norm.
And setting ground rules at the beginning. If you have a group of kids and say “This is a space where we’re gonna talk about what you feel like we need to have in our community”…but the ground rules are, like, We Have To Listen To Each Other, We have to respect each other’s platform that they want to be on. If you’re going to give criticism, make sure it’s constructive, etc..
