Chris:
Sometimes it’s not about our intent or our desire to do something, but really it comes down sometimes just to access. Today, we talk about just that issue on such an important topic. Join me.
Chris:
All right. Welcome back to Get Overit Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Christopher Fasano. Before we begin, I just want to mention to everyone out there, the easiest way to receive new episodes of this podcast is to subscribe on your favorite pod player, whether it’s Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify. You can watch these episodes if you prefer on YouTube, but give a subscribe. New episodes will automatically download to your phone. If you’re really enjoying the show, please be kind and leave us a review, a five star review on Apple Podcast. That’ll really help for other people to find our show and to continue to listen.
Chris:
And now, let’s get onto our guest for a new episode of the Get Overit Podcast. Our guest today is Amy Klein. Amy is the CEO of Capital Roots, a not-for-profit that works to reduce the impact of poor nutrition on public health. Such an important topic, always has been, always will be. But I was just talking to her about it quickly, especially coming out of this post pandemic life. And we’re going to talk about that today. They offer a wide variety of programs that we’re going to get into a bit. And we’re going to talk about their journey. She just mentioned to me, it’s her 25th year with the organization. So, we’re going to talk to her about that. Amy, welcome to the podcast.
Amy:
Thank you. Glad to be here.
Chris:
All right. So, Capital Roots, why don’t we start with that? I think we are in the capital region. We’re in Albany, recording this right now. So, I think a lot of people, locally, have heard of Capital Roots, maybe know about it, maybe some people don’t. So, let’s get everyone on the same page. So introduce yourself in the context of Capital Roots, what they do, what’s their mission. Let’s start with that.
Amy:
Sure. Capital Roots is a regional organization. We serve Albany, Rensselaer, Schenectady, and Saratoga counties, and we’ve been doing that since 1975. And our work focuses around creating healthy communities, both physically, and for the individual person, and giving people the opportunity to lead healthier lives through fresh healthy food access.
Amy:
We really believe and we know that people want to eat well, but there are many obstacles to be able to do that. And since the inception of the organization, we have really focused on trying to create opportunities for people to access fresh, healthy food in a dignified way, whether it’s through community gardening program, so people can grow their own food, or our mobile markets, the Veggie Mobiles, and people can buy top quality food at about half the cost of what they can buy it for in the supermarkets, but in their own neighborhood using their SNAP benefits, their food stamps. And so, it’s really all about quality, access, dignity, and nutrition choice.
Chris:
You said you’ve been with the organization for 25 years. So, take me back to that 25 years ago, what about it? Why did you join? Was this something that you had a passion for then? Or is it you were just looking at the job, you thought it was interesting? Talk to me a little bit about how you got into this world.
Amy:
Yeah. So, I’ve always worked in the nonprofit field. I started working at the national level in civil liberties organizations, and then I moved to the Albany area, and I worked at the statewide level for environmental organization. And when this opportunity presented itself, this would be the first time I’d be working at the local level. So, coming down.
Chris:
So, real macro, micro, micro, micro. Yeah.
Amy:
Exactly. Very small organization at the time. It was just two staff person operation, including myself. And the organization was basically making a decision whether to hire a new executive director or to close up shop. The organization was really struggling. It had a $60,000 budget. It was really at a turning point.
Chris:
And what was its focus then? And a smaller place. I imagine it didn’t have such a range of programs as it does now. So, what was its real primary program? And when you got in there, what did it look like?
Amy:
It was a community gardening organization. We operated 13 community gardens in Troy, primarily. And we also did urban tree planting. So, it was very focused on, we started out as a community gardening organization and that was the focus. And then we also did community improvement through tree planting. But I saw it as a great opportunity. I thought the organization has no place to go but up. And I’ve always loved gardening. I learned from my grandmother. And that was a passion of mine. And I just saw it as a way to dig in and really put my shoulder to something, and help the community build on what had been done previously. The organization had been around for decades. And it seemed like a great opportunity to build on that.
Chris:
So, take me into that decision there, because I’m a growth guy. I like to get into businesses, assess, look at things and to ask the question, “How are we going to grow this thing? And where are we going to take it? And where’s it going to go?” So, you’re coming into a situation, like you said, where it was either, they could close up shop or they could bring you or a person in. And I presume then in that regard, you’re at that moment where you’re like, “Okay, if it’s going to work, if this thing’s going, it’s going now, and it’s going to go soon.” So, how do you assess that? And what did you do there? You looked at the community gardens, you thought, “Okay. This is great.” But you obviously saw beyond that. You obviously were thinking beyond just that. You had to, in order to get to where you are.
Chris:
So, how do you discover someone who always gets so like, “Let’s do this. Let’s do that.” All these ideas. How did you approach that and what did you say? Did you shore up what you did well in the gardens first and get that to it? Or did you immediately start to think about how to roll out new ideas? Tell me a little bit about the operational process there.
Amy:
Yeah. Well, really the first thing was getting the operational side of the organization on solid footing. We really needed a lot of basic operations. I mean, we had donor base on cards, on index cards. We had our financials on paper.
Amy:
My favorite story to tell is, we didn’t have lights. And I started in December. And so, my first day or two, we had to close the office at like 4:30 because it was dark. And I was like, “This is insane.” So, I went to Huck Finn and bought some lamps.
Chris:
Some lamps. Check the first checkbox, get lamps, get light.
Amy:
So, it was building some of that, just basic capacity for the organization. The other thing was we were a big secret. And even today, there are so many people that don’t know about this organization, but I really set out to help raise the profile of the organization. And we did something crazy. The first year we created a street festival that we put together in a matter of months and promoted it all over the region. And it was a way to help raise awareness about the organization.
Chris:
So, community garden, I want to talk about that just for a second. And then I want to just move into some of the other programs. Community garden in regard of building more green areas, also providing a sustainable way to get good, healthy greens and food, teaching people how to do that, putting something back into the neighborhood or to community. It’s all of those things, correct? Obviously, there’s a purpose for nutrition with a garden, but there’s other aspects to community gardening that I think that come through. So, talk about that as it’s underpinning of what a community garden does beyond just provide the nutrition.
Amy:
I mean, community gardens are about so much more than the food that you grow. I mean, obviously people are growing food, that’s supporting their families. People who can grow about $1,500 worth of fresh food in a growing season. But we saw marriages happened in the community gardens. We had funerals in community gardens. There were relationships that were built across cultural and socioeconomic lines. People meeting, that literally would never have had an opportunity to connect. And neighborhood watches were formed.
Amy:
The community gardens really provide an incredible asset to the greater community beyond just what happens inside the fences of the gardens and the growing of the food. And really the programs that we built out over the years were based on what we saw happening in terms of people putting in the hard work of gardening to grow food for themselves and their families, and realizing, and knowing that people were working so hard to be able to grow their own top quality nutritious food. And while at the same time, the conversation in the political realm and the social services realm, and the emergency feeding realm was all about how low income people did not want to eat fresh food. You had to teach them how to eat fresh food. Really treating people as other. And we knew that wasn’t true because people were working really hard to grow their own food.
Chris:
Right. You saw it. You saw them really. Right? Yeah.
Amy:
So, what we knew was people just needed more opportunities to access it beyond just the community gardens, because even as we were building more and more gardens over the years in more and more areas of the region, we could never, A, meet the demand for garden space, but moreover, not everybody is going to garden. It’s an unrealistic expectation. It’s not for everybody. And you have to provide other mechanisms for people to access good food. And that’s how our initiatives began in [inaudible 00:11:54]
Chris:
Talk to me a little about some of those initiatives. So, you recognize that. So, it’s not that people don’t want it. That’s not it at all. So, then that spurs the next set of initiatives to say, not everybody can garden, but people would like the fruits of those gardens. They just can’t necessarily get to it and access it, and/or afford it ,or understand what to do with it. So ,what is your next steps? Talk to me a little about some of the programs that you developed over time to accomplish and meet those goals.
Amy:
So, the next program we created was called Squash Hunger. And it was really aimed at bringing quality food into the emergency feeding programs, food pantries, soup kitchens. At the time when we created the Squash Hunger program back in 2004, food pantries were not distributing fruits and vegetables at all. And I know that seems crazy now, which is great to say, but at the time that was the case. And so, again, based on what we knew, we knew people wanted fruits and vegetables.
Chris:
Can I ask why that is? Was there a sourcing issue? Is it too difficult? It was just not being done.
Amy:
Yeah. It was not being done. It was really a lot of misconception on the part providers, that again, people did not want it. And there were some obstacles in terms of refrigeration and things like that, but it was mostly a lack of understanding about what people wanted. And that was a huge barrier to get over. I think one of the greatest things is that a couple of decades later, that’s not a conversation anymore. Right? Everyone understands that everyone wants to eat food. It’s just an access issue. But 20 years ago, that was not the case.
Amy:
So, we really set about to try to infuse more good food into emergency feeding programs. And that’s what our Squash Hunger program was about. We were gleaning food from fields, from farm fields when there was excess. We were reaching out to home gardeners and collecting from home gardeners, and doing direct deliveries to emergency feeding programs. And we used a network of volunteers. And that program exists and operates the same way. It’s just grown tremendously over the years. And so, we still tap into our farm connections and our partners in that way to be able to rescue quality food and redistribute it through the emergency food programs.
Chris:
I was going to say, there’s a demand side, the people that want this food. So, there’s that. And then there’s having the places where people can find and get access to those foods. But there’s also a production side. You mentioned farmers. So, I’m wondering, how’s that relationship grown with your organization and farm farms and local farms? Because I’ve read a lot about farmers through this, especially in the last five years and going through all of this. I can only imagine a life of a farmer and that uncertainty that exists nowadays, it’s up and down. Talk to me a little about the relationship with farmers and how they’ve benefited or helped in both ways in with your efforts at Capital Roots.
Amy:
Well, we have a really unique relationship with the agricultural community, because all of the programs that we have developed since the mid 2000s have been based on Capital Roots purchasing food from local producers. So, we are a customer of our local farmers. And we really focus on Uber local purchasing. So, we are buying from farms in our 11 county foodshed, which means we’re buying in Warren, in Washington County, Schoharie, Greene, not just our four county region, but the 11 county foodshed. But it is absolutely our region that we are buying from. And what that means is that we’re supporting the local farm economy, where those dollars spin around in our local economy, because when you support a local farmer, their money stays local. So, it’s really investing resources back into the community.
Amy:
So, because we have these relationships, these customer relationships where we’re the customer, we have a unique ability to have a mutually beneficial relationship with our farm partners, where we’re purchasing from them. And then if they have gleaning opportunities, they welcome us onto their farm, where our volunteers can glean excess. Or if they have excess that they’ve picked, maybe we’ll purchase it from them instead of them having to give it away.
Chris:
Give it away. Right? Yep.
Amy:
So, that’s a really unique aspect of our organization.
Chris:
I want to talk about the equality and being equitable in food access. We talked about a little bit before we started. And the way I was presenting it was, I’m seeing, there’s a lot of people out there after the pandemic and they’re trying to fight these political narratives or whatever they’re saying, but they’re saying, “Just be healthy.” Their conclusion is, “Be healthy and you’ll be fine. Take your vitamins and eat your organic. Eat your greens. And do all of this stuff. And you’re going to be just fine.” And I always say to myself, sure, it’s very easy to say, but it’s not that simple for everybody out there. Not everybody can just go and go to their store and buy organic groceries and fresh greens. It’s just not that simple. It’s not equitable.
Chris:
I was doing some research before I was going to have you come on. And I was looking at this concept of these food deserts, which is a term that I’ve read, but I actually didn’t really know is a true term actually and a real thing. So, can you talk a little bit about that and this sort of inequality in access to food, because I’m sure it’s the driver of your organization and that problem to solve.
Chris:
And I don’t know if people really, truly, whenever people have things… I was trying to teach my son this all the time, there’s a lot of people, for everything you have, there are more people that don’t have what you have. And so, I think we get lost in that. And going to Price Chopper, going to a farm and grabbing some greens seems very simple. And how many times people walk right past it and don’t pick them up, but people don’t have that ability, a lot of people. So, can you talk a little bit about the inequality and what’s equitable in food?
Amy:
Absolutely. I mean, this was really the turning point for our organization and where we got into greater food access work. So, in the mid 2000s, we started seeing supermarkets leaving the communities that we worked in. And this was before actually the term food desert was coined by the USDA. And what we saw was people were having less and less access to quality food because they didn’t have access to a full service market in their community.
Amy:
Many people who live in urban areas do not have cars. The statistics are there and that is undisputed, despite a lot of dispute. People rely on public transportation, but public transportation creates limitations. First of all, you can only carry so many bags.
Chris:
Exactly. Yep.
Amy:
You’re only going to go so often. If you take the cab, cabs charge bag fees. There are a lot of complications. And so, what we were seeing was that people were having very limited access to fresh food, because they might go to a big box store and go once a month to stock up on the things they need, but you’re not going to stock up on fresh produce because that’s not going to last.
Chris:
Correct. Right.
Amy:
And so, that’s why we created the Veggie Mobile, which was the first mobile produce market in the country. We created the model.
Chris:
Such a cool concept by the way. It’s such a cool idea.
Amy:
Thank you.
Chris:
Yeah.
Amy:
And the idea was to bring the produce aisle on wheels into the communities that don’t have access to a market, provide the produce at half the cost of what you could buy it from the supermarket. So, whatever we buy it for is what we sell it for. We don’t make money off of the produce. Make sure it’s top quality. This is not seconds. This is not less than. This is as if you went to a Farmer’s Market. We want people to have the best. And ensure they can use all their benefit programs. So, making that access full and true, and give people the dignity of shopping for their food, which is what everybody wants.
Chris:
Because they do want it, again, to knock that down. It’s like we keep saying, I think it’s amazing that people still feel that way, that just they don’t want it, which is not true. I’m sure it’s not true.
Amy:
Or that, just because somebody has limited means or is struggling, that they should be grateful to get a bag of whatever and be happy for that. Why shouldn’t they be able to pick what they want, what’s culturally appropriate? All of those things. And our society for the longest time has been really focused on, “Just be grateful that you’re getting something.” And that’s certainly not equity.
Chris:
No.
Amy:
That’s certainly not dignity. That is not taking into consideration any culturally appropriate aspect of the communities that we’re living in. And so, those are the things that we really try to focus on.
Amy:
And after we created the Veggie Mobile, which was a huge success, the moment we put it on the road, we really set about to create additional programs to provide that alternative retail access for the communities that we serve, top quality food, low cost in the neighborhoods, where people can purchase with their choice of what they want with dignity, using their benefit programs. And that’s been a major focus and major trajectory for the organization since the mid 2000s.
Chris:
It reminds me of, so I have family in Italy, in small town, Italy. And when we go visit, they live by a produce market, like farm stops in the town square. And at 6:00 AM, there’s a guy on a megaphone, driving through the streets on a fruit truck or on a truck. And he’s yelling, “Apples and pears, and greens.” And he’s screaming at the top of his lungs and people are going out in the morning, and they’re buying their stuff off of a truck, coming in through the streets.
Chris:
And it’s funny because the first time I remember that, I remember being woken up by it like, “What is that?” And I remember as the Americans say like, “This is crazy. What are they doing?” And talking to some people, they’re like, “Yeah, but you don’t understand. Some people just can’t get to the store. And some people just can’t get, even to the town in the middle.” They don’t have public transportation like we have. And a lot of them don’t have cars. They have to walk. Or it’s really hot, and they can’t get there.
Chris:
So, they’ve come up with ways to bring that, because food and nutrition is so a part of their life, that they would never fathom the idea, “That just because you can’t come to us, that you won’t be able to get this food. So, we are going to bring it to you. We are going to come out to you.” And it reminds me of that in this way. It’s just in America, sometimes we lose sight of that. We were just so stuck in our own way, that we don’t think about those people that just can’t do it, can’t get it.
Amy:
Yeah. I mean, we get wrapped up in our own privilege. And this is something, when we first started our food access, where nobody was talking about food deserts. As I said, it wasn’t even a term that was used. People really did not understand the whole concept of why people couldn’t go to supermarkets. Well, I don’t understand, “What do you mean, you can’t go to supermarket?” And trying to get people to understand the challenge that we were talking about, how privileged we are to be able to hop in a car and go to the many supermarkets that exist.
Chris:
Correct.
Amy:
But if you look around the urban spaces, you look around the neighborhoods, that they don’t exist. Groceries do not exist.
Amy:
And one of the other initiatives that we developed is our Healthy Stores program, where we’re working with small corner stores to bring in healthy food, bring in fresh produce, because those are places, these small convenience stores-
Chris:
That they can get to.
Amy:
… that people do frequent. And so, building out the capacity of those small businesses to better provide for the community is another way. But really focusing on that retail access for the communities, as opposed to giving away food, which doesn’t solve any problem. That doesn’t lead to true food security for people. It’s just putting a Band-Aid on a problem.
Chris:
So, for the last little bit here, I want to talk about the pandemic, how it affected the organization, challenges possibly you faced and also opportunities that it created for you. So, we could start with that. And then I want to ask you if you feel like coming out of this or during pandemic, or now, I don’t know where we are in the world of the pandemic. It’s up and it’s down. But have you seen some sort of a different focus on nutrition in some regard or in health? But so, first let’s start with when it hit, what happened with you guys? How did that switch? What are some challenges? And then how did you pivot? And anything new pop up or new that was done during this crazy time?
Amy:
Yeah. I mean, I think, because we are an organization that is mobile and we go into the communities that we serve, we were already uniquely situated to provide service during the pandemic. So, what we had to do was reinforce our mobile services like the Veggie Mobile to ensure for the health and safety of our staff and our volunteers, and our consumers. But we never stopped our services. We never left our offices. Everybody, we were all frontline service workers and we all worked and continue to work from our base of operations. And that included everyone, myself included, if you weren’t doing frontline service work, you worked. So, people who were doing, were in finance or marketing, they were doing frontline service work. And what we did was we doubled it, in some cases, tripled the number of people that we had going out on the mobile markets and providing other services, because both for the volume of customers, but also to take extra precautions in terms of how we were serving our customers and to move things quickly, so people didn’t have to be exposed.
Chris:
What about the supply side? Did you face challenges there or did that maintain? With farming and things like that, were you still able to access, you had the food that you needed?
Amy:
We absolutely did. And that just tells you how important local food is.
Chris:
Yeah, really.
Amy:
The supply train issues were not about local food. We did not have a problem accessing food at all. And that was another reason why I think our use of services was dramatically increased is, we had plenty of food.
Amy:
So, the big burden for us was the increase that we saw. We sent our volunteers home. Most of our volunteers are older. And we didn’t want to risk their exposure. So, we had to double and triple up on staff. And that was very difficult. And the other thing was just being frontline service workers during a very scary and unknown time. Most people’s families and colleagues, and friends were working from home, and none of our staff were. And that was very challenging for people to be doing frontline work and exposing themselves, and not knowing what that meant. And it was also just draining, very draining.
Chris:
I imagine. So, it’s very interesting point that you brought up, that people see all this craziness in grocery stores through the pandemic, shelves are bear, food is gone and things are gone. And like you said, supply chain issues. But if you bring it back to the local aspect, there was plenty there. So, again, people aren’t thinking about that part. They tend to not think about the local aspect of what’s going on.
Chris:
I want to just along these lines of equitable, I think through the pandemic for me, I really… I host another podcast on mental health and we see a lot of it, a lot of issues there through the pandemic. And it related back to this equitable concept of how things that got brought out. I want to talk to you about just education around nutrition in general and things like that.
Chris:
I think one of the statistics I was reading was that for people that unfortunately who with COVID had passed, a good majority were sick. In some regard, they were struggling with obesity. And diabetes was a major problem. And I know diabetes is a major, is a lot of times, depending on which diabetes you have, is a function of your ability to eat well and nutritious, and also with your weight. And again, I think you can look at that and there are people that’ll say, “Yeah, but you have to be healthy.” But again, it’s not that simple because you have to take it back to socioeconomics. And it all matters where you’re from. And if you’re not equitable and you don’t have access, and you’ve been like a certain way, it’s just a feed forward problem that just keeps happening and happening, and it gets into the kids and it happens.
Chris:
So, I’m just curious to know how your organization looks at that problem in terms of educating. And even in particular, my question is related to kids. Do you have some things with schools? And what are you doing in that regard to just talk about general nutrition? And that, yes, you can be healthy, and yes, you can have access. So, talk to me a little bit about that, because I think that really, really matters. It’s not just about being healthy. It’s about understanding what that means and that it’s possible.
Amy:
We do nutrition education for young people. We have a program called The Taste Good Series that is in elementary schools. But the one thing I will say is, it’s really a misnomer to think that people need to be educated about how to eat well. I really encourage people to think about others as themselves. I need to be educated.
Chris:
Everybody should want to be educated. Yeah.
Amy:
Everybody could be better educated.
Chris:
Great.
Amy:
The real difference is the inequitable access, because of lack of physical access and cost. That is the hold up. That’s the problem. That’s the barrier. It is not that people don’t know. We did focus groups. And this has been echoed time and a time again, people know how to cook good food. They just lack the access to it. They lack the resources. They also might lack the pots and pans and a working stove.
Amy:
So, we really, as a society need to understand how to allocate our resources, to help people truly gain equitable access to quality food. And one of the things that funders and government agencies put a lot of resources into is this concept that people, again, if you’re low income, if you’re on food stamps, you need to be educated about how to eat well. There’s a government program that literally teaches people how to walk through the supermarket and shop. That is absurd.
Chris:
It’s insulting, right? To people that are just like, “This is not my problem. I know how to shop for food.”
Amy:
Exactly.
Chris:
“I just can’t get here or I don’t have access to it.” Right?
Amy:
Exactly. So, that’s what we need as a society, to be investing our time and resources into, how do we help people gain better retail access to quality food? There was a lot of effort that happened during the pandemic with increasing SNAP benefits, full allocation of SNAP benefits, which there’s been since the pandemic started, there’s an increase in SNAP benefits. That goes a long way to helping people who are under-resourced, gain access to quality food. Those are the things that we need to be putting our energy into.
Chris:
So, I want, before we close, talk to me a little bit about some challenges you still face as you look ahead now. You’re 25 years. You’ve accomplished everything that you’ve gotten to you. You’re highlighted for me, you’re reinforcing for me, and I hope for others, this concept, this notion, that it’s not about, what you said, it’s not about this idea that people don’t want it. It’s just really about them being able to get it and access it and these sorts of things, which is a major underpin to the whole problem. So, it’s talking about that. But as you continue to look forward and grow, what are some challenges that you’re facing right now as you see them in the future with this? And what are some of your plans, as we say, Get overit, how are you going to look to solve them? And just talk a little bit about where the plans are in five years from now, where you want to get to?
Amy:
I mean, the next thing that we’re focusing heavily in on is using the retail infrastructure that exists in our communities, these small corner stores, and figuring out how to shore them up, both financially and physically, to be able to provide better for the communities, to provide a real full array of quality product. These are small businesses that need the help of our communities. So, we should be investing in them. And they serve the communities that we want to serve. If we invested half the money that we as a society invest in emergency food, which is a Band-Aid, is not a solution to true food security, we would have a solution to food security.
Amy:
So, that’s where we are going to be putting effort as an organization. The challenge is really getting funders to be thinking, to shift their thinking. It took a long time for people to shift their thinking and understand that people wanted to eat good food.
Chris:
Well, especially if there’s government initiatives out there that are not saying or saying the exact opposite, right? I got to imagine if you’re fighting that battle, that’s a tough battle to fight. You really got to fight through that messaging.
Amy:
Yeah. And the messaging is deep. It permeates the people with the resources. But I believe that continuing to put at that message out there will have an impact. And ultimately, we will be able to create these solutions that will provide for real and true food security for our communities.
Chris:
Have the box, the supermarkets, do you work with them? Are they receptive to this concept? I mean, you don’t have to get in. I mean, I don’t know if it’s like a touchy thing to talk about, but are they open to this? I mean, I would imagine they have a lot of, I don’t want to use the word wasted, but I imagine they have a lot of stuff. What is that relationship like? One, is it getting there? And how’s that been?
Amy:
Yeah. We work with some of the local supermarkets. I think some view us as competition, which of course we’re not. We’re serving areas that they probably won’t have.
Chris:
Right. Exactly. Yep.
Amy:
And so, I think, again, it’s really education for them. I mean, that’s where the education is needed. Right? It’s not for the low income people. It’s really for the people of privilege to understand what is needed and how to support the community best.
Chris:
Okay. All right. Before we close, let people know where they can go to find out more information about Capital Roots, if they want to read more, if they’re possibly thinking about making a donation, or something like that. So, where can they go find some more information?
Amy:
Absolutely. People can check out our website, capitalroots.org. We’ve got a lot of great information on our programs. We’re very active on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. You can check us out. We’ve got stuff up on our YouTube channel. So, capitalroots.org,
Chris:
Can people get involved with the community gardens still? How does that work?
Amy:
Absolutely. Yep. So, we’re doing, actually our returning gardener signups right now, which means if you are a garden last year, we’re signing up those gardeners. But in March, we’ll be inviting new gardeners to participate. And so, plots that are available, new gardeners will have an opportunity to sign up for those. And there will be plots available. And there are also lots of volunteer opportunities. So, you don’t have to be a gardener to get your hands dirty.
Amy:
We have our urban farm, where we do our youth training program. It’s a year round job and life skill training program on our two and a half acre, urban farm. Lots of ways to get involved with that. Lots of ways to help with the gardens, even not as a gardener, and to help with our food access programs, work in our food hub. Many ways to get your hands dirty or not get your hands dirty.
Chris:
But this is a place where you can actually literally get your hands dirty actually and make a difference. So, I just want to thank you. And I want to thank, Amy, for taking the time today on this episode of the Get Overit Podcast.
Chris:
I’ve been really thinking about this concept of inequality and equitability, especially coming out of this pandemic. And I say this to a lot of guests that I’ve had in the show, I have one child, a nine year old, and I really want him to start to think more about all the stuff that people don’t have relative to what he has. And this is an excellent opportunity to do that for myself as an adult, but also for a young child, who’s coming up in a world where he has things. And so, I might actually use some of these volunteer opportunities maybe with him. I think it would be a great, great experience.
Amy:
Absolutely.
Chris:
So, for this episode, all the links we talked about for Capital Roots will be available in the show notes. I also want to thank real quick, Adam Clairmont, the producer at Overit Studios. He’s behind the TV here, for everything he did. If you were interested, anybody, on learning more about these sorts of productions, you can go to overitstudios.com.
Chris:
Thanks to the audience for tuning in for another episode. Please subscribe, listen, leave us a review, so everyone out there can learn how to get over it in the face of all challenges we have in life. You just don’t want to go into it. You want to learn how to get over it. And thank you, Amy, so much for coming on and telling us a little bit about your organization, how you’re helping people get over it. So, thank you so much for joining me today.