Groundwork Introduces our Teaching Kitchen to USDA Partners

Groundwork Center recently hosted a mini-workshop for guests from 16 counties as part of a USDA-funded project to expand and strengthen local food economies along Michigan's west coast. Participants got a (literal) taste of how Groundwork uses our community kitchen to teach and nourish health professionals and laypeople alike with their innovative Culinary Medicine program and local food cooking classes.

The Esperance Community Teaching Kitchen is where Groundwork provides hands-on access to local food and face-to-face interactions with the folks who make our regional food systems possible. The Teaching Kitchen supports an essential part of Groundwork’s mission, fostering regional food security by connecting communities to their most essential resource: each other.

Groundwork’s Jen Schapp recent op-ed in Bridge Michigan says it well: "Without a multitude of relationships, there is no local food economy, no matter how many farms you have in a region." Read more about their efforts to create resilience through relationships in Jen’s op-ed or by purchasing a copy of Groundwork’s new book Shared Abundance.

Takeaways from a Jail Release Simulation

By Becky Cain, Commongrounds’ Curator of Community

Picking up the clear plastic packet, I began to read about “Amber”, my persona for the morning. Amber spent 25 years in both state and federal prison for murder, felon in possession of a firearm and a past drug conviction.

Education: A high school diploma

Employment: $120 a week working part-time at a fast food restaurant

Housing situation: Living with significant other in rundown apartment

This life card also included a checklist of living expenses and court ordered appearances; Amber(I) was allotted $200, a few transportation tickets, 2 of 3 necessary ids, and four wild cards- one for each week of the simulation. Phew. What had I gotten myself into?