Star Farm Fall Updates! USDA Grant Award, GAP Certification, More Farm Dinners, and an Urban Nature Trail (?!) 🍂

[Stephanie Dunn]

View this email in your browser It’s the End of the Season but We’re Still Growing! As we move further into our Fall season, we’re still plenty busy. Keep reading to catch up with all the latest news going around Star Farm. Star Farm In the News Star Farm was recently interviewed by WBEZ about how climate change has impacted our growing seasons and how we have been able to adapt to continue to serve residents. Check out the fantastic reporting at the link below. Climate Change and Urban Farming - WBEZ ComEd has partnered with Openlands to award Star Farm a significant grant to support the environment of Northern Illinois. We will use these funds for further development of Stockyard Gardens, a 36,000 sq ft urban farm Star Farm manages in Back of the Yards, to create a native pollinator habitat and nature trail! ComEd / Openlands Press Release Get Ready For Microgreens! As we shift into our winter season, our production manager Guadalupe will begin growing her delicious microgreens. Whether you’re looking for the spice of radish, kohlrabi, or cabbage, or the sweet green crunch of the babiest broccoli sprout, we have you covered, so get ready! Our microgreens are loaded with the nutrients you need to stay healthy through the winter and extremely delicious! National Agriculture Marketing Summit Star Farm’s fantastic leaders, Stephanie, Rocio, and Guadalupe just came back from a week of education and connection at the National Agriculture Marketing Summit in sunny Florida! They have brought back everything they learned to share with the rest of the Star Farm staff as we strategize through the winter. While they were there, they were wined and dined by high-ups in the USDA. They met a sea of smiling faces, and made relationships that will stay with Star Farm in the coming years. Star Farm will present at the WFAN Conference on December 3rd! Star Farm will be presenting a workshop, Ecology and Equity in a Developing Neighborhood, at the annual conference for the Women in Food and Agriculture Network! We are so psyched to be presenting at this amazing conference, not to mention the topic is one that fundamentally drives us as growers. Star Farm’s proposed workshop will use narrative storytelling to cross present lessons of ecology and equity to show how they interact as a system, often mirroring each other, to teach about the high value of concepts like biodiversity, and how we can use lessons from nature in our approach toward food and economic justice. Register now to learn with us from this amazing opportunity! View the complete programming for WFAN 2022 Register here! Next Door Dinners Continue to be a Delicious Success Our series of Next Door Dinners has closed the season as a delicious success. We will continue to engage with the community we love throughout the winter through pop-up and indoor farmers markets. For now, we want to thank you all for joining us on our farm this season to build relationships over the beauty of a delicious meal. Kids love our farm! And our apples! This past Thursday 70 2nd graders from Galileo Scholastic Academy came to Star Farm to learn about soil and the role it plays in getting delicious food to their plate. Our team led them on a tour of the farm before they helped us spread nutrient-dense compost over our beds to be absorbed into the ground before winter. Want to recreate this amazing experience for your children? Email us below to schedule a trip! Contact Star Farm Have you ever heard 500 children taking a crunch of 500 delicious apples? We recently had the opportunity to donate our produce to the children at Namaste Elementary and Middle School. Don’t worry, we got a video! Check it out here. Namaste Apple Crunch Day! Corporate Workday Success! The staff of McKinsey Consulting visited the farm for the 2nd year to help us harvest the last of our summer crops and shift into our Fall season. After working at computers every day, they were more than ready to breathe in the fresh air and get their hands dirty. They were an incredible help and we can’t wait to see them again next October. The staff of EY-Parthenon joined us us this week as well to help prepare our Incubator Farmers’ beds. Interested in bringing your team to our farm? Reach out to us, we would love to set you up! Contact Star Farm The USDA has chosen to award Star Farm! We will use this incredible opportunity to move further along in our multi-year effort to build the Star Farm Market and Community Kitchen. This will make an incredible difference within the Back of the Yards community, making delicious, sustainable food also accessible to everyone! Learn about this project more at the link below! Star Farm Fresh Market Star Farm has officially been GAP certified! Guadalupe has led the Star Farm team to become Good Agricultural Practices certified. GAP certification is a voluntary 3rd party audit that verify fruits and vegetables are produced, harvested, processed, packaged, and stored to minimize risks of microbial food safety hazards, GAP certification is just another step in Star Farm’s ongoing process to ensure the food we grow is good food from start to finish, our farm to your table. Thank you Guadalupe for all your hard work! CSA’s and Compost Service will continue through the winter. Thanks to the groundbreaking success of Star Farm’s aggregation program, we will be able to continue to feed your family while supporting circular economies and small-hold farms throughout the local region. Get ready to eat delicious winter squash, hearty root vegetables, microgreens, and more, all conveniently delivered to your door. Sign up below! CSA Home Delivery Residential Compost Service After All This Success, We Still Need Your Support An incredible grant has allowed us to match any upcoming donations up to $25,000, with all funds being directed toward Stockyard Gardens, a multi-purpose community center, farm, and classroom. This is an incredible project that the Back of the Yards deserves to have access to. Please help us actualize this beautiful opportunity for our community. Donate Today We’re Hiring! Have you ever been curious what it’s like to be part of our fantastic staff? Here’s an amazing opportunity. As we go into our ‘off’-season, we’re thrilled to be hiring for a Market and Program Associate. Find out more about what this opportunity holds below. Position Description End of Season? Not the end of Star Farm at Farmers Markets These two beautiful folks stopped by the last Logan Square Farmers Market of the year and let us snap this shot. Who’s to say what’s finer, their sweaters and smiles or our beautiful produce that will move to other markets for the winter? Luckily, the two go hand in hand. Continue to find us at the Wicker Park, 61st St, and Lincoln Park markets as they move indoor, far from the Chicago cold. There are openings on both the Star Farm Associate Board and Board of Directors As a member of Star Farm's board, you will be responsible for meeting with our executive director, attending fundraising events and board meetings. You will also be responsible for maintaining good governance practices of Star Farm. If this sounds good to you, fill out the survey below. Board of Directors Survey Associate Board of Directors Survey Meet our new Communications Director Mira Cameron joined Star Farm this past growing season through a fellowship program with the Mansfield Institute of Social Justice and has quickly risen to become a fundamental member of the team. Having studied English and Sustainable Agriculture at Roosevelt University, they bring an extensive knowledge of restoration ecology, food systems, ecosystem interaction, and systems literacy to the team; as well as being well-versed within digital communication. As Communications Director, they handle Star Farm’s social media management, marketing and graphic design for products and programming, newsletter campaigns, and assist as needed with grant applications, in addition to working on the farm and at farmers markets in effort to further grow within the urban agriculture and Back of the Yards communities. Prior to Star Farm, they led mutual aid efforts within the world of food justice, built and managed a community garden and distribution program; and continue to work as a freelance writer, poet, and educator. Copyright (C) 2022 star farm chicago. All rights reserved. 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