Volunteer of the Week: Jonathan Lauffer. With three other volunteers, Jonathan cleared brush from the fence row at Gooseberry Hill Farm in Iowa City Saturday, February 17.
Sponsor of the Week: Mary Mathew Wilson & the UI Civic Engagement Program. Mary Mathew Wilson has helped LFC get in touch with University of Iowa students who are interested in volunteering.
Dear Friends,
You can help Local Foods Connection, visit a farm, and learn about sustainable agriculture by joining us on one of our farm work days this winter and spring! Below please find a link to a file containing a list of farm work days for February through April, as well as instructions for preparing for farm work.
Anyone can help on a farm; no experience is necessary! The farmer will teach you as you work. You will meet new people, learn a skill, and have a great time. If you are interested, let us know as soon as possible.
Volunteers giving medicine to a sheep.
Volunteers planting garlic.
Open this file for more information!:
2007 Spring Farm Work Document
Volunteer of the Week: Rachael Pitts. With three other farm work volunteers, Rachael cleared brush from the fencerow at Gooseberry Hill Farm on Saturday.
Sponsor of the Week: Edible Iowa River Valley. This magazine is the co-sponsor of the CSA Fair to be held March 24, 2007, at the Prairie Table in Iowa City.
My name is Natalie Blaine. I’m a freshman at the University of Iowa, and I have been volunteering at Local Foods Connection since the end of January. Volunteering at Local Foods Connection has been a wonderful experience for me. Laura Dowd (president) has proven to be the most flexible volunteer coordinator. Not only do I perform clerical work for Local Foods, but I am also given the option of trying out other areas of the organization (farm work, etc.). Local Foods Connection works around my academic and work schedules to provide me with volunteer experience that will be crucial in my applications for graduate school at the UI college of pharmacy next fall. I’m excited to continue working with Laura, Kristin, and Local Foods Connection. The atmosphere is great, the people are awesome, and most importantly Local Foods Connection works for a great cause.
Volunteer of the Week: Dave Antin. Computer whiz Dave provided LFC with a loaner computer and set it up in the office.
Sponsor of the Week: Iowa Cultural Corridor Alliance and Joe Jennison. The ICCA recently gave LFC an Icky Award for organizing a Mardi Gras celebration for Katrina evacuees in this area.
Volunteer of the Week: Andrea & Ken Clinkenbeard. Andrea & Ken wrote a recent webblog entry.
Sponsor of the Week: Lensing Funeral Home. Mr. Michael Lensing of Lensing Funeral Home made a financial donation to LFC in January.
This January Local Foods Connection received an Iowa Cultural Corridor Innovative Excellence Award, fondly known as an Icky. Laura Dowd of Local Foods Connection and Susan Keefer of the African American Historical Museum and Cultural Center of Iowa accepted the “Reaching Out Collaborative Award” at a sealed-envelope reception Monday (Jan 28) evening at the Englert Theatre.
Last spring, LFC collaborated with Marlene Jessop of the Museum to throw a Mardi Gras party for Johnson & Linn Katrina evacuees, to welcome them to southeast Iowa, to introduce them to each other, and to help them forget their troubles for awhile. A chicken and rice dinner was served at the Museum’s reception all, and the attendees listened to live music and played games.
Local Foods Connection was honored to be nominated along with Marlene and other great people at the African-American Museum. We are proud and humbled to be chosen as an award recipient. The 113 member organizations of ICCA nominate and vote on the awards, which, in the words of the program, “recognize cultural events in the Corridor that have helped to expand awareness, push the envelope, and attract positive attention” in the Cedar Rapids-Iowa City area.
So many other organizations and people helped make this party a success. Thanks to everyone!!:
Learn more about the Iowa Cultural Corridor Alliance at:
Our area’s Katrina families still need your support! Although help with employment and transportation is still greatly needed, more than anything else, these families need help becoming a part of our community. We need to go out of our way, and perhaps out of our comfort zone, to reach out to these families and invite them into our homes and hearts. Don’t let them sit alone in the back of your church, or sit at home by the radio instead of attending the free downtown jazz festival, or bring their children straight home from school to sit in front of a television set instead of going to a scout meeting.
Here are some testimonials from clients enrolled in our program in 2006.
Family of Three (Mother, Father, Child):
My family and I enjoyed participating in the local foods program. My husband, who has had a lifelong dislike of vegetables, enjoyed the majority of the dishes I prepared using the CSA vegetable shares. We were even able to store some vegetables for winter: potatoes, corn, and green beans. Although our child is only three months old, the program has benefited her as well. I think that observing her parents eating vegetables will encourage her to eat them in the future. We have also processed some acorn squash into baby food and frozen it until she is old enough to try it. Thank you Local Foods for including us in your program, and thank you Oak Hill Acres for providing our shares.
Family of Five (Mother, 4 Children)
Once again our family had a positive experience with the vegetable boxes this past summer. The boxes were filled abundantly and we enjoyed the variety. Sometimes we didn’t know what a particular item was but we tried it anyway. (Sometimes with good success and sometimes not so good.) We appreciate all the hard work and effort that goes into these boxes so that we can enjoy healthy eating. Thanks so much for the coordination of getting the boxes from the farmer to our house. It all went very smoothly.
P.S.: The cooking contest was fun and gave me some good ideas. I would like to do that again.
Family of Four (Mother, 3 Children)
I would like to thank the people at Local Foods Connection, for letting me participate one more year. I have learned so much about organic foods. I will try to buy organic whenever possible. You all have made a big difference! Happy Holidays!
Family of Five (Mother, Father, 3 Children)
My family’s involvement in the Local Foods Connection program in Iowa City for the past few years is for sure one of the most exciting experiences of our stay in the U.S. so far. We are all impressed by the extraordinary dedication and enthusiasm of Laura Dowd in running the program, caring for others, striving to make needy people have access to earth-friendly foodstuffs.
Beyond just providing us with healthier food, the program played an invaluable role in making us understand and value organic food, a unique experience that we wouldn’t have had a chance to make anywhere else. The program enabled us to discover new types of vegetables and find out how to use them, to have access to healthy products including bread, eggs and meat, to learn several healthy cooking methods. In addition to that, the quizzes (that I always shared with my entire family) were remarkably instructive.
Highly edifying and exciting were also the visits that we made to ZJ farms where we particularly appreciated Susan’s friendliness, availability and patience in introducing us to farm work as meant for the production of organic food. Not only did we find her commitment and hard work profoundly inspiring, but we were all sincerely moved by her boundless generosity, especially in providing us with as much produce as we could carry home.
Ultimately, what makes me and my family appreciate the value of the Local Foods Connection program to such a great extent is obviously the fact that we come from one of those parts of the world where access to the most basic foodstuffs is regarded as a privilege and never taken for granted. With such background, we can only be impressed and appreciative in seeing a program so strongly dedicated to providing needy people with free food. In various regards, the Local Foods Connection has been a perfect helping hand to us, at a time we needed it most. Our heartfelt thanks and gratitude go to Laura, Susan and all other actors of the program for their thoughtfulness and generosity. Our very best wishes to all of them in pursuing this wonderful program that deserves to flourish more than ever! Even away from Iowa (that you make us miss so much!), we’ll always have all of you in our hearts! MERCI BEAUCOUP!
Local Church:
We are so grateful for this past year’s shares. We received our produce every Friday from Gooseberry Farms. When it was delivered to the church, we placed it on a table in our foyer. With activities from Friday night until Sunday am, all but one week, the produce was gone by Sunday afternoon. The unexpected joy was observing Kenyans, Latinos, Caucasians, African-American, young and old discuss what the vegetables were, how to use them, compare how they fixed them and even invite each other over to share the food. A couple of nights, members of the Latino community appreciated and enjoyed some of the produce while fixing food in the church kitchen for a get-together. The recipes that were included were taken. With a large percentage of our congregation being low-income and low middle class, the treat of fresh produce was welcomed. We had some in the church add to the table with their homegrown produce which increased the sense of community and sharing our resources with others in need. We had planned to deliver some of the produce to Regency Trailer court but they came to us. Approx. 40 different families shared in this gift. Thank you again for your generous gift to our community.
North Liberty Food Pantry
We at the North Liberty Community Pantry really enjoyed our partnership with Local Foods and ZJ Farms. Being a part of the Local Foods Connection allowed us to have far more fresh produce at the pantry than would otherwise have been possible. We have a refrigerator that is dedicated to fresh produce throughout the summer, and this enabled us to have it full each week. It was a great supplement to the individual donations we receive from community members. The descriptions of food and recipes we received with the material provided by Local Foods gave us the chance to educate the families we serve (and often ourselves) about the value of fresh foods and ways to prepare them. In some cases our families also offered us help and advice on what to do with vegetables such as mustard greens. It was a wonderful process and helped us to provide healthy fresh food for families that many would not have been able to afford otherwise.
Family of Two (Mother, Child)
I must admit I was not completely prepared. The veggies came marching one by one, two by two and ten by ten. WOW! Soon my frig. was a jungle. Some of these things I had never gotten at the store and the ones I might have would not have been as fresh or as plentiful. My more recent idea of veggies was carrots and celery (if that) or overcooked frozen ones… I did spend some time feeling overwhelmed. I was having some health problems over the summer so finding that extra creativity and energy was sometimes challenging. Who would have thought that veggies could be challenging!
I felt lucky, blessed and much admiration for those who had the inspiration and desire to grow food for the hungry. I did not expect an encounter with the profound, but I got it. And I was well fed 
