On Saturday, November 17th, Rising Appalachia, Be Steadwell, and Amber Lily filled the halls of the Fine Line in downtown Minneapolis with music. The next day, nearly half of their sold out show’s audience filled the rooms and halls of the Waite House, an indoor community center and “settlement house” in Minneapolis’ Phillips Neighborhood.
“We—the middle classes I mean, not merely the rich—we have neglected you; instead of justice we have offered you charity, and instead of sympathy we have offered you hard and unreal advice; but I think we are changing.”
– Arnold Toynbee, economic historian who worked with Reverend Barnett, the seeder of the Settlement House Movement.
Settlement Houses, a late 19th-century invention, are gathering spaces where people can come together to connect to their neighbors and access needed resources, the essential principle is that services not be offered as charity but as a response to community needs in the spirit of partnership. Waite House in Minneapolis took its roots in this context and has persisted to this day. Now, with the growing cultural return to the production of food for community sustenance at home, Waite House is designing systems to increase its food-production starting with a demonstration, indoor culinary herb wall, aquaponics setup, and vermiculture worm-composting system for its community food bank as well as weekly shared meals.
Mural coordinated and painted by GoodSpace Murals during the Action Day!!
Three-hundred and fifty people showed up to work on the installations, and learn the skills of creating these systems themselves. Five rooms downstairs and a huge cafe/kitchen on the second floor filled with people excited to learn, network, have a meaningful conversation, listen to uplifting music, get creative in painting collaboratively, and contribute to what made this Permaculture Action Day special.
The November 18th, 2018 action day, the 98th overall, was Permaculture Action Network’s first time replicating the action day experience in an indoor venue in its entirety. Entire rooms of the community center filled with tools and building materials constructing aquaponics systems and culinary herb walls; live and DJ’d music filled the hallways as wandering serenaders visited the mural painters; the upstairs cafeteria filled with food cooked by a team of twenty who all met each other that morning; and multi-purpose rooms became spaces of sharing skills and learning.
Chef Jason tells the action day participants of the beautiful lunch about to be feasted upon.
Several local community organizers, including urban farmer Michael Chaney of Project Sweetie Pie and environmental justice activist Sam Grant, said this event improved the community threads of Minneapolis as a city, affirming the potential of a focused invitation to turn the energy of a concert hall into a revival of material and relational networks of solidarity.
Highlights of the day were Niko the Artist and Tubby Love doing improv hip-hop jazz, speaking with Project Sweetie Pie about lasting community organizing as well as observing the round table discussion he facilitated, working closely with Ethan, Julie Graves, and Michele Manske in logistics and community support, and the huge networking feat of Alana Bliss and Joey Davis from Green Guilds.
Michael Chaney led a discussion on the Upper Harbor Terminal and alternatives to the proposed concept plan. Chaney and his co-organizers are supporting the East Phillips Indoor Urban Farm and its associated spaces: three acres of affordable housing, organic and aquaponic food production, a coffee shop/café, cultural markets, and a bicycle shop.
The urban farm group says this alternative plan for the Midtown Greenway will produce, “quality green jobs for the community and thus bring a small amount of Environmental Justice to the neighbors.”
Permaculture Action Network thanks those who donated materials or money for the Minneapolis Permaculture Action Day:
Guse Hardware Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity ReStore
Midwest Supplies Beer Brewing, Wine Making, Hydroponic & Gardening Supplies
Co-op Partners Warehouse Crystal Reynolds Sisters’ Camelot Organic Compound Herbalists Without Borders-Twin Cities MN Chapter Green Guilds
Don’t take our word for it though. Listen to these Kids’ Interviews taken that day. The youth are the truth.
