A conversation about Makeshift festival

Olbrich Park became a bright spot on the city's map of experiments in placemaking when the new Biergarten opened this summer. With soft pretzels bigger than your head and an oversized Jenga set, I find the Biergarten playful and fresh. 

There are 237 parks listed on the City of Madison's website. That is about one park per 1,000 people. Of those parks, I think Olbrich is one of our crown jewels.

This weekend Olbrich Park will be host to another experiment in placemaking, the Makeshift art and food festival. This fundraiser for our city parks is the brainchild of several Tenney-Lapham neighbors, including folks from Underground Food Collective, Cork N Bottle, and FlakPhoto. 

Alongside temporary installations from artists from around the world will be food. Really special food. The organizers call it "ambitious, affordable dishes in a family-friendly, engaging and immersive experience. A one-day-only happening, Makeshift is Sunday, August 20th from 3-8PM rain or shine.

One of these food experiences is a collaboration between Underground Food Collective and REAP, served from REAP's new food truck.  REAP's mission is to support small family farms and local businesses in southern Wisconsin and increase access to fresh, healthy food for everyone. This pairs well with Underground's seasonal menus highlighting farm fresh produce and locally sourced products.

The Director of REAP, Helen Sarakinos, is a good friend of mine. We've come together around food and art many times--everything from canning beets to curating an installation of five artists work along the Yahara River--so this weekend we biked over to the Biergarten with our daughters and talked. 

Helen says, "Hats off to all the organizers. I really appreciate how they are getting people excited about the possibilities and the future of food in the Midwest. It's so inspiring to be in this city with such a rich food system and see how this could extend to the food our schools are serving children. I have loved working with these visionaries." 

ME: You are a fan of outdoor temporary art experiences like Eaux Claires and Fermentation Fest. You and I collaborated on a project called Yahara Reflections that had a very similar mission to Makeshift: to spark the joy of discovery in familiar places and remind us all of the natural beauty we have right here in our city parks. Are there any particular artists you are really excited to have exhibiting at Makeshift this year?

HELEN: I love the idea of this festival on so many levels, it’s the a fundraiser for public parks, it’s free for everyone, and it’s there and then its gone - placemaking at its best! I have always been drawn to guerrilla art, forcing me to see the same things I look at daily in a radically different way. So I am looking forward to seeing what Michael Duffy does for this event since I’ve always enjoyed his other installations. But so many of the artists are new to me so I’m showing up ready to be surprised, delighted and moved!

 

ME: Tell me about the food people can find at the new REAP foodcart at Makeshift. I understand it will be showing off your vision for school lunches of the future?

HELEN: REAP is so excited to be part of Makeshift and to feature our sweet new food truck, an incredible donation from Emmi Roth Cheese! One of the ways we hope to put it to use is as a food truck at Madison high schools - since the schools all have open campuses, kids can get their lunch to go, rather than choose between eating a proper meal or joining their friends. The lunch recipes are being developed specifically for the food truck - featuring local produce, and made to go. A few school districts around the country have incorporated food trucks and they’ve been really popular with students.

In partnership with Underground Foods, the kids’ meal at Makeshift will showcase the kinds of lunches we hope to be serving out of the food truck in the coming year. These lunches are good for your body, really delicious and full of seasonal and locally-sourced foods. The Makeshift kids meal will be a rice bowl.

REAP has been working to reform school lunch in Madison for over a decade. This is our vision for the future of school meals: 

• We will view healthy, fresh food in schools as a vital component to academic achievement. 
• Every child will have access to high quality, delicious and healthy food so they are ready to learn. 
• Schoolchildren will know and love the taste of fresh fruits and vegetables - the stigma of “kids hate veggies” will be a thing of the past.
• It will be normal for all children to know at least some of the farmers who grow their meals. 
• More of the money spent on food for schools will stay local and help elevate our robust food economy. 

ME: If people reading this, or attending Makeshift, want to help make this a reality for our local schoolkids, what can they do?

HELEN: MMSD Food Services has made some real progress with school meals in the last few years. Did you know they buy almost 100 000 pounds annually of locally-grown fruits and veg for school meals? 

The single best thing we can do as parents is support those efforts. Madison elementary schools this fall will be featuring a weekly locally-sourced lunch. Buy your kids the local lunch! As a community, if we talk about wanting change, we need to support the change. We have to walk the walk. If the District sees interest in local lunches featuring fruits and vegetables, they’ll be willing to grow those options. 

To keep up with plans for local school lunches starting this fall, follow REAP on Facebook or sign up for the newsletter at reapfoodgroup.org.

Makeshift Festival

Sunday, August 20th, 2017

3-8PM at Olbrich Park 

Neighborhood Block Party in Reynolds Park 2016: A Photo Summary

This year's Party in the Park was from 1-5 on a Very Hot day in June. Hundreds of people relaxed under the shade of the old trees and enjoyed some good company. 

 Party in the Park is our neighborhood block party. But in the tradition of east side festivals, it is also a fundraiser for the elementary school and local park efforts. And, like the early Marquette Waterfront Festivals, it is an effort to revitalize a park that has maybe been overlooked at times, but that now sits in the heart of a vibrant and growing neighborhood.

The goals of the event, for the organizing committee and 

the Tenney-Lapham Neighborhood Association, are simple: 

Draw neighbors together for an afternoon to chill out on the 'village green.' 

So here are a bunch of pictures that give a sense of the day. 

CLICK on a bundle of images to see it
ENLARGED on your screen.

Setting up started early and took a full team effort.

Richard Linster greeted people and renewed Tenney-Lapham Neighborhood Association memberships. Ken Vogel displayed his incredible puppets, Alicia Hamilton gave luxurious chair massages, the principal of Lapham Elementary hugged past and current students, and an array of items donated generously from local businesses enticed people to give money to benefit the neighborhood parks and school.

 By 1PM it was really hot. The first scheduled event was a cool one: a tour of Well #24 with Tom Heikkinen, General Manager of the Madison Water Utility.

 

The Doggie Parade, sponsored by Dog Haus University, thrilled both the dogs and the spectators. 

 The Cork and Bottle String band entertained us with their home-grown sound and Underground Food Cart supplied the homemade meal. A game of Red Light, Green Light drew both kids and adults into the field for a few rounds, but not for too long: It was hot in the sun!

Bernies Rock Shop brought out the much loved fossil and gem dig, children aimed tennis balls at the clothes-line of dangling stuffed animals to win whatever they hit, and thanks to extremely dedicated volunteers Teena and Sonali, hot and thirsty people enjoyed Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream, root beer floats, Robin Room phosphates and JPH lemonade all afternoon.

Alder Zellers and TLNA President Patty Prime chatted with everyone while Nick served a variety of delicious homemade drinks and kids hid out in the Tenney Nursery & Parent Center cardboard maze (with zero chance an adult-sized-person would be able to follow them through the small tunnels and turns).    

...boxes for building, balls for bopping around, a fire truck to climb in and a performance of familiar hits by Francie and Josh.  

There was more, too, of course. Games and prizes. Delicious donated food by Sophia's, Macha Tea House and Festival Foods. And Rihanna, who brought her salon chair and mirror to spend the entire afternoon streaking party-goes' hair with bright waves of color. The pink streak was a literal highlight of the day for my daughter, who has refused to wash her hair all week. Somehow I missed taking a picture of Rihanna. It is probably because Rihanna was putting a gold streak in my own hair.

THANK YOU to the following contributing area businesses and organizations:

 

Alicia Hamilton Massage, Breeze Stevens, Burnies Rock Shop, Cargo Coffee, Chocolate Shoppe, Christ Presbyterian, Cork N Bottle Liquor Store, Dog Haus, University, Engine #3/ Willy St. Firehouse, EVP Coffee, Festival Foods, Food Fight, Gebhardt Development, Johnson Public House, Juneberry Studio & Marketplace, Ken Vogel, Lapham Outdoor Classroom & Community Garden (Terri Belz), Macha Teahouse, MadCat, Madison Metropolitan Sewer District / Saltwise, Madison Parks Department, Madison Water Utility & Tom Heikkinen, Morningwood Nursery & Greenhouse, Nick Balazs, Pasqual’s, Patrick Heck, Reanna’s Salona, Robin Room, RP’s Pasta, Salatore’s Tomato Pies, Shirley Haidinger (League of Women Voters), ShopBop, Sophia's Bakery, Studio 924, Tenney Nursery & Parent Center, U-Frame It, Underground Food Cart, UpShift, Yoga Co-op.

 Happy Summer!

Back from Bali to Spend Earth Day with My Kids

 

 

 

I have just returned from my first visit to the Indonesian island of Bali. There are over 17,000 islands in Indonesia, but Bali is one that most of us have heard of. Four million people live there. On top of that, over 2.5 million foreign tourists visit annually.

Bali is small; just 89 across by 56 miles from top to bottom. And, there is no official method of trash collection. It is a big problem. There are mountains of trash, and valleys of trash, in obvious and less-than-obvious places. A good deal of the garbage, of course, ends up in the ocean.

 

There are also some ingenious small-scale programs for trying to manage the problem. For example, I visited The Green School, a school that is somewhat famous for their sustainability-focused curriculum and wall-less classrooms. The school runs a recycling program that is open to the community. People are paid cash for what they bring in. 

 

Some of what they collect comes from the Trash Walks, which leave every Tuesday morning from the school. Walking the alleys and streets with a bamboo spear in hand, these volunteers fill the role of trash and recycling collectors. The plastic is melted down in a Thermo-fusion machine to make shipping pallets (which are typically made of wood!) by a company based in Bali. 

I was inspired by the simple wisdom of this program and the idea that individual efforts are valid, even in the face of overwhelming challenges.
 

 

I came home to spring in Wisconsin. 

Friday, April 22nd was Earth Day. This "holiday" was founded by a Wisconsinite, so while I've not made too much of it in the past, I felt like "celebrating" this year. 

Gaylord Nelson was known as The Conservation Governor because of his reforms to clean up waterways, protect natural resources, create green jobs, and bolster the state's recreation infrastructure. His ideas were popular and he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1962. 

In 1969, Senator Gaylord Nelson proposed a national teach-in on the environment. The goal was to send a message to Washington that public opinion was solidly behind a bold political agenda on environmental problems.

 
That was forty-seven years ago. Last week I was putting my kids to bed. The 4-year-old asked, "Is the universe bigger than all of Madison?" The very next questing indicated that she really hadn't understood my response: "Is the universe bigger than a giraffe?"

Clearly, impossibly abstract concepts, like an ocean full of garbage and sea levels rising, are not where to start the conversation about Earth Day with my young kids. In fact, I'll admit that I find the early elementary school's science curriculum focus on distant places like The Rainforest a bit misguided. I'd rather my girls be able to identify our local flora and fauna, and understand how the Great Lakes ecosystem works....but anyway.

Point is, I wanted to acknowledge Earth Day with the kids, but I didn't really know how, or where, to spend it. The listing of events in the newspaper didn't feel right, like the kids would come away remembering a festival without internalizing any more personal impressions.

I decided to go out to Governors Island. We hang out there often enough that the girls have some sense of comfort and familiarity with the trails and shorelines. Because it was Earth Day, and I have been thinking about trash, we packed gloves and plastic bags.

Both girls popped out the car ready. They attacked that garbage-strewn patch of woods near the main parking lot like kids hunting for Easter eggs. They were having fun. And they could easily see that our efforts were making a huge difference. 

In the moment, and in reflection, I have honestly never been so proud of my kids.  And I learned through the experience that the spring-time debris found in our local parks is gross, but it's something we can handle. 

  

As a follow-up, we went to Reynolds Park for a neighborhood clean-up on Saturday. This is another place my kids feel at home. 

While the adults worked, the gang of kids mostly ran around and played. They were among friends and, again, had a blast. They didn't get their hands very dirty, but they were part of a community expression of care for a park with which they feel feel a connection.

I feel confident that both my daughters, ages four and six, now understand Earth Day. And should I again wonder where to spend spring days in the future, I think they'll remind me: At a beautiful spot on earth, connecting with the place, the people, and also the problems of that particular place.

 

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