When Edible Flint director Lauralyn Handyside looked around the Educational Farm at the organization’s Harvest Festival on September 20, she saw many familiar faces – a product of the great personal experiences kids and families have through various programs they’ve participated in.
“This hopefully is just a space that they’ll keep coming back to year after year,” Handyside said.
That description actually fits Handyside’s history at Edible Flint, too. She’d heard about the organization when, after moving back to Flint after college, she started her own small farm. She started working with Edible Flint in 2018 as an AmeriCorps service member. She eventually became a board member, serving as vice president and chair of the food garden tour group, and was hired as the organization’s director in 2021.
“Edible Flint is one of those organizations that when you get involved, you just kind of never leave,” Handyside said. “A lot of our volunteers have been volunteering here since our conception in 2009. I found out about Edible Flint through the community of farming people and gardeners around here and I just fell in love with the organization.”
Handyside is currently Edible Flint’s only employee, as the nonprofit is mostly powered by a leadership board and other volunteers who coordinate programming, fundraising, planting and tending the gardens on the educational farm, and other operational aspects of the organization. Since its formation, Edible Flint has worked with individuals and community partners to help residents grow and access healthy food as well as help address issues or identify opportunities to improve the local food system.
The annual Fall Harvest Festival is an opportunity to celebrate the work and growth of the organization and the many vegetables and crops that are grown and harvested there every growing season. Attendees were able to tour the Educational Farm, located at 1628 Beach Street, play yard games and participate in other activities, enjoy donuts, apple cider, and other treats, and get information from vendors and partners, including Michigan State University Extension and Hope Network.
Heather Sisto, a local children’s author and illustrator who writes books about vegetables and healthy eating, did a storytime session, and apiarist Jason Bey, owner of My Bees Nest, brought a bee hive, honey samples, and talked with visitors about beekeeping.
Edible Flint also handed out seeds for people to plant their own gardens and vegetables grown at the educational farm.
Although the Harvest Festival commemorates the end of the main growing season, there is still plenty ahead for Edible Flint. Handyside is getting ready to launch a garden partnership program with school gardens, community gardens, backyard gardeners, and market gardeners. Edible Flint helps with site planning, technical assistance, getting plots ready for planting, and even helping with watering and maintenance as the gardens are being developed. But the bigger value add is connecting those gardeners to other partners and resources in the community.
“We help you get access to resources that already exist through places like MSU Extension, the Neighborhood Engagement Hub, the Conservation District, or places like that,” Handyside said. “We just kind of bring growers into the know of how our food system functions here in Flint, and then the idea is that I can step away (after helping them get started) and they’ll have this new community they’ve been introduced to so they can be successful in their growing journey.”
In preparation for winter, Handyside helps growers lay down plastic or prepare their beds for the future. She says she’s a proponent of “no till” gardening methods whenever possible, because not everyone has easy access to things like rototillers or the ability to use tools like broadforks which can be physically demanding.
“I’m a big proponent of permaculture style methods,” she said. “They’re physically easier than having to broadfork or rototill everything, so I try to show different techniques to people so that gardening is more accessible to them and not burning them out. Gardening is very fruitful, it is very rewarding, but it is a lot of work. So I try to just reign that in and help people have a good, solid plan.”
Handyside is excited by what she sees as a potential growth period in urban gardening in Flint. There was a boom period in the city around 2010, but that growth was hampered by the water crisis, followed by the COVID-19 pandemic. One advantage the city has is a growing number of vacant lots and land as more demolitions led by the city of Flint, Genesee County Land Bank, and other organizations occur.
“It became really popular at one point, and we’re trying to bring that back by making things fun and exciting, but also helping people become aware of all of the resources we have that are really unique to Flint and Genesee County,” Handyside said.
There are still challenges, however. Federal cuts to several programs, particularly AmeriCorps, have hampered several local organizations that provide support to urban farmers and gardeners, including MSU Extension, the Crim Fitness Foundation, and FoodCorps.
“Those folks (FoodCorps) were providing a lot of assistance to school gardens and things like that,” Handyside said. “So Edible Flint has continued to be that organization that is there for people during those fluctuations to help fill gaps.”
She says they are currently creating a map of active and dormant gardens to put that information into one database or location so that everyone within their network and in the Flint Food Policy Council can access it. That will help multiple organizations be able to identify areas of greatest need and direct technical assistance, volunteers, and other shared resources in a more strategic way.
Each year, as those organizations working within Flint’s food system have become more intertwined, the results have steadily increased. They’ve helped connect growers to places like Flint Fresh Food Hub where they can sell their produce. Flint Fresh also helps people growing crops understand how they should price them.
Edible Flint also helped growers who do you-pick crops set up signage so people know how and when to harvest. Those efforts increase crop yields, reduce waste, and get more fresh produce into the community.
The best way to get connected into that network or learn about volunteer opportunities are by signing up for Edible Flint’s newsletter or following their Facebook page. There is also information about various community and youth programming run through Edible Flint on their website.
The continued efforts of volunteers have led to steady growth of the organization and what it is able to provide to the community. On the Edible Flint Educational Farm alone, the efficiencies their volunteers have created by using the space effectively increased their capacity for growing.
“Last year, we grew over 6,000 pounds of produce, and I think we’re going to surpass that this year,” Handyside said. “Our melons have just gone insane and we’ve been really working on companion planting and making the best use out of our space with more vertical growing.”
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to catch up on all of our headlines every Tuesday.
