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Green for a day at Wick
By Sean Barron
The spirit of the event was in keeping with a portion of the Youngstown 2010 plan.
YOUNGSTOWN — For several hours, Wick Park on the city’s North Side was perhaps one of the greenest places in the city — the natural flora and fauna notwithstanding.
That’s because it was the site of Saturday’s Grey to Green festival.
A portion of the park resembled a tent city of sorts, as many of the estimated 60 vendors and exhibitors set up shop to sell environmentally friendly merchandise.
The free event also featured plenty of entertainment as well as speakers and panelists whose topics included wind power, strategic farming techniques, obesity and physical activity and soil development.
One of the festival’s main purposes was to promote green technology and jobs with environmentally friendly applications while highlighting the revitalization of Wick Park, explained Elsa Higby, executive director and founder of Grow Youngstown.
One of that organization’s goals is to advance local, sustainable food systems, she added.
The keynote presenter was Will Allen, founder and chief executive officer of the Milwaukee-based nonprofit Growing Power Inc., which supports people by helping to provide equal access to healthy and affordable food.
Allen, considered by many to be one of the world’s foremost experts on urban agriculture, talked about developing soil for the growth of healthy foods as well as having it be more accessible to those in need.
For many people who are less fortunate, such food is difficult to come by, noted Timothy D. Smith of Cleveland, executive director of the Cleveland Greenhouse Project.
Too often, Smith said, many poor people eat the cheapest foods, in part because they live far from businesses that sell healthier products. To get more nutritious foods, many have to incur added transportation and other costs, he continued.
The Greenhouse Project is building a greenhouse and composting system to sell locally grown, low-cost organic vegetables to city families and offer jobs to local residents, its mission statement says.
The Youngstown 2010 land-use plan has a gray-to-green component, which is in line with Youngstown’s being a shrinking city with plenty of green space that can be used, among other things, for healthy food production, noted Deb Weaver and Suzie Beiersdorfer, the festival’s chairwoman and co-organizer, respectively.
“I looked at the [2010] plan and said, ‘Let’s have a festival,’” Weaver said. “The festival is to create awareness of environmental initiatives, get people involved and bring the community together.”
In keeping with that idea, the Fairgreen Garden was planted last year near Fairgreen and Ohio avenues on the North Side, Beiersdorfer pointed out.
Weaver said the event also included the planting of a tree in the park in accordance with Youngstown’s being recognized as a Tree City USA community.
The designation means the city is more livable and has a better quality of life, Weaver explained.
Four requirements must be met for a city to earn such a status. They include having a tree ordinance stating stipulations regarding planting trees on devil strips — the grassy strip between the street and the sidewalk — and maintaining a tree budget, noted Frank Bishop, vice president of the local Treez Please organization.
The Grey to Green festival also had poets along with entertainment that included a dance, rap and violin jam session, performances by the Youngstown State University gospel choir, an acoustic and folk duo and Sam Goodwill, a local alternative rock band.
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Comments
This was a fantastic event, by my estimate there were over 700 people in attendance throughout the day. Lots of networking, fun for kids, people of all persuasions laughing and hanging out together enjoying the music, art and discussions, and display booths.
This is what Youngstown should be about! and this is why I moved here!
Sadly, the title to this article exemplifies how we are in YTown "Green for a day".
1. Top ten entrepreneur city for a day.
2. VexFest for a day.
3. YTown 2000 for a day.
4. YTown 2010 for a day.
5. Deconstuct for a day.
6. Defend Youngstown for a day.
7. Mayor's blog for a day.
8. Grow Youngstown for a day.
9. Infocision for a day.
10. B&O for a day.
Follow thru is not in one day. In our community are tremendous business leaders who can lead all our charges. I'm beginning to learn they are not tapped because our "Green thing" maybe an outgrowth of radicalism like greenpeace who for decades have been revealed to be anti-capitalist.
It was a great event, beautiful day and lots of fun for kids & adults. My daughter & I loved Ely's food which we go out of our way to get on W. Reserve Rd. Congressman Ryan's staffer's Dora & Diego display was a genius & irresistible for toddlers. Ytownshrimp doesn't realize that this isn't an overnight sensation. There is a dedicated group to making Ytown green which is a combination of lifelong residents & people who have returned home or have adopted Ytown as their home. They have been working at greening Ytown for many years now & more & more individuals are making this a slow & steady build. Just ask the Green Team about the increase in recycling & the waiting lists for their composting classes.
Geniene, With due respect, that is my point that many of our projects are overnight sensations here in the Valley. Slow and steady build has been our blueprint since the demise of the steelmills and look at us now. When my wife and I travel, it is embarrassing for us to say we are from Youngstown and we love Youngstown, we live in Youngstown.
A couple of years ago, I gave some of the green team members a tour of the eastside and showed them the acreage of vacant land that thru this tax lien window was available for the first time in history. Sadly this window is about to close in April and we will lose this opportunity. Vacant land in YTown will not be available for urban agriculture if this window shuts.
This is why I have concluded that many of our projects are just for self-aggrandizement and not really to make a significant impact.
Ron:
I welcome you to take a day off from the shrimp farm, spend 12hrs with me at my job to see actual green neighborhood-based programing being developed in action (with a review of the funding that that has been raised, presently,to implement it), and then repost to this same article. If you still feel the same way you do after taking me up on this offer, then so be it. I'm confident in the work. Call or email.
Phil Kidd
(330) 519-8712
phil@mvorganizing.org
Hey Phil,
Sure, that's what I really would like to see, some action. Please understand my comments are constructive, I just feel all alone out here with very little support from the leaders. BTW, I had my first Youngstown shrimp dinner last night, the feeling was almost spiritual to be partaking of something that was grown from our own soil. I forwarded pictures to the city with no response.
I am however, startled that there seems to be absolutely no drive to move on the largest vacant property conversion before the opportunity slams shut in April. I'll call you soon.
Green for 100 days
It was the same drive I negotiated since early June every night, after passing Four Seasons, the road starts to wind. The woods on each side of me seem to hide the moon and then the lake elevates me and the moon has no shade. I often wonder if McKelvey absorbed this if he was around when they named the lake?
Off Jacobs road I cross east crab creek and quietly hike up the levee. The Prawns are sensitive to vibration and are nocturnal, they seem to know that I bring food. Funny, what is a Malaysian prawn doing in the Sharon line? Does it know that this isn't Asia, does it know that once people lived in the abandoned houses which surround the pond at a distance? This is urban agriculture, this is the "Blue Revolution".