This is the second in a series of three blog posts recapping School Garden Spring Break, Slow Food USA’s national conference in April 2016. As we look to the organizational future of Slow Food, Spring Break certainly reaffirmed our new strategic direction, which highlights three buckets of work: gatherings, campaigns, and partnerships. Over the next few weeks, this series of blog posts will highlight these areas.
In addition to the gathering of dynamic and passionate people, Spring Break was full of popular topics, which could easily translate into school garden-related campaign ideas for Slow Food USA. Participants shared their favorite workshops as part of a post-conference survey and themes have clearly emerged:
Diversity and Inclusion
“I wanted to let you know how grateful I am that you made the effort to bring 
Bilal Sarwari
Interim Executive DirectorBilal Sarwari
Interim Executive DirectorBilal Sarwari (he/him) was named Slow Food USA's interim executive director starting in April 2024. Bilal had been a Slow Food USA board member since June 2021 and has been involved with Slow Food since 2008. He was named a North American International Councilor for the global Slow Food movement in March 2023. He is an avid gardener and farmed for many years in Georgia. Most recently, he served as a group facilitator and mental health consultant for various organizations, including the USDA. The first-generation child of Afghan refugees, Bilal has learned to highlight the best of his cultures while centering joy and justice.Brian Solem
Director of Communications and AdvocacyBrian Solem
Director of Communications and AdvocacyBrian Solem (he/him) serves as the director of communications and advocacy for Slow Food USA, which means he oversees all digital channels, marketing/PR, storytelling and grassroots mobilization efforts for the national movement.
He has spent the last 15 years as a nonprofit marketing and communications leader, most recently as the senior director of communications for AIDS Foundation Chicago and the communications co-chair of Getting to Zero Illinois. Food studies and food justice work have been core elements of Brian's life over the last decade: He is the co-founder of food literary journal Graze, a former board member and board vice president of Chicago's Dill Pickle Food Co-op, and a cofounder of Portage Park Mutual Aid, a mutual exchange network in his neighborhood in Chicago. Brian enjoys connecting with community, gardening and cooking, and spending time with his husband and daughter.Dan Mueller
Equity, Inclusion and Justice StrategistDan Mueller
Equity, Inclusion and Justice StrategistDan (she/her or they/them) serves as the Equity, Inclusion and Justice (EIJ) Strategist for Slow Food USA.
Dan has been in the nonprofit sector for her entire career, working with over 20 nonprofits and volunteering with both AmeriCorps and the United States Peace Corps. Her degree in Intercultural Communication and desire for cultural exchange has sent her to Belize, Jamaica and Puerto Rico to support grassroots community development initiatives in education, agriculture and sustainability. Dan is currently a graduate student at the University of San Diego, pursuing a Master of Arts in Peace & Justice at the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies.Deion Jones
Director of Network EngagementDeion Jones
Director of Network EngagementDeion (he/him) serves as the Director of Network Engagement for Slow Food USA, which means he leads efforts in network growth, troubleshooting, and providing tools to network leaders and members.
Food has been, and continues to be, a passion for Deion throughout his academic and professional endeavors. Both his undergraduate, from Florida Gulf Coast University, and graduate work, from University of Oregon, centered on food, focusing on sustainable sourcing and immigrant identity through food, respectively. Beyond academia, Deion dedicates his time to seeing as many corners of the food realm that he studied, from urban and rural farms and food banks with Feeding America, to public health and one of the best farm-to-table fine dining establishments in the world, Blue Hill at Stone Barns. Lindsay Troyer
Policy CoordinatorLindsay Troyer
Policy CoordinatorLindsay (she/her) currently serves as a member and the Policy Coordinator for the Food and Farm Policy Community Action Team at Slow Food USA. Lindsay has worked in the intersections of food production, food service, food education and food policy throughout her professional career. She spent her undergraduate years running CSA programs and community gardens while completing a B.S. in Food Policy and Sustainable Agriculture. After owner/operating a sustainable-focused, locally sourced cafe, she consulted for food makers and food growers while beginning a graduate degree in Food and Agriculture Policy. She currently runs a Community Food Program that includes two food pantries, a mobile food pantry and a community garden education program. She hopes to influence policy to decrease the immense inequity in food and farmland access, and to protect federal programs that feed our nations hungry.Mara Welton
Director of ProgramsMara Welton
Director of ProgramsMara (she/her) serves as the director of programs for Slow Food USA, which means that she cultivates, develops and hosts nationwide programs and campaigns while coordinating and collaborating with global network leaders.
Food production and access has been Mara’s passion for over 30 years as a farmer/chef business owner and community organizer. She volunteered abroad with the United States Peace Corps and US AID working towards village food sovereignty. Mara is based in Vermont and has served on many local boards, most recently the board of Helping And Nurturing Diverse Seniors, connecting seniors to healthy and culturally relevant food. Mara’s 20 year career in farming brought her to Slow Food with the campaign for Biodiversity and the Ark of Taste. She served for 10 years as the Chapter President of Slow Food Vermont and Regional Councilor for Slow Food USA. She currently owns and operates a seasonal food cart celebrating her native American Southwest.Robin Mosley
Communications and Development CoordinatorRobin Mosley
Communications and Development Coordinator
Robin (she/her) is the communications and development coordinator for Slow Food USA. She supports the team by developing content that aligns with branding and promotes diverse experiences. She has 5+ years of experience in journalism, non-profit, and research experience across multiple industries. Topics such as community-building, equity, and food access in food justice are a part of her ethos.
to help reality check our visions of inclusiveness. It’s hard but essential work that benefits us all.”
Bilal Sarwari
Bilal Sarwari
Brian Solem
Brian Solem
Dan Mueller
Dan Mueller
Deion Jones
Deion Jones
Lindsay Troyer
Lindsay Troyer
Mara Welton
Mara Welton
Robin Mosley
Robin Mosley
–Spring Break Participant
We are always trying to better integrate the “fair” component of Slow Food’s mission of “Good, Clean and Fair Food for All”. In February, I attended the Massachusetts Horticultural Society School Garden Conference where I heard an incredible anti-oppression talk. After hearing this presentation, I knew we had to bring the speaker to Spring Break to be our opening speaker.
Our Keynote address “Planting a Promise: Equity and Inclusion in School Gardens” was delivered by Liz Wills-O’Gilvie, Chair of the Gardening the Community Board, member of the Steering Committees of the Springfield Food Policy Council & Pioneer Valley Grows, and Project Advisor to the Massachusetts State Food System Plan. Petite with a big presence and warm disposition, Liz described herself as the only black and bald woman in the room.
One participant commented, “I am a white woman so I am answering this question from this lens. And it bears mentioning because Liz’s keynote opened my eyes to the concept of being ‘color blind’ and how this is really unacceptable at this point in our society. All that said, I feel that your ‘effort’ [to make Spring Break more inclusive] were visible, that as conference organizers, you strived to make these topics a central part of the discussion and that inclusivity was a core component of the experience. There could have been greater diversity of races represented among the presenters but I think this is a systemic issue we need to deal with, not a reflection of this conference alone.”
Later we had a workshop titled “Gardens for Diversity, Inclusion, and Food Justice,” during which we discussed horticultural therapy, gardens and cooking classes to teach English language learners, and food donation programs. One participant “found the diversity, inclusion, and social justice [workshop] very good. It's a component that…many people don’t think about when it comes to school gardens, which can often be very focused on standards-based education and nutrition while leaving out many of the other positive impacts of gardens”. However, we also recognize that through creating a safe space for participants to share, we’ve only begun to scratch the surface of this critical topic. In the future, we hope to integrate more on social and ecological justice, as well as increase participation from underrepresented communities.
Slow Food USA Curriculum
Another particularly popular workshop that could fit the bill for a Slow Food campaign was about our Good, Clean and Fair Curriculum curriculum. Our hands-on demonstrations of lesson plans from the Good and Clean School Garden Curriculum generated new interest in Slow Food garden programs, which we hope to share more widely moving forward. One individual noted “I liked all of the cooking classes, they showed me another way to implement the Slow Curriculum” and another shared the sentiment, “The “good” cooking skills demo was awesome because I will use what I learned right a way.”
Teacher/Leader Training
It is crucially important to train our leaders, which as one participant put it, “leads to staying power and sustainability of school garden programs, which is the core of my work at the moment.” We heard presentations from several garden programs doing professional development that have adopted unique ways to train teachers on how to use the school gardens as a laboratory or extension of classroom activities. Participants were excited to take home lessons learned from these presentations and to incorporate them into their own programs. If you want to learn more about how we do school garden leader/teacher training, check out Slow Food USA’s Professional Development Series.
Impact
“We struggle with how to quantify and therefore justify our work.” – Spring Break participant.
Kyle Cornforth (Director of the Edible Schoolyard Project Berkeley) and Eva Ringstrom (Director of Impact for FoodCorps) co-presented on an ever-popular topic: evaluation of school garden programs and measuring impact of these programs on the students. One individual found it “really powerful to hear how organizations that have achieved notoriety in this space value and implement evaluation as part of their strategic growth.”
Long-term Sustainability
Ultimately, the success of school gardens depends on the long-term sustainability (including funding) or “staying power” (as FoodCorps puts it) of these programs. It’s a theme that garden leaders and nonprofit partners often contemplate – “it is what we are all working towards and it was very useful to hear others with the same challenges with yet others with stories of how they were able to overcome…” In this well-attended workshop, participants shared their own struggles in sustaining school garden programs. We then, as a group, brainstormed on ideas and best practices on how to overcome these challenges to the long-term sustainability of the gardens. We are all looking for the right formula for success and perhaps we have planted a seed with this group to find that path.
So it became increasingly clear that certain workshop topics and themes of discussion are more popular than others in the school garden world. As Slow Food attends and presents at future gatherings from the National Farm to Cafeteria Conference to the National Child and Youth Garden Symposium (NCYSG), we hope to bring our experience and expertise around the aforementioned topics.
