I love it when people take matters into their own hands. So I was really excited to meet Amie Frisch, project director for Veggielution community farm, who’s intent on evolving the local food movement in the San Jose area.
Amie and cofounder Mark Anthony Medeiros met a couple years
ago while they were apartment-dwelling students at San Jose State University.
They both wanted space to grow fresh veggies, so Mark posted fliers in a nearby
neighborhood asking residents if they’d share some growing ground in exchange
for homegrown produce. They got more responses than expected and, along with other student volunteers, they tended several
gardens but soon wanted a centralized place where people in the community could get
involved. One thing led to another and, last spring, they were offered a
quarter acre plot in Emma Prusch Farm Park in San Jose. And Veggielution was born.
Situated below the intersection of the 101 and 280/680 freeways in the middle of suburban San Jose, it might seem like an unlikely place for a farm. But the land was once a working dairy farm in what was nicknamed "the Valley of Hearts Delight," and Veggielution is thriving there. With guidance from master gardeners and experts, along with a team of eager volunteers, they're producing bushels of crops—150 pounds of which goes to local food banks every week.
“Once the city saw how we transformed it, they started taking us seriously,” Amie says. A few months ago, they were granted use of an additional acre, and a hundred people helped break ground on June 20. Draft horses plowed and dished, and volunteers planted a third of the acre (shown above) that day.
Amie wants Veggielution to be a community resource where people can learn about agriculture and the related issues of health, the environment, and social justice. "Access to healthy food should be a right," she says.
Anyone can take part in the farm's weekly volunteer days, and go to regularly-held classes on a range of topics—this Sunday you can learn about mushroom cultivation. "In cities, you don’t see farms," Amie says. "We want to give people that experience and to dig into it."
And if you’re free Saturday evening, you can attend the Bounty of Heart's Delight fundraiser which starts with appetizers at the farm, followed by dinnner at Eulipia—all made with local, sustainably-grown food, of course. The event supports Veggielution’s new program for local high schoolers who’ll learn not only about farming, but also about leadership, communication, and community issues.
"By making something happen, we're hoping that others see it's possible," Amie says. "We want to be the hub of local food in the South Bay. And we want to grow awesome food."
