Lansing Urban Farm Project

I grew up in rural Mason. For the last 19 years, I have worked as a foreign car mechanic. At Urbandale Farm, I hope to learn skills and practices that will lead me to a new career in organic farming where I can spend time outdoors working with nature. In my precious free time, I like to kayak and wander the forests and wetlands with my wife. Growing up in Lansing as the child of a single-parent household, I experienced firsthand how difficult it can be to find and afford quality meals in what is recognized as a food desert. Fortunately, there have been a growing number of programs and community projects working to combat food scarcity. I came to Urbandale in hopes of getting a closer look at what we as residents can do to increase our quality of life, improve local health, and become more self sufficient in one of America’s hungriest cities. I am a resident of the East side neighborhood of Lansing and really enjoy the sense of community here. I want to use this program to gain skills in urban agriculture to expand its use in the Lansing area. I am interested in making our food system more local and sustainable. I’m from Dollar Bay, Michigan, and am currently a senior at Michigan State University, majoring in the arts and humanities with minors in sexuality studies, gender studies, and peace & justice studies. I would like to work on finding solutions to issues faced by disadvantaged communities, using resources already available to community members. Urbandale’s practice of using reclaimed urban land for organic farming is a fantastic example of a community using its resources to create sustainable solutions. My time with Urbandale has been both inspirational and enjoyable, and I’m very excited to be learning about food production! Katherine, 2015 Urbandale Farm Manager and Apprentice Mentor Katherine grew up in Rockford, Illinois, finding refuge from the corn and soybean fields in the pockets of forest and prairie she sought. A lifelong learner, she studied varying disciplines until receiving her B.A. degree in Sociology, whereupon she decided to focus on the deficiency she saw in herself as well as much of society – the disconnect with Nature and the inability to produce one’s own food. Switching academic gears, she worked her way towards getting closer to understanding the miracle of plants by working on research and student farms while continuing school until completing her M.S. degree in Crop Science from the University of Illinois. Coming to Michigan five years ago, Katherine completed the Organic Farmer Training Program at MSU in 2011. Staying on for the next three years as the Farm Stand Manager, Program Manager and Instructor of the program, she learned a great deal about diversified fruit and vegetable production, as well as solidifying her passion of teaching others about growing plants and food. She is very excited to become a part of Urbandale as it combines both of these interests while being a friendly, exciting environment to work in. She has a passion for Nature, botany, chocolate and candy making, board games, cooking, and music, and can still be found in the forest most of her spare time. Ken D. Orlich has been living in the Lansing area since he graduated from MSU in 1991 with a BA in Telecommunications.  Telecommunications?  TV?  What does that have to do with growing food, building community, and local self sufficiency?  Well, nothing really and that’s why he decided a change was necessary.  The universe was listening.  He was soon enough laid off from his sterile TV job and, with the meeting of an amazing and patient woman, his life would change forever.  He would now have the time to pursue the knowledge necessary toward goals with a purpose higher than making money and chasing, like a dog to his tail, the “American Dream.”  At Urbandale, he now finds peace of mind through real, hard labor and a reconnection with natural systems.  He believes these are the roots of our being that we deny so at our