This Tree is Lit
Barb and I were on our way to a Music of the Baroque concert at the Harris Theater Monday, so we made a stop nearby to get our first glance of the Christmas tree in Millennium Park (which was just lighted on Friday). It’s quite pretty this year, and we’re hoping to make multiple visits.
All in all, as the song from the musical Mame goes, we need a little Christmas right this very minute (and rest in peace, Angela Lansbury).
Even when you absolutely love your work, you need a little break sometimes. So I’m going to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving today and start the holiday just a little bit early.
I’ve Got Plenty to Be Thankful For is an Irving Berlin song from the 1942 movie Holiday Inn, which also introduced White Christmas to the world. And I am truly thankful for the interest and support folks have shown for Local Food Forum. As of this minute, it has 674 subscribers, up 54 percent since the start of the year.
According to the metrics, nearly half of all subscribers open the newsletter every time I publish (which is often). To me, that means the newsletter has started to build a community around the goal of a better, healthier, more sustainable, more humane and fairer food system. And I’ll never stop trying to make it a bigger community.
I’m grateful that I get to write about the farmers and farmers markets and retailers and restaurants and social justice activists and nonprofits who together are affecting positive change at a time when so much of the world seems to be spinning backwards. You are awesome, and you are my inspiration.
I’ll pop up on Friday with photos of my Thanksgiving cookery, but mostly I’ll be catching my breath and getting organized for the next big push forward. Have a great holiday, eat well (and local), count your blessings, and be safe if you’re traveling.
These Great Nonprofits Need Your Donations
The following are the first nonprofit end-of-year fundraising appeals that I am sharing, with hopefully many more to come. A reminder to nonprofits, all you have to do is send me some words and a link to your donation page, and I will publish it.
Sharing this from the Eden Restoration Project page where they are raising money to plant 100 fruit trees in food deserts in the economically distressed cities of North Chicago and Waukegan.
The question this year is what would you do if the grocery stores just closed?
Our answer is to plant fruit trees and berry bushes and free access food gardens wherever we can. Since our inception we have put in 30 gardens, three dozen fruit trees, and many herbs and vegetables that will keep coming back year after year. In all of our gardens we have worked to build up the soil so that it is ripe for easy planting of new foods.
This year we want to expand that footprint in a big way with setting in motion the planting of hundreds of fruit trees throughout the North Chicago and Waukegan areas. We have partners in both areas that are ready to help with planting, locations, and equipment. All we need are the funds to make this all happen. And that's where we need you.
Fruit trees today run $35-55 per tree. Which is an absolute bargain considering that each tree can feed a neighborhood for 25 to 35 years. So for a $1 a day you could significantly improve the lives of dozens of people, decrease pollution, leave a lasting legacy for years to come.
We ask this year that you consider a reoccurring donation of just $1 a day. What most people can find in their couch cushion, you could help be the catalyst for changing a whole city. Please consider donating $1 a day and one day soon you will be able to walk around a true Garden of Eden.
Windy City Toolbank is a nonprofit that recently opened in suburban Elk Grove Village to provide low-cost tool rentals to community-based organizations.
According to the organization, “ToolBank empowers community based organizations across a wide variety of impact areas at their precise point of need by eliminating cost barriers to tools and equipment. The time and money saved by borrowing ToolBank tools leaves more available to support their specific missions and programs, and to perform essential work to combat some of the most deeply rooted problems facing our shared communities.”
Their fundraising appeal is short and straightforward. With the headline “Fill the Racks!” the fundraising page reads, “As we move into 2023 the Windy City ToolBank is gearing up to support nonprofits and community groups throughout the Chicagoland area. Help us stock our shelves with the tools and equipment these groups need to plan their most ambitious projects.”
This Guy’s an Epic Hero. Buy His Merchandise.
Richard M. Fierro owns the Atrevida craft brewery in Colorado Springs, Colorado. His wife Jessica is the brewmaster. Last Saturday, for fun, the couple, their daughter and friends went to Club Q, a gay nightclub, to enjoy a drag show when the evening was shattered by rapid gunfire from a hate-filled young man who never should have been allowed within a million miles of the gun in his hands.
If you’ve been watching the news, you probably have heard what happened next. Fierro is a combat veteran and while others ran for cover, he charged the attacker, and tackled, disarmed, and pummeled him with his own weapon, detaining him until police arrived. It is tragic that five people died in the latest of our national plague of mass shootings — including the boyfriend of Fierro’s daughter — but it would have been much worse had Fierro not responded with the reflexes of the combat veteran that he is.
We praise heroes like this but we don’t often have the opportunity to directly show our appreciation. Here’s how you can: Atrevida brewery has lots of merchandise for sale on its website. Buy something, for yourself or for a gift.
I have ordered the t-shirt in the photo above. The slogan on the front says, “Good intentions don’t change anything.” On the back it says, “Actions do!” Certainly a sentiment that resonates with me, and one that Mr. Fierro carried out in a life-and-death situation.