New Mural Nearing Completion at Roots CSA

Roots CSA Mural by Annie Stranger, Under Construction

This week, New York graphic artist Annie Stranger will be completing a mural at the Roots CSA, our charitable community supported agriculture project growing quite beautifully in Dalton Gardens.  The mural, on the side of a shed abutting the CSA, is bringing yet more life to the remarkable project which brings fresh local food to subscribers at all income levels.

Annie Stranger is the talented daughter of Linda and Scott Stranger, the Dalton Gardens landowners who have allowed a portion of their property to be used by the CSA to grow food. Annie, who also maintains an excellent food blog (www.chewonthis.org), was inspired to complete the mural during a visit home, where she was impressed by the CSA project in her parents’ back yard.

Thanks Annie!

UPDATE 8/3:  The Coeur d’Alene Press has a very nice article (and a finished-product photo) in today’s paper.

Read Full Post »

Roots CSA Successfully Supplies Spinach for Salad

Although the growing season has barely begun, we were pleased to see that our brand new Roots CSA has already gained some level of success. We’re big fans of one of our CSA’s big fans, and we were pleased to see that the nice folks at ilovecda.com were able to take some early harvest spinach and turn it into something that looks absolutely scrumptious. Check out the recipe here.

Read Full Post »

From Coffee Bean to Local Compost

One more Community Roots thing before the official-start-of-summer weekend. Our favorite Local Food Share and Roots CSA worker bee Korrine Kreilkamp reports back to our friends at DOMA Coffee that: “DOMA coffee bean chaff is being utilized at the Shared Harvest Community Garden compost and also at the Roots CSA compost. Sweet!!!!”

Indeed, KEA’s expanding local food operations are acutely aware of the need for quality organic compost to maintain soil fertility to grow food in our region.  By streaming reliable, local organic waste like DOMA’s into our compost, we’re able to provide reliable, organic fertility to our local soils. Meanwhile, DOMA is happy to be not wasting a waste product.

If only we could grow coffee around here. Then we’d really have something.

Read Full Post »

KEA to Launch Roots CSA

This posting from KEA’s local food hero, Korrine Kreilkamp:

After several successful years of collecting and distributing over 16,000 lbs. of fresh produce to feed the hungry, the Community Roots program of the Kootenai Environmental Alliance is creating a new way to further strengthen our local food system.

 Starting this spring, the program plans to build a charitable Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm in Dalton Gardens called “The Roots CSA.”  The CSA model is an arrangement between a farmer and the community. In exchange for financial support in the spring from a group of community supporters, the farmer commits to provide them with a box of healthy, sustainably grown food every other week throughout the growing season.

 What makes this CSA unique is that a large portion of the CSA shares will be accessible to families of limited means. These low-income subscriptions, offered at a discounted rate, will be supported by full-price subscriptions, low-income household sponsorships, and a significant percentage of volunteer labor.

 St. Vincent de Paul has partnered with The Roots CSA to provide low-income household referrals and a convenient food drop-off point at the new St. Vincent de Paul Help Center for produce pick-ups. Our CSA will focus on those households that, due to unforeseen circumstances such as rising medical costs or the loss of employment, are struggling to keep good food on the table.

“Many of the households that seek our services at St. Vincent de Paul could benefit from eating local nutritious food.” commented Jeff Conroy, Executive Director. “I see this The Roots CSA project as being a great way to enhance our existing life skills classes for low income households.”

photo by KEA BlackberryCam

 The project takes an unused piece of land in Dalton Gardens and turns it into a productive working landscape. In doing so it also allows a talented farmer, Caleb Goss, to market food directly to community clients and to demonstrate organic farming practices that inspire more agriculture in the area.

 In this challenging economy many people are in the midst of redefining themselves, and now is the time to close the loop in our charitable food system so that food handouts can become food how to’s.

If you would like to be involved as a supporter of The Roots CSA or if you would like to sponsor a low-income household for the season, contact Korrine Kreilkamp at rootsCSA (at) kealliance (dot) org

Read Full Post »