[if you have difficulties reading this newsletter see our online version at www.kccua.org/urbangrown.htm]
 
In this issue:
- Water. Electricity. Shade.
- A Grantwriter's Quandary:  Which Box to Check?
- International Spotlight:  Small Urban Farms Yield Big in Havana
- Field Notes from the Kansas City Community Farm
- San Diego Non-Profit Helps Shape Policy to Support Urban Agriculture
- Strategic Plan to Guide KCCUA into Next Decade
- For Iowa Student World Comes Together at Refugee Farm
- Calendar of Events
 
(The top banner shows farmers from the New Roots for Refugees program at the Juniper Gardens Training farm
selling produce at the Brookside Farmers' Community Market in Kansas City, Missouri)
Water. Electricity. Shade.
Basic ingredients of a working farm come together at Juniper Gardens Training Farm
 
By Katherine Kelly

Farming is one long exercise in problem solving, and starting a new farm from scratch is problem-solving  intensified!  It is part of what makes the process interesting; it also makes you appreciate some remarkably “basic” things.  At the Juniper Gardens Training Farm, as we’ve worked hard to establish “basic” systems for start-up farmers, we’ve seen sudden, hard-won break-throughs that are miraculous and surprisingly joyful.

Water: If you remember, the spring was incredibly wet, with more rain every few days than I can remember in 11 years of growing in Kansas.  But getting water to the fields for watering in new transplants and for ongoing irrigation was a struggle!  While we were trying to work out affordable options for water, we were lucky to have a trailer and a 400 gallon water tank donated by Dr. Becky Turner, one of our CSA members.  For about two weeks, we filled the tank at the farm, drove it slowly and carefully to Juniper, and then filled 5 gallon buckets and handed them to the women and their family members who then hauled them out to their fields and hand watered.  Their adeptness with the buckets was instructive - in the refugee camps where they have lived, water is a precious commodity and hauling water for your family is a regular chore.  After too many trips of hauling 5 gallon buckets, Larry Davis, a farm volunteer and donor, adapted the tank with a pump that made this process easier.  An incredibly helpful woman at the utility company (a master gardener herself) was instrumental in helping us get a permit to use the fire hydrant as a water source.  (This won’t be a permanent solution, but it was the fastest and cheapest and will hold us for a while.)  Ami Freeberg, an intern from Grinnell College, wrestled with the details of getting water from the hydrant out to the fields and community gardens; having too much water pressure can be as big an issue as having too little when you are working with low-pressure drip irrigation systems!  Finally, one day, the kinks were worked out and we had water.  You turned a valve and there it was, pouring out.  One of the best moments in this process for me was being down at Khadija’s plot, watching her turn the valve on, and seeing her face when the beautiful spray came out of the watering wand.  A miracle.

Electricity: To produce good quality vegetables in the Midwest, you really do need refrigeration and cooling.  Lew Edmister, the Training Farm Manager, figured out that a quick and affordable solution to our need for buildings and refrigeration was a rented cargo container.  He  adapted an 8’x40’ container that comes with an air conditioned office to function as a walk-in cooler, a cool room for vegetables that don’t do well in low-temperature refrigeration (tomatoes, winter squash and sweet potatoes) and a place for tool storage.
 
All this is a fine idea, but it requires electricity!  Here again, what seemed like a straightforward process was more involved than it first appeared (anyone who has ever done rehab work on their house or built a house knows about this).  After much calling, collection of bids, and exploring options, the BPU and the electrician put a rush on getting an electrical pole and all the needed plug-ins!  Last Friday, Lew called me, held the phone up to the AC, and there it was, the cool humming of an AC unit.  The next set of tasks is to get the walk-in cooler set-up; this should happen by the end of the week.  But, for now, there is an air conditioned room that can keep the produce at a respectable 60-something degrees.  Standing out in the field when the heat index is over 95, having a cold room right on hand is amazing.  The women farmers walk into the room, breathe deeply, and you can see what a blessing it is to have this coolness and the control it will give them over bringing good quality produce to market.  Cool air.  A miracle.
 
Shade:  Picture a wide open field, and the Midwestern sun beating down on your head.  Your children have been playing at the edge of your plot, your tools and harvest totes are nearby.  Everything you touch is hot.  The nearest shade is the nearby playground, some 700 feet or more away.  So, Jamie Jeffries, a good friend of Lew’s and KCCUA’s and owner of a construction company, helped design and install roofing between our two cargo containers at the training farm.  Other paid and volunteer help climbed up on the roof of the containers to attach corrugated metal sheeting.

Now, you can walk to the middle of the field and under the shade structure; a nice breeze blows there and the heat begins to leave your head and body.  Within the next two weeks, Lew and various volunteers and helpers will have built wash stands for each of the farmers so they can clean and wash their vegetables out of the direct sun, with proper tubs and drying space.  The House of Rocks is donating gravel for a gravel pad.  If you close your eyes under the shade and imagine, you can see the women washing their vegetables, hear the water splashing, and listen to the gentle whoosh of air as they carry totes into the walk-in coolers.  A miracle.
 
You can email Katherine at katherine@kccua.org.
A Grantwriter's Quandary:  Which Box To Check?
Urban agriculture's benefits go beyond traditional funders' categories
 
By Semie Rogers, KCCUA Development Director
 
We've all taken multiple choice tests.  And we've all felt stuck sometimes when more than one answer seems right, but we have to pick just one box.
I often find myself in this quandary, because KCCUA’s out-of-the-box thinking doesn’t easily fit the categories most funders list on grant applications. We fit in many categories.  I see this as a good sign--We benefit Kansas City in so many ways it can't be categorized.

- Are we an environmental organization?  Yes. 
- Do we do community development or revitalization?  Yes.
- Do we promote healthy lifestyles?  Yes.
- Is this a life/job skills training program?  Yes.
- Are we helping refugees and immigrants?  Yes. 
- Do we teach entrepreneurial business skills?  Yes. 
- Is our focus to support family farms?  Yes.
- Do we address the root causes of poverty and hunger?  Yes.
- Do we grow fantastic tomatoes?  Heck, yes.
 
Okay, maybe I've never seen that last one as a category on a grant application.  But the rest are real.  I often wish we had a chance to “check all that apply.”
 
An urban farm can do so many things.  It can feed a neighborhood, providing nutritious fresh produce.  At the same time it reduces “food miles”—benefiting the environment.  It can turn vacant lots into productive land.  It can be a community anchor and educational center for a neighborhood.  Urban farmers become community leaders—working with city government to solve problems and improve their neighborhoods.  They draw community members into dialogue around community issues and around nutrition.  One “Here, try this tomato,” can start a chain of positive events: try tomato, then try beans, then eat healthier all around.  The next thing you know, the person who tried one tomato is volunteering on the farm, or gardening in their back yard.  They’re getting more exercise, eating better, feeling more connected to their neighborhood and the world. Then one day, they lean over the fence to their neighbor and say, “Here, try this tomato.”

KCCUA’s work goes even farther than that—from creating a training farm so low-income people can start farm businesses, to helping immigrant farmers translate their knowledge to American culture, to promoting a comprehensive regional food policy.
What motivates you to support KCCUA?  Is it health issues, the environment, community development, hunger or just the great tomatoes?  I’d like to hear which boxes you’d check off.  Fill in the blank if you're thinking outside the box!
 
You can email Semie at semie@kccua.org.
International Spotlight: Small Urban Farms Yield Big in Havana
Graduate student and former Kansas City horticulturalist reports on raised bed farming in Cuban capital

By Maria Whittaker

Maria Whittaker is a nontraditional graduate student in environmental studies at the University of Michigan and the Institute of Tropical Agriculture (INIFAT) in Havana, Cuba, where she is studying intensive urban agriculture.  She was a lawyer and horticulturalist / landscape designer before she found her passion for urban agriculture.  She is researching children's participation in urban agriculture with the goal of alleviating child hunger, malnutrition and poverty in poor communities.  Before she entered the graduate program, Maria was a regular volunteer on the KC Community Farm.

My passion for urban sustainable agriculture as a solution to hunger, malnutrition and poverty led me to Cuba this summer to attend a conference on organic agriculture and to research Cuba’s intensive urban organic practices.  Conventional agriculture with its reliance on the combustion of petroleum and coal for fuel as well as the production of agricultural chemicals is not only expensive, but also one of the biggest contributors to global warming.  As a result, scientists and farmers have been searching for highly productive methods of farming that require fewer inputs.  Nowhere has this been truer than in Cuba.  Faced with a US economic embargo, the country lost 83% of its trade in 1989 when the USSR dissolved, sending the island nation into severe economic downturn.
 
Today, urban organic agriculture is an important component in reaching the basic nutritional requirements of the Cuban population and Cuba’s continuing recovery from its economic crisis of the 1990s.  The organiponico is the most important, productive technique of this intensive, urban, organic practice.  The organiponico is essentially a raised bed, contained on all sides, approximately 100 feet long by 4 feet wide and 1 foot deep. The beds are built parallel to each other approximately 1.5 feet apart, running north and south if possible.
 
The organiponico is filled with about 50% high quality organic material such as humus de lombriz (worm castings) or all types of manure which improves the structure and adds nutrition and living organisms to the soil; 25% composted waste such as rice husks or coffee bean shells; and 25% native soil.  In order to conserve the fertility of the soil, no less than 20 pounds of organic material per 10 square feet per year is added to the container.
 
Depending on the plant, seeds can be sown directly in the container or seedlings can be transplanted.  Cubans plant approximately 56 species of vegetables and fruits in organiponicos in the course of a year, from spices to tomatoes, cucumbers, beets, onions, carrots and lettuce.  By containing the soil, its quality can be maintained indefinitely.  Much less soil is lost through erosion. The contained bed also retains moisture.
 
Repellant plants such as marigolds, vinca, the flower of Jamaica, basil, and neem trees are planted around the containers at various distances to repel harmful insects such as aphids and various beetles.  Sunflowers and corn are planted around the beds to attract beneficial insects such as lady bugs and lace wings.  Sunflowers and corn are also planted in rows throughout the field to change the flow of pests in the field.  Colored traps, sticky paper or plastic funnel-shaped bottles, usually yellow or blue, are stationed throughout the beds to trap harmful pests.
 
Biological controls from the neem tree and tobacco plants for example, and predator insects, as well as biofertilizers are used to increase productivity.  The beds are meticulously cleaned of weeds or undesirable plants.
 
A sprinkler system is used to irrigate the beds instead of the more efficient drip irrigation so as to reach all four rows of plants in the bed.  Gravel or tubes in the beds provide drainage.  Organiponicos can be partially protected by a shade screen or completely protected by a metal screen house or not protected at all.  Companion planting and crop rotation are practiced.  At the entrance of every agricultural unit is a place for workers to disinfect their feet and hands to increase sanitation.
 
Good nutritious soil and adequate water are the basis for healthy, resistant plants and are key to the organiponico in Cuba.  The organiponico has increased food productivity in Cuba enormously without a concomitant increase in the use of fossil fuels.  In one year, Alamar Organiponico in Havana, where I volunteer, produced 44 pounds of produce per 10 square foot, a very high yield.
 
Furthermore, as one experienced farmer movingly pointed out, Cuban farmers may not be as productive as they were using conventional agriculture, but the costs in terms of energy consumption, are much less.  Less, too, are the costs to society in terms of adding to global warming and other forms of pollution that threaten to destroy the life-support system we all depend on.
 
For more information on urban and organic agriculture in Cuba, see Sustainable Agriculture and Resistance: Transforming Food Production in Cuba, Fernando Funes, Luis Garcia, Martin Burque, Nilda Perez, Peter Rossett, 2002, Institute for Food and Development Policy.  Agriculture in the City, A Key to Sustainability in Havana Cuba, Maria Caridad Cruz, Roberto Sanchez Medina, 2003 International Research Development Center.
 
You can email Maria at kippapao@yahoo.com.
Field Notes from the Kansas City Community Farm

By Dan Heryer

"Today, we harvest." This is the Kansas City Community Farm mantra since mid-June.  We have to dig the potatoes or they will rot as the soil heats up.  We must pick the beans or they will oversize and lose their sweetness. The tomatoes will become overripe if we don't get them now.  "Today, we harvest!"

Abundant produce has come forth from our farm thus far this season.  Our soybeans bear edamame prolifically in brilliant green bunches.  We have had more summer squash than we've known what to do with.  Just this past week, we had our biggest tomato harvest to date with almost 950 pounds going to market.  Harvest, harvest, harvest.  But in all of the excitement of abundance, we sometimes still lose our handle on the future.  The future may bring weed pressure and disease and pest problems.  Could some of these problems have been prevented if had given greater focus and attention to the future in weeks past?

The situation reminds me of our national economic planning over the past fifteen years that has led to our present economic standstill.  Major companies like General Motors failed to plan for high fuel costs while developing new products.  Individuals failed to plan for higher interest rates when purchasing homes.  Our present actions impact our lives, our community, and our environment in ways that we cannot always foresee.

At the farm, we see this play out on a number of levels.  In our attempt to ensure that we will have enough produce at market, we sometimes plant more than necessary.  If we then must spend all of our time harvesting, we neglect weeding on newer plantings.  As more and more time is consumed in keeping up and catching up, we fall into the trap of either compromising our ideals and using stop-gap measures in our soil, pest and labor management, or not managing these areas at all.  Our focus on the problems of today impacts our farm both through the rest of this season, and in years to come.

The good news: we organic farmers at least attempt to take the long view. While conventional agricultural industry continually reacts to its current problems without regard for sustainability, the Kansas City Community Farm and the organic growing community strives for long-term solutions.  We recognize our missteps and attempt to resolve them while conventional approaches deny any mistakes at all.

As we weed through messy beds, I hope to reflect on how we might change our systems for the better.  May the constant pulling and the pressure on our knees serve as motivation for improvement.

You can email Dan at danheryer@kccua.org.
San Diego Non-Profit Helps Shape Policy to Support Urban Agriculture
City adopts resolution to support urban ag, includes urban ag in Master Plan

By Julie Osborn

Julie Osborn is the founder of Community Farms and Gardens (CFG), a nonprofit organization supporting urban and local agriculture in San Diego County California and beyond.  Osborn's interest in agriculture began when she was a child growing up in the country outside of Vacaville in Northern California, then resurfaced when she was an undergraduate student at the University of California at Davis, and again when her son, Kai, turned two. Seeking to recapture the connection to the community, the land, plants, animals and food that she felt in her own childhood, Osborn now involves both of her children in her work.  Kai serves as Child Executive Officer and baby Kaia is their Infant Intern.  Find out more at www.communityfarmsandgardens.org.

Here in San Diego, we are relatively behind the times when it comes to urban agriculture, but one can argue that being in this position has its advantages.  For one, we don't have to pave the way - or unpave the way, as the case may be - for much of the work we are doing, because others have already done that for us.  No matter what change we are trying to effect, it seems most useful to be able to point to instances where other entities have already instituted the same or a similar change effectively.

When we learned that our city's general plan was being updated, we looked to other cities such as Portland, Seattle and Chicago, and referred to their policies in support of urban agriculture when we formulated our own proposal.  The proposal itself was simple and straightforward; we identified contexts within San Diego's draft general plan where we thought it might be appropriate to insert the words "community farms and gardens" and we outlined our suggestion, along with representative examples from other cities.  The next step was to circulate the proposal among various other organizations and agencies, asking for their endorsement, until we felt we had garnered sufficient support.

In the process, we discovered that although many individuals and organizations were generally supportive of our proposal, official endorsements were hard to come by.  In some cases, Boards of Directors hesitated to reach an agreement to sign on, and this slowed our progress.  At the same time, we invited key individuals to visit a community farm in our area.  We felt fairly confident we had gained a valuable supporter when one city staffer held his son's birthday party at the farm, and his wife returned as a regular volunteer.  Eventually, our proposal was accepted and the words "community farms and gardens" were inserted into the General Plan of the City of San Diego.

On a side note, during this period we had also been lobbying Craigslist, the largest classified ad medium in the world, for a new Farm & Garden category.  When the general plan proposal passed, I mentioned this to Craig in an email and pointed out how even a bureaucracy like the City of San Diego had acted faster on our request.  Within hours, our new category appeared.  Check it out if you haven't already.  Here's a link to Kansas City's Farm & Garden category http://kansascity.craigslist.org/grd/.

As they say, success breeds success, and following close on the heels of our positive experiences with Craigslist and the San Diego General Plan, was the passage of a San Diego City Council resolution in support of community farms and gardens.  The process whereby we managed this was even less complex.  Rather than seeking endorsements from other entities, we went directly to a member of the City Council, a friend of a friend who was known to be supportive of this and other related environmental issues.  Out of this meeting, we emerged with the task of formulating the resolution ourselves.  With a bit of brainstorming, editing, and careful study of` the typical format of a city council resolution, we crafted one of our own.  A date was set, and the Council voted unanimously to support our resolution, making June 26, 2007 Community Farms and Gardens Day in San Diego.  A largely symbolic gesture, Community Farms and Gardens Day does not repeat annually, but we can always refer back to this event when we seek the Council's support for farm and garden projects in the future.

One of the best ways to gain maximum benefit from an accomplishment is to share it.  On Community Farms and Gardens Day, we held a press conference at the site of an urban farm in the making, and invited various individuals to speak, including a representative from the City Council.  And now that we have tackled our city's general plan, we feel better equipped to offer input to the numerous community plans as they are updated for different neighborhoods around San Diego.  Then, when the timing is right, we hope to effect change on the level of the city code.  Another possibility is to effect change through zoning.  I do not know what the feasibility of introducing a new zoning designation for urban agriculture would be, but I have heard that something similar has been done in other cities, and that certainly gives us hope.

Readers interested in the exact wording of the City Council resolution may view it here: www.preventioninstitute.org/SA/policies/policy_detail.php?pid=233. San Diego's General Plan is available online at www.sandiego.gov/planning/genplan/index.shtml. The words "community farms and gardens" appear on pages C-44 and C-45 of the Conservation Element.  The words "community gardens" appear on pages RE-17 and RE-29 of the Recreation Element.

You can email Julie at communityfarmsandgardens@gmail.com.
Strategic Plan to Guide KCCUA into Next Decade
Through guided deliberation Board & Staff develop vision for organization's future
 
By Tina Hoover, KCCUA Board Chair
 
As KCCUA has grown, we discovered the need to move from our somewhat “organic growth” to that which a Strategic Plan would guide. So we, the Board of Directors along with Katherine, Daniel and our consultant, Dodie Jacobi, began our journey with a board retreat nine months ago. We gathered with our collective and differing ideas, our view of where we have been and where we would like to go, our learning experiences and our accomplishments – and Dodie had the job of distilling them to words.  It was a long and difficult yet exciting process. Several drafts and discussions later, we are pleased to have adopted the Strategic Plan at our last board meeting.
 
The Strategic Plan will guide KCCUA into the coming decade with clear purpose, intent and method. It was time for us to organize strategically for our long-term sustainability. This foundation will guide our decisions, inform current and future stakeholders and commit us to our community at large to do what we say.  It will allow us to continue to build credibility, a crucial piece for a relatively new not-for-profit. 

Now, for the farmers and gardeners who are thinking to themselves: "Strategic? Tell me the strategic plan for when there is too much rain and then not enough rain, not hot enough early enough and then too hot for too long?" Some days the strategic plan is to just support each other, to encourage others to come to the market on a rainy morning, to remind each other that we are all in this together. We all benefit by growing Urban Farmers. The urban landscape is changed, the diets of the community members are improved, availability of locally grown healthy produce is increased and residents are connected to healthy food production.
 
We are looking forward to the years ahead, much has been accomplished thanks to all of you, our deepest gratitude for sharing the journey!  If you'd like a copy of the KCCUA Strategic Plan, please contact Katherine Kelly at katherine@kccua.org.
 
You can email Tina at tmhoover@mac.com.
For Iowa Student World Comes Together at Refugee Farm
Grinnell College intern finds experience at KCCUA life-changing

By Ami Freeberg

I had no idea what to expect when I rolled into Kansas City straight off finals week at Grinnell College. Every year Grinnell funds dozens of students to participate in summer internships for eight weeks of their summer vacation. In search of an internship I randomly stumbled upon KCCUA's website. "Great!" I thought, "A workplace where I don't have to sit in an office or dress up every day!" I soon found out about the New Roots for Refugees project, which seamlessly fit my academic interests as a Sociology major with a concentration in Global Development Studies. Furthermore, I grew up in a family and community that were very conscious of local organic food, farming, and gardening, so the New Roots project resonated on a personal level as well.

My first day on the job was the first day of planting at Juniper Gardens. I joined the staff loading flats of plants from the greenhouse at KCCUA and hauling them over to Juniper Gardens in Catholic Charities' bus. We tried to systematically divide the plants among the refugee farmers but the women were so eager to get things in the ground that it quickly became a free-for-all handing out varieties of tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, onions, and much more.  Over the next several weeks we continued to give out plants and seeds which the women diligently planted in the rough, dry, rocky ground. Each woman's quarter-acre plot of land quickly filled up with a wide array of crops, planted with diverse methods based on varying cultural practices. Some of the women applied the concept of straight rows in parts of their plot, while others established snaking rows of tomatoes or mounded beds of potatoes running in different directions. The staff had ordered shovels, spading forks and rakes to dig in the hard ground, but the women all requested hand hoes to work bending over or squatting down. One day I tried to show a community gardener how to step on a shovel to remove a large clump of grass which was difficult to remove. I jumped on the shovel to sink it further into the ground and the Burundian woman just looked at me, laughed, pointed at the shovel and said, "No good!"

"No good" and "Good" became the most commonly used words on the farm. Most of the refugee farmers speak very little English and with no common language, communication could sometimes be a challenge. But to my surprise, the lack of shared language was not as much of an obstacle as I had expected. Some days we had meetings or field walks with translators, but most of the actual development of the farm was accomplished through demonstration, hand gestures, and a few simple phrases. Every day was an adventure, navigating diverse cultural lines without crossing boundaries. We attempted to teach the refugee farmers proven techniques for organic farming in Kansas City without disregarding their cultural experience of farming. Despite the limited communication, working alongside the women to trellis tomatoes or watching the smiles on their faces as they watered their gardens with the irrigation system I helped build, cultivated mutual respect, trust, and appreciation between myself and the women.

Sadly, my eight-week internship ended a week before the farmers were ready to take their produce to the market. Although I missed the culmination of all the hard work the women, the staff, and many volunteers put into Juniper Gardens during my two months there, being a part of such an empowering project altered my world view. Before my summer working with refugees, I believed I would spend much of my life traveling abroad working on development projects. After working at Juniper Gardens, I realize that there are incredible opportunities to have international experience and the excitement of cross-cultural interaction, right here in the US, even in the Midwest!

I loved seeing each woman take control of her garden and as the crops grew, I could see confidence and pride grow inside each woman. I already miss working with the women and the staff at Juniper Gardens. During my one free weekend this summer, I am planning to go back to Kansas City to see fulfillment of my work at Juniper Gardens. I arrived on the first day of planting and there is no way I would rather spend my weekend than helping the women harvest and sell their hard-earned produce.

You can email Ami at freeberg@grinnell.edu.
Calendar of Events
 
Canning Classes at BADSEED, Thursdays, August 7, 21, & 28, 5pm - 10pm. BADSEED Market, 1909 McGee, KCMO 64108.  These canning and preserving workshops feature "canning guru" Lori Watley.  Students will make  pestos, salsas, pickles, relishes, chutneys, and more with local/seasonal produce.  For details and sign-up contact Lori Watley at lori_morninglory@yahoo.com.
 
Pests, Disease and Weeds: A Growing Growers Market Gardening Workshop and Farm Tour, Sunday, August 17, 10am - 4:30pm, St. Joseph, Missouri.  Presentations by farmers and extension professionals on organic and sustainable insect, disease and weed controls.  Lunch provided.  For workshop details, go to: http://www.growinggrowers.org/Pages/workshop.htm or contact Laura Christensen at growers@ksu.edu or (816) 805-0362.
 
Whole Foods Farmers and Food Artisans Road Tour '08, Sunday, August 17, 11am to 3pm.  This summer, Whole Foods Market is again demonstrating its commitment to local agriculture and food production by hosting a one-day event called The Farmers and Food Artisans Road Tour ’08.  Join them for this fun outdoor fair with live music, cooking and product demonstrations throughout the store and activities for the kids.  Best of all, buy a Local Meal and help raise funds for the Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture!
 
Harvest Celebration at the Municipal Correctional Institution, Thursday, August 21, 9:30am, 8100 Ozark Road, Kansas City, MO, 64129.  The garden volunteers, the contributors, MCI staff and the inmate gardeners invite you to celebrate with them and enjoy the tomatoes, peppers, herbs and flowers of their first garden.  No RSVP necessary (to learn more about this project check Agriculture Returns to "The Farm" in the April 2008 issue of Urban Grown.)
 
Garden of Hope: A cooking class to benefit the New Roots for Refugees Program, Tuesday, August 26, 7pm - 9pm.  Hands on class taught by Kiersten Firquain of In Home Bistro will feature delicious seasonal foods. Class will be at St. Pius X, 5600 Outlook, Shawnee Mission, KS 66202.  Class fee $40.00. Contact Rachel Bonar at 913-621-5255 x 187 or rbonar@ccsks.org for workshop and registration details, or go to www.newrootsforrefugees.blogspot.com.
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