EPNI February Update: Outdoor Farming, Fundraising & Community Meetings
project updates
Fundraising
We are actively seeking founding investors to help develop the newly emerging East Phillips Community Real Estate Investment Co-op. This in-progress model will be founded on one person = one vote. We’re hoping to finalize this model by late spring, so if you’re interested to learn more about what this means, reach out to our fundraising manager at daniel@epnifarm.org!
If you’re interested in making a tax-deductible donation of any amount:
Mail a check to: East Phillips Neighborhood Institute// Attn: Daniel Colten Schmidt // 333 Washington Ave N Ste. #210 // Minneapolis, MN, 55401
Email daniel@epnifarm.org to donate in other ways
Outdoor Farming on the land adjacent to the Roof Depot.
EPNI is continuing to negotiate with the city and county around a land transfer to create outdoor farm landscaping on the Greenway parcel of land running along the Roof Depot building. Some of our collaborators in this work include:
Tamales y Bicicletas
MN Landscape Arboretum: Building raised beds, connecting EPNI to fruit tree growers, technical support and advice, signage and community education
Little Earth Urban Farm: Connecting produce and growing space to LE residents, engaging community members, providing insight on culturally-relevant food and programming
Red Lake Nation: Growing culturally relevant and medicinal crops for community members, bringing ceremony and cultural programming to the space
Midwest Farmers of Color Collective: Connecting site to larger world of BIPOC agriculture organizing, providing heirloom seeds through Ujamaa Seed Network
Questions? Email kieran@epnifarm.org
Cooperative Energy Futures partnership (CEF)
EPNI will be partnering with Cooperative Energy Futures to develop a rooftop solar plan with the hopes of powering this project, subsidizing energy costs in the neighborhood, and localizing energy production and distribution.
events
Community Meetings
February 24th recap
Thanks to all who joined! At this meeting, we focused on sharing the findings from our recent neighborhood-wide community ownership survey and surfacing a few potential ownership models for this project. We spent the rest of the meeting talking through those concepts together..
People rotated to different stations - each of which had an EPNI team lead facilitating small group discussions or visioning activities about what community ownership of the East Phillips urban farm project could look and feel like. We focused mainly on potential board structure, community membership, and profit distribution.
Our community ownership survey received over 120+ responses! That data will directly influence how we shape the ownership infrastructure of this project. Now, we’re working with the Shared Ownership Center at Nexus Community Partners to further analyze all the recent input we've received, and how to implement it (see graphics summarizing findings below)
March 24th
This month’s community meeting will be focused on sharing information and gathering feedback for the outdoor farm proposal. Come learn more about this component of the project and all the cool organizations partnering with us.
1-3pm, Little Earth Gym (2501 Cedar Ave S, Minneapolis)
Questions? Email sean@epnifarm.org
Office Hours
This is a casual way to meet some of our team leads as well as share your ideas, questions and feedback relating to the Roof Depot development project.
This month, our office hours will be held by Daniel Colten Schmidt (fundraising manager), Kieran Morris (outdoor farm manager) and Sean Lim (interim community outreach director).
March office hours:
3/7 & 3/21, 11am-2:30pm
2433 Bloomington Ave, Minneapolis
get involved
EPNI is in a really exciting and important phase of this project, so more help and input is always appreciated.
Find information about how to join EPNI volunteer teams - including fundraising, communications and community outreach - through this online volunteer form.
Tune in to EPNI’s biweekly online coalition meeting, Wednesdays at 5pm on Zoom, to hear updates about the project and other solidarity efforts. This is a place to bring your ideas and get to know each other a bit better!
Questions? email info@epnifarm.org and we’ll do our best to connect you to answers.