Food Freedom Milwaukee Radio with Quinn Wilder

by Bridget Bishop

Let’s get one thing straight–Quinn Wilder has more to talk about than just healthy food.

Over the course of his career with UW-Extension, as a child welfare educator, youth development consultant, and now at the helm of his new nonprofit Food Freedom Milwaukee, Quinn has developed an idea of health that extends beyond body wellness. Tune in to his show and Quinn will share that health is a state of being not only of our bodies but of our community. Listen to his weekly guests and you’ll find that the food for thought is discussion on our duties in the community to care for and sustain our surroundings and neighbors.

November is historically a time when we turn to concerns of food security, at least in the northern hemisphere. Over the course of the growing season, Quinn has had a host of guests who are focused on native plants, permaculture, community gardening and other aspects of the food system. His trailblazers have been local growers, establishment owners, community organizers, and poets, and not necessarily from Milwaukee. In September, Jeri Baker of the nonprofit One Spirit, a sister organization of Food Freedom, joined to talk about the work her organization is doing for the Lakota people of the Pine Ridge Reservation.

It’s only natural that week after week of inspiring conversation led Wilder to want to take more action. He was already running a gardening program at Fratney School and teaching youth workers the benefits of children learning about gardening in his own consulting practice Quality Youth Development Consulting. This fall, he received 501c3 status on Food Freedom Milwaukee, which seeks to bring food sovereignty and achieve other sustainability goals through several programs.

Starting from the ground up, its first initiative is Pollinator 53212. It engages 53212 area neighbors in organizing and rejuvenating community gardens, revamping yards to become pollinator habitats, and other efforts to improve the surroundings where our insects and birds eat, breed and nest, which is crucial for a myriad of reasons. Controversy over legal lawn lengths has a fairly “lengthy” history in the City of Milwaukee. A recent guest on the show, midwife extraordinaire Eileen Neiholt, who has lived in Riverwest for three decades, reminded us that over 24 inches of growth is still subject to tall grass and weed violations. Assuaging neighbors who may not approve of un-mowed lawns (and No-Mow May actually gives invasive an advantage and inhibits native plants) or who use RoundUp for reasons other than keeping the occasional invasive in check means knowing how to have a polite, educational conversation with those next-door.

Beyond just basic nourishment, curing and preventing disease is crucial to investing ourselves in long-term sustainability. Nieholt discussed the benefits of nettle, which can be foraged easily in Riverwest, not just for women’s health but also those suffering allergies. Comfrey, the bane of cosmetic gardeners, but found in nearly every Riverwest yard, has had multiple cameos—its benefits are impressive as many swear by its skincare properties or even consume to fight inflammation; however, it also does double duty as compost-tea, a plant medicine for plants.

Sharing backyard tips brings us to Food Freedom Milwaukee’s second platform it hopes to implement, which is Garden Block Clubs. This initiative creates a framework that any block or group of residents can easily adopt to start up a shared garden or green area would allow neighbors to start working together without having to reinvent the wheel or formulate their own mini-neighborhood association. Visit a Canadian city like Toronto or Montreal and you’ll notice that every tot lot has a compost bin and community mulch pile—while we don’t have the sponsorship from our municipal government (yet!), what’s stopping us here from creating similar small-scale infrastructure? It sounds like Quinn has already put something like this in his own neighborhood, including a native plant nursery.

Anyone who has seriously considered going native has most likely been confronted with the cost of getting started. Local, organic nurseries that provide native plant starts are expanding, but the availability is still limited. Also beginners can be astounded at the price tag, not to mention trying to figure out the difference between natives, cultivars and “nativars” without a friend to explain the difference. Food Freedom offers free consulting, labor and start-up seedling kits for anyone interested in going native, which could be a tipping point for renters and homeowner gardeners who previously just couldn’t afford the cost.

Food Freedom Milwaukee’s other platforms include Business Incubator support via locally grown gardens and edibles, which eventually could lead to its own “Mobile Meals” program–mobile food businesses such as food carts, or potentially small-scale neighborhood meal programs. Working with smaller groups organized around a block garden, one can envision bumper crops that support weekday soup luches or one-dish meals that could feed seniors, kids and anyone else in the neighborhood in summer.

Not surprisingly, Wilder has also incorporated school-learning Garden Labs into another envisioned program offering. This offers the potential of school district funding while also bringing the focus back to long term sustainability. Teaching permaculture and eco-home economics to young people has the promise of long term environmental return on investment, ie. changing consumption patterns on the demand side at an early age.

Eventually Food Freedom Milwaukee also hopes to offer funding such as microloans or mini-grants for local garden projects. Sometimes, the capital to be shared isn’t financial. By accumulating a base of interested, knowledgeable volunteers as well as the physical tools that tend to accumulate behind a greenhouse that can be donated or lent, the organization will be able to spread the wealth contained in healthy soil and the shared knowledge base.

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Beyond just basic nourishment, curing and preventing disease and investing ourselves in long-term sustainability