Zenger Farm
Zenger Farm is a community-driven, urban farm/nonprofit located on the Johnson Creek Watershed adjacent to a thriving wetland, the entirety of which is located within the Lents district of outer SE Portland. This neighborhood has been referred to as a food desert, and is also a place where many immigrant families and other minority groups have aggregated during the last few decades amidst Portland's sprawling and furious urban growth/expansion. In today's industrial agri-giant model, it is an impediment that people and their children are so estranged from their food sources, a primary source of joy and nourishment for human wellbeing. Zenger Farm was founded in 1999 through a partnership with the BES, which had bought the farm from its previous steward Zenger Jr., to promote environmental stewardship and community connectedness. Zenger's mission statement goes thus:
"WE ARE A WORKING URBAN FARM THAT MODELS, PROMOTES AND EDUCATES ABOUT SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS, ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP, COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AND ACCESS TO GOOD FOOD FOR ALL."
"WE ARE A WORKING URBAN FARM THAT MODELS, PROMOTES AND EDUCATES ABOUT SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS, ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP, COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AND ACCESS TO GOOD FOOD FOR ALL."
Programs and Community Resources:
Zenger Farm offers a diversity of resources to the community of Lents and surrounding neighbors, operating in partnership with many different community participants, leaders, sponsors, and local organizers to bring about community resources (such as partnerships with neighboring school initiatives, BES, APANO, and the Lents International Farmer's Market.)
The farm operates three main branches of resources:
Zenger Farm offers a diversity of resources to the community of Lents and surrounding neighbors, operating in partnership with many different community participants, leaders, sponsors, and local organizers to bring about community resources (such as partnerships with neighboring school initiatives, BES, APANO, and the Lents International Farmer's Market.)
The farm operates three main branches of resources:
- Community Education (youth ed, seasonal camps, community classes, field trips etc.)
- Community Engagement and Development (community workshops, outreach, community chefs, resource networking etc.)
- Farm Operations (farmer internship, hands-on-experience/workshops, CSA partnership, sustainable business model etc.)
I currently intern for the Community Education and Development (CED) program at the farm. I have been involved with Zenger since August of 2016, and have had the opportunities to be a participant in many community-oriented events, as listed below:
- Community workshops are held on-site in our community kitchen, which include such themes as Cooking with the Harvest, Cooking with the CSA, Eating on a Budget, and Family Meal Planning. All are based upon the model of popular education, a method of community learning and building which values and empowers all participants.
- Community Chef workshops are also mainly held on-site. These are similar to community workshops except we host a community chef to lead the workshop. Community chefs are diverse in cultural backgrounds and are composed of participants who live in or near the neighborhood. Currently we have community chefs heralding from El Salvador, Mexico, China, Nepal, Bhutan, and the Philippines! The aim is to foster food education and understanding through a celebration of the cultural melting pot that is the Lents community.
- Farmer's Market events are held at the Lents International Farmer's Market (LIFM). Zenger helped to establish the market as a way to develop a food resilient and economically robust community of farmers - many of the vendors at LIMF are immigrants, and the market reflects a beautiful continuation of their heritage and origins. The market itself offers a SNAP benefits program, where they match up to $10 of SNAP credits in exchangeable tokens to use at the market. Farmers at Zenger sell produce and CSA's there every Sunday along with Youth Education recruitment, and CED provides outreach for Zenger's other programs through a free food sampling station, hosted by a community chef who provides a demonstration of seasonal cooking.
- Community Outreach events are similar to Farmer's Market events, except these outreach sessions are held at different locations and events, such as at the Jade Night Market or at the Fix-It Fair.
- Strategic Planning - this is my primary focus as a CED intern currently. The strategic planning process is basically an extended data gathering session where Zenger aims to transform itself to better fit the needs of its many stakeholders through a series of qualitative surveys/interviews. This process happens once every 3 to 5 years, and is a primary way to help Zenger realign its funding stream and shape its programs - SP essentially allows the farm to grow organically with the community it wishes to serve.
Current Strategic Planning Process:
The goal of our Strategic Planning (SP) is to become a more community-driven organization within the context of our established values, where the community leads the formation and outcome of our programs and we support them in this process. The four values we wish to uphold are:
My role is to assist the CED program managers in putting together the Strategic Planning guidelines such as questionnaires, survey points, data gathering, data organization, community engagement, etc.
This is a very exciting process for me. I am honored to have a role within this community of Portland, to see the possibilities of growth towards maturity instead of expansion, to really practice deep listening, to learn about the farm and its diverse programs, to share my knowledge with the community I am serving, to receive new knowledge from them, and to have my own voice heard and validated in a setting of communal leadership. Oh, and most importantly, I am establishing a strong relationship with the people and the food of this land - power to the people and freedom for food!!
The goal of our Strategic Planning (SP) is to become a more community-driven organization within the context of our established values, where the community leads the formation and outcome of our programs and we support them in this process. The four values we wish to uphold are:
- Stewardship - care for land, organization of resources (staff, funding, property, relationships, volunteers) and share in an equitable way to maximize community impact
- Nourishment - holistic health (physical, mental, social), community, care for each other and ourselves, culture, self-determination, community empowerment
- Knowledge - popular education, quality educational opportunities, shared knowledge: honoring the diversity and wealth of knowledge within communities, environmental education to local schoolchildren, enabling skills and resources, different learning styles
- Social Justice - food access, food sovereignty, equity in food system, acknowledging material-historical or systematic oppression, PARCEO statement
My role is to assist the CED program managers in putting together the Strategic Planning guidelines such as questionnaires, survey points, data gathering, data organization, community engagement, etc.
This is a very exciting process for me. I am honored to have a role within this community of Portland, to see the possibilities of growth towards maturity instead of expansion, to really practice deep listening, to learn about the farm and its diverse programs, to share my knowledge with the community I am serving, to receive new knowledge from them, and to have my own voice heard and validated in a setting of communal leadership. Oh, and most importantly, I am establishing a strong relationship with the people and the food of this land - power to the people and freedom for food!!