VISION invites anyone with a helping hand to get dirty with them at Earthworks Urban Farm in Detroit on Saturday morning.
Gather your friends, carpool to campus and let VISION services lead you to restoring your connection to the environment and community by getting you involved in social justice through a garden created for Food Justice.
VISION, Volunteers Incorporating Services in our Neighborhoods, is an organization on campus that engages with the community and deals with social issues.
“Food Justice is communities exercising their right to grow, sell and eat healthy food,” Haley Moraniec, the volunteer coordinator for VISION, explained.
“The challenge is a fun way for you to get introduced to a variety of social justice issues and actively engage with those issues through volunteer work,” Moraniec said. “Earthworks is one of my favorite community partners to work with. They serve their community and do a great job of educating about food insecurity and food deserts.”
VISION has built a rapport with Earthworks through past events, and with this weekend’s Volunteer Challenge they invite all residents in the area to become involved in this month’s focus on Food Justice.
Earthworks has a no-appointment-necessary, drop-in volunteer mentality, and is currently hosting volunteers on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to noon.
On the Earthworks webpage under Volunteer, there is a link to further information on this topic, food security and how Earthworks Soup Kitchen educates its patrons and volunteers to the content of food provided, and it offers additional community advocacy resources.
As a society, we have become dangerously disconnected from the land and the sources of food that sustain life. This honest statement being the first on the Welcome page of Earthworks website shows the structure in the title “Earthworks” twofold meaning.
The first referring to historical military earthen fortifications erected to protect from attack, while equally acknowledging the work the Earth produces itself and that we are shareholders in both its protection and production.
“A fun fact -- half of people (48 percent) who have volunteered for more than two years say volunteering makes them less depressed,” Haley informed. Feel better this fall and get dirty for a cause.
