Four Weeks and Flying

It is week 4 into my summer associate VISTA experience and as of right now I’d say that the projects that Catherine and I are working on are going well. Though I am new in terms of this whole experience, I feel that I have learned a lot about the role that community gardens play in our area and the difference they make for communities. In some of my own research, I learned that by shifting 25% of food spending from imported businesses to local providers, 1 in 8 people who are unemployed could find work. This is something I would have been clueless about before, something that makes my experience this summer exciting because it harnesses the idea that I will always be learning something new. In terms of my own projects, my progress has been slow but steady and successful.

I am currently trying to do research on farms that have been created by a man named Rich Hoban, who works for the Cuyahoga County Board of Developmental Disabilities creating work opportunities for adults with developmental disabilities. Mr. Hoban is on a quest to provide 100 job opportunities to those who experience developmental disabilities (dd) by opening farms that can be the host of such job opportunities. I think that what Mr. Hoban has done is amazing, and would really like to see something similar happen within the mental health community. Therefore, my goal is to communicate with groups and individuals in the community to get a similar project started. I think right now the thing I need to work on most is organizing the information that I have gathered from my conversations with Rich, while balancing the other duties that Catherine and I are trying to fulfill. I feel I need to get the ball rolling as far as communication with other agencies this summer, so that I can at least make a small difference in this kind of work.