Category: Consequences
The Trifecta
I celebrate fifteen years clean today, it’s World AIDS Day, and it falls on Giving Tuesday this year. The stars aligned to grant a day of lightness at the end of a onerous year. I hit the Trifecta! My Advent meditation yesterday was about the intersections in life – those places we encounter strangers, friends, family, and most importantly, God. I am deeply grateful for the intersections in life that brought me to this day.
Today’s meditation was about choices; especially how we choose to see the world. Fifteen years ago, I had a moment of clarity in the darkness around me. I had a choice – stay in the darkness or venture out into the light. The world (or at least my perception of it) has changed dramatically since then.
I’m not foolish enough to say, “Look what I did!”. I didn’t do squat. My previous intersections with people should have left me where I was. Yet, it was those same people who surrounded me with love until I could fully realize the gift of grace – theirs and God’s…
People familiar with the disease of addiction know what I’m talking about. Those that aren’t can’t appreciate the value of “a new set of glasses”. There are times I share my recovery epiphanies only to have people look at me and silently say, “Duh”. It took me a long time to become aware, to grow up. I just hope and pray that everyone appreciates the depth of God’s grace. I hope that your “grace moment” was gentler than mine.
Addiction has consequences. Mine was AIDS. The bad choices I made became physically evident on April 17, 2006. I was devasted and extremely fearful. Today is different. I’ve chosen to be public about my status despite the stigma that still exists. Secrets die in the light. I always find it ironic that my clean date fell on World AIDS Day.
It’s become more of a chronic disease rather than the death sentence I believed to be initially. My wife tells me we are a “magnet couple” – she’s negative and I’m positive. However, UNAIDS reports that globally, almost a million people died from AIDS-related illness in 2019. Moreover, there were as many as 220 million new AIDS infections in 2019. Those number get lost with the current coronavirus pandemic and lowered fear of the disease culturally. It hasn’t gone away folks!
I get to celebrate Giving Tuesday today as well. Fifteen years ago, I wouldn’t have even heard of “Giving” Tuesday. I knew about “taking” and that certainly wasn’t limited to one day a week. Today I understand the importance and true value of giving. That doesn’t simply mean money (although I’m going to ask you to donate to Unity Unlimited. Inc. and Opal’s Farm in a bit!). It means being present and serving our community and one another.
I’ve been blessed to be surrounded by people who believe in service to their community. They’ve shown me the joy that comes from being a servant and helped me experience it myself. I am incredibly fortunate to work at Opal’s Farm and practice servanthood each day. What we do – the produce we grow, the food we provide – is serving our local community and helping end food insecurity one vegetable at a time.
We can’t do it alone. We depend on the help of our community to expand and grow and serve even more folks. That’s where “the ask” comes in! Please celebrate Giving Tuesday and this Holiday season by giving a gift to Unity Unlimited, Inc. Cash donations are not the only way to give and to serve. Maybe it’s your time and energy (we LOVE our volunteers!) at the farm our with Unity’s other programs (Secret Santa is upon us y’all!) and Juneteenth. Maybe it’s just coming by the farm to say hello or purchase our tasty, healthy produce. Whatever you can do is truly appreciated – on this Giving Tuesday!
Please go to www.unityunlimited.org.
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For more ways you can donate to Unity Unlimited, Inc.
Waste Not, Want Not: Composting at Opal’s Farm
One of the Core Values of Opal’s Farm is the practice of regenerative urban farming. We take the role of stewards of the land and resources we’ve been granted very seriously. From the outset we were determined to farm organically and recycle as much as possible to build our soil health and limit waste. One of the ways we practice that is composting.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), food waste is between thirty and forty percent of the nation’s food supply. Research shows that the average American ends up throwing away $53.81 worth of spoiled food a week from their fridge, or $2,798 every year (Could you use almost $3,00 extra?) – and that doesn’t include commercial and restaurant waste (the restaurant industry estimates food waste related costs to be $162 billion a year).
What happens to all that waste? Not only is it a major contributor to food insecurity – it ends up in local landfills where it generates 1.3 pounds of methane emissions for every pound of wasted produce. Landfills are responsible for almost 15 percent of the country’s methane emissions and organic matter makes up the largest percentage of total landfill mass (22 percent).
Landfill space isn’t an abstract “someone else’s” problem. The City of Fort Worth’s landfill is filling to quickly. Although designed to last another fifty years, increased population and throwing out recyclable items has shortened landfill life to less than half of that. A new landfill is a major infrastructure investment that will surely affect every citizen’s pocketbook.
Opal’s Farm applauds the efforts like the City’s Residential Food Scrap Composting Pilot Program. It addresses individual residences. Efforts are also being made through the Code Compliance Department and the Blue Zones Project Fort Worth to gain commercial participation.
The Environmental Protection Agency reports that only 5 percent of food waste gets composted, which means 95 percent doesn’t…
Opal’s Farm uses 100% of organic waste created on the Farm. We started a compost program last year at the farm. Unsalable produce, hay donated by the Tarrant Regional Water District, and goat manure from Latte-Da-Dairies got us started. Grass, weeds, and plant refuse from the previous growing season was added. In Fall of last year, J. Davis Tree Company began bringing their wood chips by the truckload – much of already composted. The original compost pile has yielded approximately 20 yards (2 dump trucks) of rich composted soil for bed/soil development.
This year we added food scraps from the Culinary School of Fort Worth (thanks to Lauren at the Tarrant Area Food Bank Learning Garden for the hook-up!). A couple of months later, Blue Zones Fort Worth introduced us to Elrod’s Cost Plus Supermarket at 1524 NW 25th Street. Each Monday, the Produce Manager, Angelica, provides us with the unsaleable produce from the weekend. We’re averaging about 200 pounds per week from there.
We began picking up the culled produce from Foodland on 1212 Ayers Avenue a couple of weeks later. We consistently add 200-400 pounds of food waste that would have gone to the landfill. Moreover, all the produce boxes are broken down and recycled to lay beneath the woodchips we spread on our walkways. It’s an excellent form of natural weed control.
The result is a dark, rich compost that is added to the soil to build soil health and increase the yields from our tasty, locally grown produce. It’s a win-win for us, for the stores, and for our community.
We Can Do More
We give a huge shout out to Elrod’s and to Foodland for their excellent corporate citizenship. Other grocery chains have chosen to waste their produce rather than recycle it to local urban farms. We understand the lability concerns they have expressed but cannot understand to unwillingness to compost: a way of improving soil health and local crop yields.
Composting is not only beneficial for local urban farms and the municipal landfill. Composting can also provide jobs in our local economy. Someone must pick up the compost and take it to where it will be recycled. The more stores and restaurants that join the recycling effort would expand the pick-up route.
Currently, we can only do our pick-ups one day a week. We’re constrained by time and lack of staff at the farm to pick up all that available. Imagine if part of the training and hiring at Opal’s Farm was composting, pick-up, and delivery to Opal’s, other farms, or to Silver Creek Materials (the local composting firm and one of our vendors). It’d sure be cheaper than new landfill infrastructure (Did that get your attention Mayor Price?). You can urge your local Councilmembers to take a hard look at this. Innovation makes Fort Worth…
It takes money to implement such a program. ReFed, “a multi-stakeholder nonprofit, powered by an influential network of the nation’s leading business, nonprofit, foundation, and government leaders committed to reducing U.S. food waste” ( https://www.refed.com/about ), has laid out an excellent Roadmap to Reduce U.S. Food Waste. It can be done. Something to think about…
“We see these natural tragedies, which are the Earth’s response to our maltreatment. […] It is we who have ruined the work of God.” – Pope Francis
Our prayers go out for all affected by the brutal wildfires in California and Oregon. Stacy Harwood, our Volunteer Coordinator has family near the Oregon fires. Friday was spent following up on Fire Level Alerts and a lot of prayer. Please keep her family and all of the others in prayer.
Be Where Your Feet Are…
Thoughts from the Porch
Things in our world have changed drastically in the last few days. Don’t worry, I shan’t become one of the voices bemoaning the current toilet paper shortage. I’ve heard enough about that. The shelves are still empty and may be in the coming days. We’ve had to be a bit more resourceful about such matters – although I need to remind our family members not to throw baby wipes down the toilet.
I also need to remind everyone that COVID-19 is a respiratory illness, not a gastro-intestinal one. It’s unrealistic to believe that you’ll use up that truckload of toilet paper you bought in this lifetime, much less during a two-week quarantine. Please use your head, exercise a bit of common sense, and leave some for the rest of us. That’s all I will say about that…
I am trying, like everyone else, to adjust to the rapidly changing situation with the coronavirus pandemic. As I drove to my regular 9:00 Sunday morning meeting I noticed how few cars there were on the road. It’s never heavy at that time and day but it was eerily quiet this Sunday. State and county health departments are following Center for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines and limiting indoor gatherings to ever smaller numbers of people to prevent the spread of the virus. First, it was crowds of 500, then 250, and now 50. Moments ago, the White House said to avoid crowds of more than ten people and old folks should stay at home, period. Many churches were empty, opting for online or remote services instead. No wonder it was so ghostly quiet.
Social distancing has become a new normal.
One’s personal space just got larger. All I have to do to get through a crowded grocery store aisle is sneeze or cough – both of which are consequences of springtime pollen – and everyone gets out of the way. Sometimes allergies are a good thing. The absence of hugs and handshakes are painful though.
If it seems I’m being a bit flippant about this whole pandemic thing, I can assure you that nothing is farther from the truth. I’m taking very seriously. I check all the boxes for being at risk of becoming gravely ill if exposed – I’m over sixty, a borderline diabetic, and have a compromised immune system. I’m cautious around others but I refuse to allow fear and misinformation make my decisions for me. God knows, there’s enough of that already.
I hope to exercise a little common sense and get through this physically unscathed. It’s possible that most of us will do likewise. Unfortunately (and realistically), some will become ill and some will die. That’s what just the way this virus operates.
Then there’s the other consequences to be borne by people who can’t afford fifteen days or more of childcare, business shutdowns, and lengthy quarantines. Statistically, the vast majority of folks live paycheck to paycheck with little, if any cushion, for times like these. There will be some of you for whom this is extremely inconvenient. For most though, it will be life-altering and in many cases, devastating.
The physical, mental, emotional and economic outlook is bleak, and not only because there’s no toilet paper to be found – given the severity of the situation, you’d think cleanliness in one’s nether regions would be of less importance – but all is not lost.
I’ve been spending time monitoring social media and the comings and goings around my community. I discovered that for every tale of bare supermarket shelves, panicked hoarding, and greedy resellers there are ten or more stories of the coronavirus bringing out the best in people. Here’s what I mean:
- My “Next Door” neighborhood app is blanketed with messages of people wanting to help those who are older or immune compromised with getting groceries, medicines, etc. One of my neighbors living on Social Security put a “Need help” post up ad I’ve watched the constant stream of cars come to her home to deliver assistance.
- People offering to help with child-care for those who are required to work even though their kid’s Spring break has been extended in most districts.
- Companies like Apple that are still paying their employees while their stores are closed for the next two weeks.
- Each of the countless churches and other organizations that open their food pantries for anyone struggling with the current crisis.
- I was speaking with my ex-daughter-in-law yesterday and she told me of simply checking on the kid’s friends who were having to stay home alone due to the extended break and parents who couldn’t afford to miss work.
Thankfully, the list continues. I don’t know if it’s the same elsewhere. I would like to think so.
This pandemic and how to deal with it is uncharted territory for most of us. We’ve had scares in the past – bird flu, swine flu, and SARS/MERS (also in the coronavirus family) – but we haven’t seen a true pandemic in our lifetime. Despite the current Administration’s inept handling of the crisis and the plethora of wild conspiracy theories, lies, and minimalizations accompanying it, people show a resiliency that offers a glimmer of hope for human beings in general. My prayer is that we’ll fan that flame and take care of one another.
So, my friends, be kind to one another and yourselves. Don’t panic. “Be where your feet are”, as my wife often reminds me. Don’t rush or hoard. Wash your hands, cover your mouth when you cough, and think of others. Step back, take a deep breath and we’ll all walk through this one together. It may not eliminate COVID-19 but it sure can’t hurt…
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