When I accompanied one of my mentors to a speaking event at Eastern Market during my first week as an intern, I was amazed by how many people he knew. Walking through the market, it seemed like every third person stopped to say hello and have a quick chat. Visiting farms around Detroit these past couple weeks, I found that the DPFLI director never hesitated to strike up a conversation with whoever was working or volunteering that day. At pizza night last Wednesday, nearly 50 people showed up over the course of a few hours, and all of them were greeted warmly and joyfully. This theme of community and connections has been a constant throughout my internship so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My research site is part of many different networks: urban farmers in Detroit, MSU Extension workers, and the Brightmoor neighborhood. Through these connections, we exchange resources and information, mutually supporting each other. For example, we benefit from our connections in that some of the seeds at our farm come from Keep Growing Detroit; many of our transplants also come from other local farmers. Our site supports other farmers as well, as the director works to educate other growers on urban agriculture\u2013a few weeks ago, we traveled to KGD so he could give a lesson on integrated pest management. It seems like for whatever we need at our site, one of my mentors knows someone who can help us, and on the flip side, people can come to us for advice or technical support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’ve become much more appreciative of the value of talking to people and building strong connections through this experience. Both at my internship and outside of it, DCERP has been an amazing program so far because of the other people who are part of it. Getting to know the other fellows, learning about their work sites, and going on group outings has helped me feel more at home here. For the remaining half of my time here, I hope to continue building community and working to create mutually supportive networks like those I see functioning at work every day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I accompanied one of my mentors to a speaking event at Eastern Market during my first week as an intern, I was amazed by how many people he knew. Walking through the market, it seemed like every third person stopped to say hello and have a quick chat. Visiting farms around Detroit these past […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18306"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18307,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18306\/revisions\/18307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}