November 2023 Sprouts

Dearest community,

The first frost of the season signals a change of direction for Growing Hope and local growers and farmers alike. At the farm, summer crops are removed as we transition to only growing in the hoop houses. Our teens remain active on the farm and throughout the community, sharing what they learn about crop planning and seed starting. The kitchen is bustling, as always, and we are excited to celebrate Khadi, who graduated from the kitchen into a brick-and-mortar earlier this year (be sure to stop by next time you’re looking for a place to eat)!

One culmination of this autumn whirlwind of excitement is the return of the Indoor Winter Farmers Market this Saturday!

The Winter Indoor Farmers Market will provide a warm and vibrant escape from the cold at the Ypsilanti Farmers MarketPlace (16 S. Washington). The Winter Indoor Markets continue Growing Hope’s commitment to providing the community access to fresh, local food and supporting our outstanding local businesses. In addition to fresh produce and handcrafted goods, we proudly accept various payment options, including SNAP/EBT, Double Up Food Bucks (a program that doubles SNAP dollars spent on Michigan produce), Prescription for Health, WIC Project FRESH, and Senior Market Project FRESH.

For those who prefer online shopping, we are pleased to continue offering local products through the Ypsi Area Online Market. Customers can conveniently place their orders online and pick them up at 16 S Washington St on Tuesdays from 3:00 PM to 7:00 PM. This online shopping option is perfect for those unable to attend the in-person market. SNAP/EBT and Double Up Food Bucks are accepted through the online market.

We eagerly look forward to welcoming the community to the Winter Indoor Markets, ushering in the 2023 winter season with warmth and togetherness.

In solidarity,

Julius

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Georgia Gilmore & The Club From Nowhere

By Julius Buzzard • February 18, 2026

During the Montgomery Bus Boycott, when formal fundraising was surveilled and criminalized, Georgia Gilmore organized something deceptively simple: a kitchen network . Known as The Club From Nowhere , Gilmore and other Black women sold pies, cakes, and home-cooked meals to quietly raise money for the movement. Their anonymity was protection. Their food was infrastructure. For over a year, as the boycott stretched on, these funds paid for carpools, gas, and daily survival. While history often centers on speeches and marches, Gilmore reminds us that revolutions are sustained behind the scenes by those who feed people, organize logistics, and keep the lights on. Her kitchen was a site of resistance. Her recipes were tools of liberation. At Growing Hope, we honor this lineage every time we invest in food entrepreneurs, incubator kitchens, and cooperative models. When food businesses are community-rooted, they do more than generate income; they fuel movements . Never underestimate what food can do. And never forget who has always been doing the work.

Fannie Lou Hamer & the Freedom Farm Cooperative

By Julius Buzzard • February 11, 2026

“If you have 400 quarts of greens and gumbo soup canned for the winter, nobody can push you around.” Fannie Lou Hamer said this not as a metaphor, but as a lived experience. In 1969, after being evicted from her plantation home for registering to vote, Hamer founded the Freedom Farm Cooperative in Sunflower County, Mississippi. The goal was simple and radical: Black families deserved land, food, housing, and economic independence, without having to ask permission. Freedom Farm grew vegetables, raised livestock, built homes, and supported cooperative ownership. It addressed hunger and poverty at their roots, refusing the lie that liberation could come without material security. Hamer understood what we still grapple with today: political rights mean little without food sovereignty . Voting doesn’t protect you from hunger. Legislation doesn’t replace land. Dignity requires access to the means of survival. This is why Growing Hope centers farming, education, and entrepreneurship together. Food sovereignty is not just about what’s on your plate; it’s about who controls the systems that decide who eats .

The Black Panther Party & Free Breakfast

By Julius Buzzard • February 4, 2026

In 1969, the Black Panther Party launched the Free Breakfast for Children Program , serving tens of thousands of children across the United States every single school day. Not as an act of charity, but as a declaration. The Panthers understood something the dominant systems refused to acknowledge: a hungry child cannot learn, organize, or imagine a future . Feeding children was a political act. It was protection. It was strategy. Volunteers cooked before dawn in church basements and community centers. Children were served breakfast while learning about Black history, self-determination, and collective responsibility. The state noticed and felt threatened. The FBI labeled the program “the greatest threat” to internal security, not because it was violent, but because it worked. And it worked so well that the U.S. government was forced to expand public school breakfast programs nationwide . Mutual aid didn’t just meet immediate needs; it reshaped public policy . This is food sovereignty in action: communities identifying harm, meeting their own needs with dignity, and building power in the process. At Growing Hope, we carry this legacy forward. When we insist on dignified access to food, when we support farmers markets as sites of connection and not extraction, when we center youth and Black leadership, we are walking a well-worn path. When communities feed themselves, systems change.

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