Job Description

Apply Online at https://my.americorps.gov/mp/listing/viewListing.do?fromSearch=true&id=43113

Job Purpose Summary
The Production VISTA member will help mold the CCUA’s Urban Farm into an interpretive and educational community tool. The Production VISTA position will run volunteer workdays, give farm tours, and implement a comprehensive series of workshops. The position requires someone who is a competent, effective communicator, with lots of self-initiative. This is a full time position.

Duties
• Workdays Head volunteer workdays. Communicate with volunteers the tasks for the workday. Act as a resource for volunteers regarding CCUA as an organization, workday tasks, and more detailed information pertaining to the farm. Connect with interested parties to schedule and implement special group workparties. Record and file information for every volunteer.
• Tours Create a set of comprehensive tours that includes information about the farm and the mission of CCUA; tours created will vary with age group, specific interest, etc. Pursue interested organizations, schools, and clubs for tours; take care of all tour logistics (record and file number of participants, age of participants, affiliated organization, etc.). Create interpretive signs for the farm for permanent display.
• Workshops Coordinate with appropriate organizations and individuals to create and implement a workshop series. The VISTA is responsible for all logistics regarding each workshop, depending on the subject the amount of preparation will vary. Be present at each workshop to introduce the topic and CCUA. Record and file number of attendees and their email addresses.

Skills Needed
• Fast learner
• Self-motivated
• Good communication with a variety of people (both written and verbal)
• Be able to receive and give orders
• Gardening experience

Job Description

Apply online at https://my.americorps.gov/mp/listing/viewListing.do?fromSearch=true&id=43112

Job Purpose Summary
The position of the Marketing VISTA exists to improve the capacity of CCUA’s Marketing Coordinator. The Marketing VISTA is expected to take a leadership role in improving and managing CCUA’s produce markets. The Marketing VISTA will assist the Marketing Coordinator with special events. The Marketing VISTA will promote CCUA by creating advertisements and distributing information about CCUA’s programs to the public. This is a full-time position.

Duties
• Improve and develop Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for the on-site and off-site farmers market, including an efficient sales tracking system.
• Manage the on-site and off-site farmers market.
• Improve and develop SOP for post-harvest handling procedures at the Urban Farm.
• Enhance CCUA’s market website.
• Develop, write, publish, and distribute monthly e-mail newsletters.
• Maintain CCUA’s social marketing presence.
• Organize and execute CCUA’s informational and interactive booth at the Columbia Earth Day celebration in the spring.
• Organize and execute CCUA’s Harvest Hootenanny Fundraiser in the fall.
• Organize the weekly potlucks, record the number of attendees.
• Promote CCUA through a variety of mediums.
• Design advertisments, PSAs, and press releases.

Skills Needed
• Fast-learner.
• Self-motivated.
• Communicate well with a variety of people: written and verbal
• Able to confidently give orders.
• Able to respectfully take orders.
• Marketing
• Graphic Design
• Event Planning
• Knowledge of gardening and vegetables
• Flexible
• Good attitude
• Teamwork

Hip hip hurray!

As some of you know we were awarded a grant from Americorps VISTA (via the Missouri River Communities Network) where we will receive the service of three full-time service-members here in Columbia and one in Boonville. These VISTAs will help build the capacity of CCUA to carry out it’s mission to Educate, Demonstrate and Advocate for Urban Agriculture and local foods, here in Columbia. We are looking for hard-working, self-motivated, and passionate citizens to join us, enhancing the local food system.

We have already begun accepting applications for the Americorps VISTA positions. Three positions will work with CCUA, here in Columbia. A fourth VISTA will be working in Boonville with the Cooper County Healthy Lifestyle Initiative to establish an Urban Farm there. We will stop accepting applications on December 19th, so if you are interested, please apply now! Anyone over 18 years old is invited to apply, there is no upper age limit!

Those who are accepted into the positions will be sent to Albuquerque, NM for a national VISTA training in February and their year-long service in Missouri will begin 2/28/12. This grant will last for three years, so VISTAs will have the option to re-apply at the end of their year. These positions offer a modest living stipend, health insurance, and an end-of-service cash or educational award.

For more information and to send in your application, please visit the links below.

Urban Farm Outreach
http://www.columbiaurbanag.org/blog/2011/11/outreach-vista-job-description.shtml

Urban Farm Marketing
http://www.columbiaurbanag.org/blog/2011/11/market-vista-job-description.shtml

Urban Farm Educator (Production)
http://www.columbiaurbanag.org/blog/2011/11/production-vista-job-description.shtml

Boonville Urban Farm Development
https://my.americorps.gov/mp/listing/viewListing.do?fromSearch=true&id=43133

Please forward this information on to anyone you think may be interested. You can contact Adam Saunders if you have any questions regarding these positions adam@columbiaurbanag.org

We look forward to seeing your applications soon!

Our on-site market at the Urban Farm and our participation at the Farmers and Artisans Market are finished for the season. Our remaining crops will be sold to restaurants through the fall and early winter. Thanks to all of our many and loyal customers throughout the season!

Volunteer workdays are also closed for the season. Things are cooling down for us and we look forward to seeing everyone next Spring!! Thanks to everyone who came out this year and helped make the Urban Farm so productive!

Harvest Hootenanny

We would like to thank everyone who attended the 2nd Annual Harvest Hootenanny, including volunteers and sponsors for making the fundraiser event such a success. The event was held on Saturday, October 1st and over 650 people attended the harvest celebration at CCUA’s Urban Farm. Live music played while participants ate City Slicker BBQ chicken, Patchwork Bratwurst, Legacy Beef Burgers, Sunray Tempeh, Happy Hollow Salad, Uprise Bread, St James Wine, Broadway Brewery Beer, Chestnuts from MU Agroforestry, and many more local goodies. Participants walked through the interpretive farm while urban chickens clucked, city bees buzzed, and flowers blossomed. Live music and games kept Columbians of all ages entertained. A live and silent auction helped raise money to fund CCUA’s educational mission. A cooking class for eight with Sycamore’s Chef Mike Odette was sold at the live auction for $900! In total over $7,000 was raised to be used by the Center for its programming. This great event shared the harvest of CCUA’s Urban Farm and many other local growers bringing light to the importance of Columbia’s local food system and the vital role that farmers play in everyday life. The event’s coordinator Billy Polansky said “We would like to thank all of our sponsors, volunteers, donors, and community members for making this event possible. Without this community support we would not have the capacity to carry out our educational programming.”

Heres what we’ll have at our live auction, silent auction, and and raffle this Saturday at our Harvest Hootenanny! Come on out to the Urban Farm from 4-7pm.

Live Auction:

Dumptruck Load of Mulch & delivery
Heartfelt Rug & Skeins of Yarn
Truckload of Alpaca Manure
Canning Kit (Pressure canner & accessories & CCUA Produce)
Chicken Kit (2 hens, chicken feed, waterer, CCUA urban hen workshop)
Green Home Kit (sun tunnel & home energy audit & shower filter)
Cooking Class with Chef Mike Odette (8 people total)
Acupuncture
Wheelbarrow (w/ pumpkins?)

Silent Auction:

Mustard Seed: 3 Chocolate bars & $25 Gift Certificate
Yoga Pass to Alley Cat Yoga (4 classes) & cat salt shakers
XL Long Sleeve Mizzou T-shirt
Kids Mizzou Hoodie with stuffed Sheep
Child’s size sheep apron & stuffed sheep toys
All things wooly (2 skeins yarn & assorted sheep)
Pig in an Apron (apron w/ 2 pig napkin holders)
1 pair earrings + display
1 pair earrings + display
1 pair earrings + display
Earrings & necklace + display
Carrot Photo
Home Energy Audit
Home Energy Audit & Ceiling Fan
At home movie kit: 9th st rental, popcorn
5 scoops + 1 pint elderberry jam
5 scoops + 1 pint elderberry jam
Art & Icecream (5 scoops, housewife book, journal, pendant)
Ice Cream 5 scoops
One bad lamb-a-jama (one jar jam & one beanie baby lamb)
DIY Breakfast Kit (1 jar jamb, chicken basket of CCUA eggs, granola, tea, local honey, CD)
Raw Food Class & $25 CCUA produce
Dinner for 2 at Abigails
Moon Valley Massage & CD from Clare
Home Spa (Makes Scents gift basket & gift certificate, chapstick, CD)
Gratitude CD
Cycle Extreme Bike Tune-up
Grdening apron & bird art
Slow Food Basket
Mizzou Long Sleeve Mock Turtle Neck

Raffle:

Happy Hollow Farm CSA summer 1012
Energy Link Home Audit
Energy Link Home Audit
Free Tune up Walts

Yeeeee-HAW, it’s a Hootenanny!

The Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture will be holding it’s 2nd Annual Harvest Hootenanny on Saturday, October 1^st 2011 from 4 to 7 pm.  Come out to the Urban Farm, located at 1209 Smith Street, for an evening of fun, food, and games for the whole family.  The Center is celebrating a successful growing season and wants to share the harvest with you.  Food and drink are free, so come out and let our Grill Masters will serve you Legacy Beef Hamburgers, Patchwork Farms Bratwurst, Urban BBQ Chicken, along with grilled Urban Veggies.  We will also be roasting and selling chestnuts! Visit the silent auction for local art and goods.  Listen to live music and play yard games; there will be something for everyone.  Volunteers will be giving tours, and information will be available about the Center’s programs.  Event coordinator Billy Polansky says, “If you’ve heard about us, but haven’t been to any events, this is the opportunity to come meet your urban farmers.  We want to celebrate this year’s harvest with you, down on the farm…in the city.  Come on out for food, fun, and music, its gonna be a hootenanny!”  CCUA suggests a donation of $5 – $20 per person for this event. For more information about the Harvest Hootenanny, visit ColumbiaUrbanAg.org or call 573-514-4174.

Learn the fundamentals of creating a landscape that not only offers beauty but bounty! Choosing to grow edible plants can save money on groceries, improve family dietary nutrition, sustain resources, and attract and support a diverse range of species like birds and butterflies. Classes will offer valuable knowledge to homeowners and professional landscaper alike. The course will focus on the identification and cultural requirements for the most popular and productive edibles, their installation and sustainable maintenance and important design considerations. Students will have the chance to practice what they learn with hands-on activities in collaboration with the Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture.

Classes are every Monday from 6-8pm at the Career Center, beginning September 26th and ending October 17th.
The fee for all four classes class is $59.

For more information or to sign up please contact the Columbia Area Career Center 573-214-3803 or www.career-center.org/adult

We’ve got an important issue coming up next week. On Monday, July 18th the city council will vote whether or not to re-zone a part of our Urban Farm to C-1 (Commercial). We need your support! Please come to the council meeting and speak up or write your city council representative to let them know you want a YES vote on the re-zoning of CCUA’s Urban Farm at 1207 Smith Street. If this passes, CCUA will be able to once again sell produce from the Urban Farm. We have the support of our neighbors, the North Central Neighborhood Association, and the Planning and Zoning Commission has voted to recommend our re-zoning to the city council. Sales direct from the Urban Farm are crucial to the efficiency of our operation.

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City Council Persons:

Mayor: Bob McDavid mayor@gocolumbiamo.com
Ward 1: Fred Schmidt ward1@gocolumbiamo.com
Ward 2: Jason Thornhill ward2@gocolumbiamo.com
Ward 3: Gary Kespohl ward3@gocolumbiamo.com
Ward 4: Daryl Dudley ward4@gocolumbiamo.com
Ward 5: Helen Anthony ward5@gocolumbiamo.com
Ward 6: Barbara Hoppe ward6@gocolumbiamo.com

If you don’t know what ward you live in, here is a map http://www.gocolumbiamo.com/Maps/wards.php
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Re-Zoning to C-1 WILL:

* Open a market for fresh, healthy foods in a part of town where grocery stores are non-existent.
* Allow CCUA to sell it’s own produce from it’s own farm.
* Allow CCUA to sell other locally-produced products at it’s farm.
* Provide the option to sell prepared foods.
* Provide the option to create and sell value-added goods.
*
Create an economic niche for CCUA; compared to other types of agri-tourism, the Urban Farm is very accessible and the proximity to a hundred thousand Columbians is a niche which no other farm fills.
* Stimulate Economic Development…
o The Urban Farm directly funds two full-time salaries.
o The Urban Farm provides job-training through Columbia’s CARE program.
o The Urban Farm provides internships to university students.
o The Urban Farm trains volunteers to supplement their income by growing their own food.

Re-Zoning to C-1 WILL NOT:

* Diminish the character of the neighborhood.
o Commercial fits the character of the neighborhood, the Urban Farm is surrounded by commercial activity on the Business Loop (North), and industrial uses (South).
* Allow for a large-scale commercial activity to move in.
o The re-zoning request is only for a small portion of the Urban Farm. The selected site is narrow, off of a main thoroughfare, and it slopes down away from the street; this site is inadequate for any commercial development other than our intended use.
* Create a risk of the land being sold.
o Our landlord, Mark Stevenson of REMI, has signed a conditional 5-year lease extension (to December 2016) for our entire farm if the one parcel is successfully re-zoned to C-1. This guarantees Urban Agriculture at that site for at least the next five years.
* Conflict with the city’s long-term plans.
o The Metro 2020 Plan, shows our farm as an “Employment District” and “Commercial District”. C-1 zoning is consistent with these districts.

Thank you for your support, if you have any questions, feel free to contact me!

Billy Polansky
Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture
billyp@columbiaurbanag.org
573-514-4174

Starting immediately we’re changing the Farm Stand times to Mondays only 4-7pm at Patchwork Farms, 1108 Rangeline. We’re having trouble spending so much time away from the farm. Once our market makes it back to the farm we’ll be back on track for MWF. Since today is Memorial Day, we won’t have a market today.