City Slicker Farms

We had an amazing end to October!  During the last week of October, we teamed up with Clif Bar and "In Good Company" to see just how many projects we could get done in one week and showcase the phenominal ways West Oakland residents are growing their own food.  We constructed four chicken coops with Crucible employees, Matt Wolpe and Kevin McElroy; partnered with two West Oakland households and built backyard gardens; provided composters, chicken coops (and chickens), fruit trees and drip irrigation to over a dozen backyard gardeners; landscaped one of our long-term West Oakland volunteer's backyard (he lets us keep our chickens there); and did some construction and clean-up at some of our community market farms.  We are so grateful to all of the folks at "In Good Company"...they are some of the hardest workers we've ever had. 

The week ended with a Harvest Festival on October 30th.  Our Harvest Festival was co-hosted by People's Grocery and we had other luminaries there, such as OBUGS, Oakland Food Connection, Kijiji Grows, and West Oakland Neighbors.  Entertainment was provided by DJ Twelves and Prescott Clown Troupe...we even had facepainting, tours of the community market farm, and pumpkin carving.  The Festival was a time to give gratitude and celebrate West Oakland and good food, as well as the new community market farm at Fitzgerald and Union Plaza parks.  We had over 150 turn out, even though it rained!  We would like to thank City of Oakland Concilmember Nancy Nadel and Peter Collier from Oakland Parks and Recreation for coming out and speaking.  We'd also like to thank the Clif Bar Foundation for sponsoring the event. It was such a fun time.

Thank you to all that have been participating and supporting our work and standing up for a just food system in West Oakland.  We are looking forward to next year's Harvest Festival.  Check out pictures from the Harvest Festival taken by Rebecca Meyer here!