​Matt and Chris had the pleasure recently of doing an interview with one of our newest volunteers, Mary Williams. We love her enthusiasm and the commitment she brings to Green Bridge Growers. Enjoy their conversation and all the gifts Mary brings to our work!
 
Matt and Chris: Hi Mary, thanks for talking to us today about your involvement in Green Bridge Growers! It’s always great for our supporters to know more about the great volunteers who contribute their time and talents with us. Could you share your own background in farming or gardening, and how you got interested in it?

Mary: I've loved growing plants since I was a little kid. I helped my Mom with her flower gardens, and my grandfather taught me how to grow vegetables. Since then I've always had a garden, no matter where I lived. In college I studied horticulture. After graduating, I moved to Maryland and started working as a grower in a horticulture training program for people with disabilities. Some of the crops we grew in our five greenhouses were poinsettias, lilies, mums, house plants, annuals and vegetable starter plants. There was a garden center on the property where customers could buy the plants.

M & C:  How did you hear about Green Bridge Growers, and what attracted you to our work?

Mary: Well, when I moved to South Bend I started hearing about Green Bridge Growers from a lot of different people interested - and I was! I was interested in volunteer opportunities so I thought it would be a very good fit for my background.  I love the idea of growing sustainable food through aquaponics and I'm happy to be learning about it!

 M & C:  What interested you most to want to work with people with disabilities, either autism in particular, or disabilities in general? How might you have worked with people with disabilities before? What was the work like, and what did you enjoy about the work?

Mary:  I was close to people with disabilities as a child, and I think that was a factor that drew me into this work. I had two neighborhood friends with physical disabilities. I was in school with them for twelve years. They were fun, adventurous, and I saw how they bravely dealt with challenges. Also, my cousin has Down syndrome and she's a great, kind person and I always enjoy seeing her. When I was in college, I enjoyed working on a vegetable gardening project with people with developmental and intellectual disabilities. I learned quite a bit from one of the participants who had grown up on a farm.

Finally, I worked for several years at a horticulture training program for people with disabilities and I was fortunate to get to know those participants very well. The work day was 6, 7 hours long and everyone had to work together to get the crops grown and sold. Sometimes the work was hard, and the greenhouses would get very hot in the summer. We would get poinsettia cuttings in the late summer that our participants would pot up. Every December I loved seeing the greenhouses full of spectacular blooms and how proud everyone was to have grown them. Right after that we would start getting ready for our busy spring season, sowing flats of seed and potting up cuttings.  May was incredibly busy. We had five greenhouses bursting with flats, pots and baskets of annuals and vegetable plants that needed to be sold within a few short weeks, and somehow it would always get done.  It was wonderful to work with such an amazing group of people!
M & C: What things have you enjoyed most about volunteering with Green Bridge Growers so far?

Mary: I've enjoyed the enthusiasm of the participants. I like how in the space of an hour and a half, we can pick a crop, cook up a great dish, and share it with everyone at Hannah and Friends. It's very satisfying to see people ask for seconds! I love working with everyone I've met at Green Bridge Growers. It's a great concept, and I look forward to watching it grow.

M & C: What's your favorite crop to grow and eat? Do you have any special recipes do you enjoy that use this vegetable?

Mary: I'd have to say tomatoes for sure, you can't beat a fresh picked home-grown tomato. I enjoy eating them fresh - I just love drizzling them with olive oil and a little fresh basil. I also like making stuffed tomatoes and pasta sauce. If I have a bumper crop of cherry tomatoes, I roast, freeze, and enjoy them all winter long!
 
Here’s one of the recipes I love the most with cherry tomatoes. I look forward to making it with everyone this summer and I hope Green Bridge Growers supporters everywhere will enjoy it: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/212896/caprese-appetizer/
 
M&C: Thanks for talking to us today, Mary! And thanks for everything you do to help Green Bridge Growers! 

At Green Bridge Growers, as we go in to 2017 we are excited to build on our work from the past year. There are a number of things to be especially proud of at our different locations around the community.
 
Our Hannah and Friends greenhouse continues to be a place for us to seed our vegetables and nurture them to a point where they can be transplanted to our grow beds and outdoor growing area.  We experimented with a number of new varieties of greens and herbs to better understand ideal temperatures and growing conditions, their rate of growth and what factors influence the size of our seedlings - and which of our seedlings eventually tasted the best and were everyone’s favorite for our farm to table recipes! This work is great because it is very hands-on and all of us involved are learning a lot about greenhouse farming.
 
In our work at Hannah and Friends, we are proud to have begun a project that we’ll complete next year. We are transforming the raised beds in the outdoor gardens to accessible beds so all of the Hannah and Friends participants with different abilities can take part in planting and harvesting. This terrific project is spearheaded by Melissa Tomas, an amazing volunteer of ours. We were also very happy to grow bumper crop of potatoes and tomatoes. Two of our favorite, tastiest vegetables!
 
Other highlights included our very successful Downtown Skywalk Garden in South Bend, which is a wonderful and fragrant place to visit. Especially when it’s winter outside! Herbs and a lot of greens and even flowers are doing great there. We enjoy helping South Bend be a more sustainable city. And what we grow there makes the most wonderful teas – my favorite is lemon balm tea. It’s an herb that makes a very soothing, fresh tea! In 2016, we also took aquaponics into the classroom through our Aquaponics Across the Curriculum program which ran at Edison Intermediate Center in South Bend last year. We partnered with the sustainability program at Notre Dame and the science education and communicative science programs at Saint Mary’s College. Lots of learning about STEM that was very hands-on!
 
At our expansion site, we are nearly finished building our first two greenhouse structures. We are very happy that so many groups this fall came out to the farm to lend their help and expertise. Programs like the Knights of Columbus, GreeND, Professor Susan Latham’s students from Saint Mary’s College, and various grad and alum programs at the Mendoza School at ND were terrific volunteers. We’re thrilled to have had their help!
 
 Growing lots of fresh, local food for the community is what I’m looking forward to the most in 2017. All of us are excited that people with autism will get training and jobs. That brings a lot of hope! On the farm this year, I know I’m really going to enjoy the chance to produce food sustainably. That’s really important for our community and we are happy to contribute that way.
 
--Chris Tidmarsh