This past month, we’ve been very pleased to have Amanda Buccholz work with us as an intern. Amanda is a senior at Indiana University South Bend minoring in Sustainability through IUSB’s Center for a Sustainable Future.  Amanda grew up in South Bend, and has a special interest in caring for the earth and learning to grow food with sustainable, organic methods. She is also especially interested in helping people with different abilities reach their potential. For all these reasons, her placement at Green Bridge Growers has been a terrific fit for her. 

Through her work, Amanda has learned a host of gardening and growing skills. She’s worked to grow crops both inside our aquaponic greenhouse and in other settings where we're growing, like the downtown Skywalk and  the Hannah and Friends garden areas. She’s planted, transplanted, and repotted our herb starts, and has dug right in to mulch and tend the rows and rows of potatoes, beans, and melons outdoors. Amanda’s curiosity and pleasure in working here has helped keep things on task and made each day a joy.

What does she enjoy most about her work with Green Bridge Growers? “I really like that so much here is repurposed, or reused,” she said.  Since sustainability is an important part of how we ourselves work, we are always looking for ways to make further use of equipment and materials. It’s fantastic Amanda observes that ethic applied through our work on a daily basis.

Like sustainability, aquaponics is based on a cyclical system, where water is conserved and re-used. That comparison was very important to Amanda, who finds aquaponics a great way to grow vegetables productively and practice conservation.

We love that Amanda has so many shared interests with our venture. It has been a great experience having her do her internship practicum with us for the past month.  Green Bridge Growers is  excited to see where this very bright young woman travels from here with all her gifts and interests! We’re very grateful for Amanda's diligence, her great follow-through, her marvelous way with the residents and participants  at  Hannah and Friends, and her terrific love for organic growing.  Interns like Amanda really do sustain the future and make a real difference!

Like good soil, the fathers in our lives root us, ground us, and help us grow.  On a day that celebrates fathers, Green Bridge Growers is grateful for the role that one very special father, Henry Pilarski, played in shaping and giving life to our venture.

Hank was the dad and grandfather of our co-founders, Jan and Chris. The possibility of turning yards into flourishing gardens, and gardens into places of nourishment and hope, was an essential part of Hank’s outlook and upbringing. Raised during the Great Depression to an immigrant family, Henry appreciated that the family farm was what sustained them. It provided jobs and income, gave his family the opportunity to eat healthfully, and was a source of pride.  The Pilarski family farm was one of the original urban farms in Milwaukee and referred to as a “truck farm,” where produce after harvesting was put in the back of a truck and sold directly to vendors, markets, and restaurants. Dad learned about the art and science of farming from his parents, who had farmed in Poland, and by exchanging tips and ideas with a lively community of fellow farmers on Milwaukee’s south side.

Many years later, after Hank was grown and raising his three children, gardening became an important way to pass on family history and share a whole body of knowledge about healthy living.  The family’s backyards might have been on the small side, but Henry created pocket gardens and managed to grow quite a lot of food for his family.  Eggplant, tomatoes, dill, cucumbers fresh from the garden – that was to live like kings and queens! Henry taught his family to enjoy the feel of soil through their fingers, feeling the potential of what could be created, nurtured, and grown.

Henry always got excited talking with friends about what was growing in the garden. Cooking with what he had himself grown made him feel like a terrific provider for his family. And the excitement of growing new varieties, new crops, and experimenting with new techniques always gave him great energy and hope.

Farming has changed over the years, but Henry’s joy and pride in growing is a big part of who we are today as a venture. To connect with the soil, to grow new things was a way to nurture and bring something unique to life. Those lessons are an important part of who we are, at the heart  of Green Bridge Growers. And this Father’s Day, we are thankful Henry’s spirit is such a part of our venture and our mission. Planting seeds of hope, indeed.