This week’s highlights included a site visit and meeting with Tim Kean, President & CEO of Second Harvest Food Bank of East Central Indiana.
They have a really nice facility on the dead end of Old State Road 3 north of Muncie. Tim and I discussed their business and how they fulfill their mission. We talked about Farmished and how we might be able to partner on several initiatives. There is a really good alignment of the different things we are each working on for the community so the list was rather long and we have several follow up items to circle back on. One thing of note that came up is that this is their toughest time of year to get volunteers out to help. When Ball State is out of session the volunteers are light so if you have a few spare moments this summer or the kids keep complaining they are bored… volunteer!
We also met with John Pichtel, a Natural Resources and Environmental Management professor at Ball State. John is a specialist in phytoremediation of contaminated sites. You can view a brief video here on the topic. In short, John has extensive knowledge of using the appropriate plant life to extract contaminates or break down contaminates in polluted soils. The allows for a very green and affordable solution to remediation. John was very interested in our plans to reclaim an urban property and convert it to our teaching farm and has an interest in involving his classes and research team with us to complete the reclamation. It was a sheer joy to talk to John. He spoke of amazing plants that draw heavy metals like lead up into their bio mass allowing one to harvest the plant and have it smelt reclaiming the lead. This is truly a technology we can get behind and are very encouraged to have met John and be able to help support his work.
Last good word of the week is that our friends involved in the “Down to Earth – small farm issues in a big farm world” documentary were honored this weekend in Cleveland with two regional Emmy awards. We couldn’t be more proud of these students and this program to have produced such a great result. In particular, Dan Edwards, Garret Brubaker, and Sam Noble were honored with the Emmys in Editing and Audio. The film that all of the students poured their hearts into is amazing. If you haven’t seen it, I encourage you to take the time and watch.
