Sunday in Youngstown started off appropriately enough with a little light farm labor, as a work crew consisting of me and a four-year-old girl harvested potatoes and carrots from our host’s bountiful backyard. We followed that up with a quick trip to the public pool, whose snack bar, declared our 10-year-old escort, was “the shit.” And then, corn dogs digested and sunscreen washed off, we headed to the Lemon Grove. Game on!
The Lemon Grove is a cute, year-old cafe, bar and gallery/performance space that owner Jacob Harver converted from a long-vacant pharmacy smack in the middle of ghostly downtown Youngstown. As he told the Vindicator last year, “There’s a great misconception in the area that downtown is unsafe. But it is safe, and we have a great community business down here. There’s a resurgence. People are looking for places with character, and downtown Youngstown is full of character.”
We at Veggie Bingo can’t speak to all of downtown, but we can speak for the awesome Lemon Grove. On Sunday night, it was sure full of characters.
Chief among them? Youngstown mayor Jay Williams, above, who hit the trifecta in 2005 when he became the city’s youngest-ever mayor, its first African-American mayor, and its first-ever independent mayor. Mayor Williams was our first bingo caller of the night and he acquitted himself gamely. I even got him to crack a couple jokes!
And, as you might infer from the mention of “our first caller,” we structured this bingo game a bit differently than we do in Chicago. In Y-Town each individual game was led by a different caller, most of them leaders in the local foods, gardening, and community development community. Each took the mike to give a little spiel about their organization, and then called a game, with a little help from me. Above is farmer Joe Pedaline, of Early Road Gardens, who came up with his own veggie-themed bingo categories. “B-7! … that’s BASIL – 7. “
Not to be outdone, Jim Converse, founder of the Northside Farmer’s market, came up with his own list of themed categories, though his were more … action-oriented. “O -70! …. ORGANIZE to work for change! That’s O-70.”
Here, Jacob adjusts the overhead projection while I explain the next game — four corners — to the crowd and to caller Rick Popovich, host of ”Jazz Sofa” on WYSU who, as one might expect, had a killer radio voice. To Rick’s left is Suzannah, who was wrangling prizes and keeping score for the evening.
Wait, you say … “Keeping score?”
That was the other adjustment we made. In Youngstown, not only did individual winners take home the usual delicious Veggie Bingo prizes — baskets of fresh vegetables, a gallon of maple syrup, loaves of zucchini bread — but each winner also earned a point for the garden of their choosing. At the end of the night, the garden with the most points took home half of the door, with the other half going to Grow Youngstown.
Frankly, I was worried this would be insanely complicated, but it worked out pretty well. Though we wound up having to throw in a tie-breaker round, which put a whole lot of power in the hands of one winner, it proved to be a great way to get the gardeners invested in the outcome and build team spirit. Kudos to Elsa Higby, who came up with this scheme — and kudos to Elsa all around, for wrangling all the callers and the prizes and just generally being a swell leader and hostess.
Here’s one of our big winners, with a basket of farm-fresh produce from, I believe, Red Basket Farm. Many, many thanks are due to all of our prize donors: Northside Farmer’s Market, Charles Hatch, Jubilee Gardens, Landmark Restaurant, Early Road Gardens, Red Basket, Grow Youngstown, Mary June Tartan, and Samie Winik.
And, while we’re at it, I should also thank the other callers, most of whom managed to escape Irma’s camera. In addition to Mayor Williams, and Mssrs. Pedaline, Converse, and Popovich, we had Ted Vagas, of the Men’s Garden Club; Jean Engle, from Treez Pleease; and Presley Gillespie, head of the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation. You all were terrific!
When it was all over we repaired to the appropriately-named Avalon Gardens for pizza — the only joint in town that was open and still serving food at 9 PM on Sunday night, whch tells you something right there about what Youngstown is up against.
This last visual is, I fear, a bit vacation photo-ey. (L-R that’s Suzannah, young Sophia, me, Elsa, and Mary June.) But, honestly, this trip was a blast — and while it was much about having fun and raising money (which we did, to the tune of about $380), it was also, forgive me, about building relationships. Many of the gardeners and activists who came out on Sunday had never met in person. For them, it was a chance to put faces to names; to make connections and talk a little shop. For me it was a chance to see what other people are doing to advance the understanding and practice of urban agriculture in a community that has a lot in common with Chicago and yet is working with a set of radically challenging circumstances.
It was inspiring, and I hope we get to do it again, soon.
