Project Grow Board Candidate Statements

Project Grow is one of the few area non-profits that is member-driven (like a co-op) rather than director-driven. Unlike director-driven non-profits, the Project Grow Board is elected by the membership to represent their interests. Each year, four people are elected to the Project Grow Board at our annual meeting. While Grow gardeners and the public are welcome at all Project Grow Board meetings, the annual meeting is explicitly intended as a time for the Board and members of Project Grow to meet together. As a member of Project Grow you are strongly encouraged to attend!

The 2011 annual meeting is at 7:00pm on Thursday, October 13th, at the Nature House, in the Leslie Science Center at 1831 Traver in Ann Arbor.

This year four people are running for Board positions. They are Dave Corsa, Nicole Premo, Joet Reoma and Marcella Trautmann. They have each sent in a short statement of why they would like to serve the members on the Project Grow Board.

Dave Corsa

My name is Dave Corsa and I am running for a second term as a member of the Board of Directors for Project Grow. I have been a gardener with Project Grow for about twenty years, first at Zion (now closed) and now at Lakewood Elementary. I have been a board member for two years, the last year serving as Secretary.

One of my volunteer tasks over the years has been to hook up the water lines to hydrants at Zion, Greenview, and Airport. I have helped to negotiate the water line connection at Wines Elementary and helped with the water line planning at Hunt Park and West Park.

I have been a Board member during a time of great transition, where the Board has clearly decided, with member input, that we want to be a member-driven organization. In the past two years, we have updated our bylaws, improved our website, hired new managing directors, built a hoop house, and improved the accountability and management of our money.

I believe that we need to increase the number of garden sites in Ann Arbor as long as there is demand, but we need to do so with caution and care. The Board has been doing that for the past two years. We are always looking for opportunities to provide more gardening space for the residents of Ann Arbor, as long as those potential sites make sense for good gardening at a cost that is equitable. I also support the educational outreach of Project Grow and approve of the many classes and projects that we continue to offer and promote.

Nicole Premo

Since 2008, my husband and I have been members of Project Grow Community Gardens. This has translated into summers of dirt, potato beetles, and tomatoes, but it has also translated more generally into a way of thinking about community and about food. In part, that’s why Project Grow is such a powerful organization; from its core mission stems a larger experience, one that transcends a 750-square foot patch of earth and truly takes root in the life of the gardener.

It’s hard to imagine not having Project Grow to look forward to each summer so I am submitting my name for consideration in the Board elections. What I bring to the table is the deepest commitment to the idea of making organic gardening accessible to all and a tireless drive to fulfill this mission in its entirety. For me, this means honing administrative practices that will help continue a positive experience for current members. It also means two additional aspects: first, securing the support necessary to build on Project Grow’s current efforts and second, finding new and creative ways to further engage with the community through new member creation, volunteer recruitment, and strategic partnership development.

In regards to the first, this past winter I raised almost $3,000 in less than two months for another non-profit in Ann Arbor. This is not to say that I’m an expert fundraiser; instead, I point to this as an example of my willingness to raise funds for important groups. From grant writing to creating community alliances, I would commit to being part of or spearheading teams within Project Grow to generate the resources needed to grow the organization.

As for the second, my professional career centers on communication and marketing with a focus on online and new media strategies. In addition to the experience of having recently built a website for a local non-profit, I have an intimate knowledge of popular online advertising platforms. Essentially, were I to be elected to the Board, my ultimate goal would be to support the important communication efforts currently ongoing (e.g. newsletters, website, the blog) and to expand on this work in new and scalable ways.

To illustrate how the two goals could work together, I would propose that the Board adopt a project to secure grant funding for an online advertising campaign. Through online advertising, Project Grow would have access to a significantly larger audience than with traditional forms, allowing the organization to reach out to new gardeners around application time, volunteers when planning big events, donors during the holiday season, and more.

Ultimately, as a Board member, I would certainly offer ideas and establish goals for continuing to reach towards fulfilling Project Grow’s mission. I would also work hard to support my fellow Project Grow members, volunteers, and Board members in achieving their initiatives for the betterment of the organization as a whole.

Joet Reoma

As part of Project Grow and as a Master Composter aspirant, my personal goal is to serve the community through compost education while producing compost for healthy gardens. A managed composting practice is essential to community gardening and an opportunity for community service learning for all ages.

I have been a Volunteer Coordinator of the Compost Education Center (CEC) since we re-started the Center in June 2011 at the Leslie Discovery Gardens. Since then we have built six bins for hot-compost production and one bin for worm cast production. We designed this multi-bin system for compost education purposes. We have started several on-site classes on hot composting and vermicomposting. We have created a CEC section in the website of Project Grow. We also sought and obtained permission to manage the composting bins of the Leslie Science Center.

As a member of the Project Grow Board, my goal would be to develop a composting practice that can be introduced to all community gardens of Project Grow. This goal includes a plan to fully develop a CEC curriculum with the help of community partners from the Master Composters group of Washtenaw County, public schools, and university volunteer groups. The purpose of the educational and community partnership components is continuity of CEC. In addition, we have two exciting activities in the planning stage: a mushroom garden as part of the Perennial Garden theme of Leslie Discovery Garden, and a permaculture design initiative to salvage the Airport Community Garden site.

Marcella Trautmann

I have been involved with Project Grow for many years, initially as a gardener, later as a member of the board. For the past two years, my involvement has expanded to include a term as interim director, followed by membership on the Board and, most recently, as president of the board. During that time, the Board and I have worked to establish Project Grow as a member-driven organization, to streamline the office of the director, and to open new garden sites.  Meanwhile, I continued my work with growing heirloom tomatoes along with the group of dedicated volunteers who collect their seeds and grow seedlings for our spring plant sale.  I would like to be returned to the Board to continue that work. My aim is to help Project Grow, which celebrates its fortieth anniversary in 2012, continue for at least another forty years.