Guest column: Staying engaged

This is undoubtedly an inspiring time to be a student at this university. I think the new coalition Students Taking Action to Reclaim Our Education (STARE), is a radical testament to how our student body values community, is willing to organize together to fight for these values and make sure they are clearly heard by the administration. This Saturday, I got to see another incredible example of community organizing at a community farm meeting at the Engaged University site in nearby Riverdale.

I am a student intern at Master Peace Community Farm, which is as of now run through the Engaged University, an offshoot of the Maryland Cooperative Extension. This meeting was called because the university is withdrawing funds to pay staff starting this winter, so the farm must come up with a way to continue functioning come spring.

Almost 50 attendees, including students, talked about what the community farm provided for them: A space to grow clean, organic food in their gardening plots when they didn't have the resources to do so elsewhere; the insight and education to start a garden; and a space for people to connect — both students and Riverdale residents — which has inspired and rejuvenated the community.

The community members at the meeting mourned the loss of staffing but knew  they needed to organize themselves quickly and effectively in order to ensure the farm will continue to serve the community as it does now. By the end of the two-hour meeting, a committee of about a dozen people, consisting of Riverdale residents, students and university staff had been charged with the responsibility of overseeing this transition from a university and staff-supported farm to a true community-supported farm — Vinnie Bevivino, community farm director, calls it community gardening with a capital ‘C.' It was just breathtaking seeing people come forth and engage with Maryland Cooperative Extension to make sure the farm continues to serve the Riverdale community. Attendees left that room feeling inspired and empowered.

During the meeting, I kept thinking about Frances Moore Lappe's ideas on citizen democracy. Just before the weekend, I picked up a copy of her 1971 bestseller Diet for a Small Planet, which is in many ways where food activism began in America. She writes that food is the best lens to view how society has robbed us of the ability to make clear, well-informed choices. Her writing is about how power has been taken away from citizens, and the only way we can have a true democracy is with active citizen engagement.

"It takes active citizenry to create public decision making that works — decision making that is accountable and creative enough to address the root causes of today's crises," she says. "In the emerging alternative, democracy becomes no longer a set of static institutions; but a way of life."

STARE and the Master Peace Community Farm are examples of democracy in action, and I know there are many more examples at the university. As Lappe and her daughter wrote: "Hope is not something we seek in evidence, it is what we become in action."

May we all become the hope we need in this world. Keep breathing democracy and moving community. 

Sarah Eisenstein is a sophomore environmental science and policy major. She can be reached at sarahe at umd dot edu.