AFP Awards SCLT with the Excellence in Fundraising Award

In celebration of National Philanthropy Day today, the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) Rhode Island Chapter honored SCLT with the Excellence in Fundraising Award. Each year, AFP honors a non-profit organization that has developed a creative strategy to increase fundraising results. This year AFP presented SCLT with the award in recognition of our successful implementation of the Providence Community Growers Network Membership Campaign.

This membership campaign has and continues to make benefits and the opportunity to support SCLT available to community residents of all income levels. As a result of this campaign, membership has both supported SCLT financially and developed relationships between donors and the community of urban agriculture enthusiasts and food growers.

Thanks, AFP, for this tremendous honor. We are excited to continue increasing both our membership base and support for our mission to help people grow food.

Our Global Community: A Mosaic of Diversity and Unity

Join us tonight from 5 to 9 p.m. at the URI Feinstein Providence Campus Gallery for the gallery reception and presentation of the current gallery exhibit–“Our Global Community: A Mosaic of Diversity and Unity”. This exhibit features photographs of SCLT’s community gardeners and a garden memory project that illuminate the role community gardens play in the struggles of those who come to Providence from around the world to assimilate into the local community.

For more info., click the image above!

Michelle’s Skillet Pie

Two weeks ago we celebrated the three years our City Farm apprentice, Kathleen Reed, has been with us here at SCLT. We feasted on burritos and delicious desserts, including an amazing apple pie baked by our very own Development Assistant, Michelle Walker.

Now, this pie is no ordinary pie. Instead of using the standard pie tin or baking dish, Michelle bakes these masterpieces in cast iron skillets.

Whether it’s because of the skillets or Michelle’s magical touch, this apple pie is hands-down the best apple pie we have ever had. Michelle has graciously allowed us to share this deliciousness with everyone and post the recipe here!

Wow your friends and family this Thanksgiving with this warm, buttery treat, and we promise you they’ll have another thing to be thankful for this year.

For the crust:

• 1 1/4 cups white flour (not self-rising)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup chilled butter
• 1/4 cup ice water
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1. Put the flour and salt in a bowl. Cut the butter into cubes and add to the bowl.
2. Using either your hands or a pastry blender, ‘cut’ the butter into the flour until the mixture is nice and crumbly.
3. Add the ice water and mix with your hands, scraping the flour mixture from the sides of the bowl and forming a ball.
4. Wrap the resulting dough in plastic wrap (a plastic bag will work too) and put it in the refrigerator for 2 hours.

For the filling:

• 8-10 medium to large Granny Smith apples (peeled, cored & sliced)
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/4 stick butter
• 3 T flour
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cub brown sugar (don’t have any brown sugar on hand? Take 1 cup white sugar, 1 T blackstrap molasses & mix with a fork in a bowl until it looks like brown sugar)
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extra (not vanilla flavoring)
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg and/or cinnamon
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1. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.
2. Take the iron skillet, put the 1/4 stick of butter in the pan and place in the oven to melt.
3. Once the butter has melted, take some of the brown sugar and sprinkle it over the melted butter to thinly cover the bottom of the pan.
4. Return the pan to the oven for about 10 minutes and then remove.
5. In the meantime, combine the sugar, water, vanilla extract, butter and spices in a small pot over low-medium heat.
6. When the butter has melted, add the flour to make the roux. Whisk the mixture as it cooks.
7. Roll out 1/2 of your dough (save the other for the top) to a size large enough to cover the bottom and sides of the pan.
8. Place the dough in the pan and add the apples.
9. Take the roux and pour it over and between the lattice.
10. Dot the top with a few pieces of butter.
11. Place your pie on the middle rack in the oven for 15 minutes.
12. Lower the heat to 350 degrees and bake for an additional 35-45 minutes or until the crust looks nice and medium-tannish brown.
13. Cool for 15 minutes before cutting.
14. ENJOY!

A few tips from the mastermind herself:

• The dough can be made the night before and put in the fridge.
• Place a cookie sheet on the bottom rack in the oven to catch the pie’s drippings.
• This pie takes time, so do it when you’re not rushed.
• It might seem like a lot, but, after you do it once, you’ll get into a rhythm…promise!

Fall Workdays

The past few weekends, beginning on October 20th, our community gardeners have been hard at work to put their gardens to bed for the winter. Just in time too! Every Fall, each of the 16 community gardens we manage have required workdays when all the growers come together to help clean up both their own beds and the communal spaces.

As the cultural backgrounds of our community gardeners are diverse, so are the ways in which they ready their beds for winter. For example, we learned that Hmong gardeners put everything back into their soil. Instead of getting rid of their gardens’ remains, Hmong gardeners chop everything up and bury it, boosting the fertility and health of their soil for the next growing season.

Neat, right? Some of us here at SCLT are excited to give this a try in our Sideyard beds at the end of next year’s growing season.

Below are some pictures capturing our gardeners bringing their growing seasons to a close.

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The RI Community Food Bank Recognizes Its Partnership with SCLT on Food Day!

At its Annual Meeting last Wednesday, October 24th, the Rhode Island Community Food Bank presented an award to SCLT in recognition of our partnership and the work that has come of it.

SCLT and the RI Community Food Bank have collaborated  in many different ways. From starting new initiatives, such as establishing the food pantry-community garden model in Providence through the Gospel Tabernacle Outreach Ministry Garden, to donating City Farm’s surplus, SCLT and the Food Bank work together to help increase the food security of Rhode Islanders.

We are honored to have such a strong partnership with an organization who is committed to providing healthy food for the neediest Rhode Islanders. We are eager to continue working with the RI Community Food Bank and excited for the work that this partnership will produce for greater Providence.

Many thanks to the RI Community Food Bank for this honor!

Cindy Shea, Community Growers Network Coordinator, Leo Pollock, Director of Programs, and Margaret DeVos, SCLT Executive Director, accepted this honor on behalf of SCLT