May 27th EBWA Program, 7-9 pm
Speaker: Melissa MacKinnon, Director/Manager of Schenectady Urban Farms and Master Gardener
Schenectady Urban Farms began in 2012 as Vale Urban Farm, becoming Schenectady Urban Farms in 2020 with the addition of two farms in the city of Schenectady and a new affiliation with Schenectady Community Ministries (SiCM.) The mission of the organization is to lower barriers to fresh food access while building a healthy, diverse community in Schenectady. The farms are member-based, collectively worked, and include chickens, bees, rabbits, fruit, an orchard and herb gardens, with both medicinal and culinary herbs. Focusing on the community herb garden, with photos of the plants and our work through the years, this talk will describe the theory and actual practices regarding herb gardens and growing healthy food and medicines in our community.
Melissa MacKinnon, longtime member of UUSS, has been part of the farms since 2014 when she started the medicinal herb garden at Vale Urban Farm. She has actively studied community herbal medicine since 2012, is a Master Gardener Volunteer with Schenectady Cooperative Extension, and serves on the Schenectady County Farm Bureau Board of Directors. — All women are welcome to join us for this informative meeting!
Since our meetings this year are only being offered virtually, if you are not already on the Zoom list, to receive an invitation to join the program on Zoom, please email Gabrielle Reals at ellegr3@gmail.com by Monday, May 24. If you have never used Zoom before, this tutorial will tell you how to do it: Zoom Tutorial from TCUUC. After you download a free Zoom account, if you need help, contact Judy Clough at mimaclough@yahoo.com. (Best to do this well before the May 27 meeting.)
Sign into the meeting between 6:50 and 7:00 PM. After welcoming remarks, the speaker will be introduced at 7:15. Following the presentation, there will be time for questions. Networking (when each woman may share something of interest with the group) will begin around 8:15, and the meeting will end no later than 9 PM.
To see the complete calendar of EBWA programs for 2020-2021, please click here.
Looking ahead: Our June meeting will be a week earlier than usual, on June 17 (rain date: June 24th). This will be an in-person (not virtual) field trip, and our speaker, Sue McLane, will talk about “Women at Rest: A Tour of Vale Cemetery.” Details will be announced in the June 1 Circuits, but we will meet at the cemetery at 5:30, drive to two locations for the presentation, and then have a picnic supper in the cemetery. Save the date!