Victory Garden Initiative (VGI) will celebrate its successes in the urban agriculture movement at the seventh annual Fruity Nutty Affair on February 23.
More than two hundred guests are expected to toast the winners of five community orchards at the gorgeous Mitchell Park Domes Annex. VGI will reveal the orchard-winning neighborhoods, from its Fruity Nutty Five Contest, and present the next chapter of its story.
Tarik Moody of 88Nine Radio Milwaukee and Arthur Ircink of WI Foodie will host the event, which will include live music, food, and a silent auction.
Fruit and nut trees provide nutritious food, serve as a source of oxygen, protect against soil erosion, and keep neighborhoods cool in the summer. Planting trees strengthens relationships between neighbors, which encourages community.
“Human ecology has evolved into a city environment where people live, and the food ecology is a distant area in the country that is kept separate,” said Gretchen Mead, Executive Director of VGI. “So our mission is to bring those two ecologies back together in a way that nature originally intended it to be.”
The event is also an opportunity for the public to show its support for the Victory Garden Initiative’s efforts to build communities that grow their own food, and create a socially just, sustainable, healthy, community-based food system. Planting these community orchards is key to that fruitful work, and the funds raised by the Fruity Nutty Affair make it happen.
The scope of Victory Garden’s educational programs and urban agricultural projects encompass a complete cycle: from soil, to seed, to plate, and composting back to soil in back yards, front yards, rooftops, and on patios.
Through the Fruity Nutty Five, hundreds of other fruit and nut trees have been planted in Milwaukee, including those at the Victory Garden Urban Farm.
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Victory Garden Initiative
