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Seeds To Table

Downtown Synagogue to unveil new
community garden initiative on Tu b’Shevat.

Barbara Lewis | Contributing Writer

14 January 21 • 2016

a harvest dinner.
“How wonderful will it be when we
invite those same folks to IADS to eat
meals featuring the plants they nurtured
from seeds?” said Purcell, an energy ana-
lyst for EcoWorks, a Detroit nonprofit. “We
think it will be pretty special.”

EVERGROWING GARDEN
A grant from the Jewish Women’s
Foundation supports the Seeds to Table
program. Eden Gardens gets most of its
seeds and plants from Detroit’s Garden
Resource Program.
The Eden Gardens project was started
in the summer of 2013 by two IADS mem-
bers, Blair Nosan and Chava Knox, who is
also president of the Eden Gardens Block
Club.
Several dozen volunteers work in the
garden throughout the summer. Some pro-
duce goes home with the volunteers; the
rest is used for the Downtown Synagogue’s
regular Friday night dinners and Saturday
afternoon lunches.
In 2014, the garden added a rain catch-
ment system that can store nearly 600
gallons of water on site. Previously, work-
ers had to haul in buckets of water with a
wagon, since the garden is not hooked into
the city water supply.
Last summer, a grant from Do It For
Detroit paid for a shipping container that
was placed in the garden to hold tools and
supplies. Knox said the garden coordina-

Noah Purcell

P

lant a seed and watch it grow.
That’s what the Isaac Agree
Downtown Synagogue (IADS)
is hoping to do with an innovative new
urban agriculture program called Seeds to
Table.
They’ll introduce the program just
before Tu b’Shevat, which starts at sun-
down Jan. 24. The holiday, known as the
New Year of Trees, is often observed with a
seder celebrating the produce of Israel.
Hazon, a national organization dedi-
cated to promoting environmentalism and
sustainable living practices in a Jewish
context (see sidebar), will coordinate the
IADS’ Tu b’Shevat Tasting Plates event,
which will feature a variety of fruit and
nut delicacies. The program starts at 3:30
p.m. Sunday, Jan. 24, at the Downtown
Synagogue, 1457 Griswold St., Detroit.
Members of the Eden Gardens Block
Club, from the east side of Detroit, will
join IADS for the seder and to help with
the “soft launch” of Seeds to Table. The
block club and the congregation have
maintained a large community garden
on two vacant lots on Glenfield Street for
three years.
A small group of volunteers will take
home seeds, containers, growing medium
and instructions for transforming the
seeds into plantlets; they’ll report back
about what works and what needs to be
tweaked before the program’s official roll-
out later this winter.
Noah Purcell, 36, of
Detroit co-chairs Seeds
to Tables with Erin
Piasecki, a Repair the
World Detroit Fellow.
They came up with
the idea while cooking
together in the IADS
Noah Purcell
kitchen one evening.
Purcell said the
Eden Gardens partners
regularly meet for Building a Bridge Over
Dinner, where neighborhood residents
and IADS members learn and enjoy a meal
together. Seeds to Tables materials will
be distributed at the February and March
dinners.
In the spring, the program coordinators
will invite the seed growers to a “trans-
plant day” at the community garden,
encourage them to care for “their” plants
through the summer and bring them back
to the Downtown Synagogue in the fall for

A view of the garden from the Eden Gardens shipping container/tool shed that served
as a sukkah last year

tors hope to find a volunteer who can help
them design the container’s interior.
The garden itself has grown, Purcell
said. “A cadre of youth from the Grow
Detroit Young Talent program and
some German volunteers from Action
Reconciliation Service for Peace helped

clear a significant patch of land at the back
end of the garden, which we hope to culti-
vate into a youth garden featuring various
berries.”
The IADS Tu b’Shevat seder is free, but
space is limited. To register, contact Noah
Purcell at npurcell@gmail.com.

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Hazon Detroit Plans Eco-Awareness Projects

H

azon, a national organization whose
founded as the Jewish Working Girls Vacation
mission is to create a healthier and
Society in 1893, in Falls Village, Conn.
more sustainable Jewish community,
Former Detroiter Cheryl Cook was Hazon’s
opened its Detroit regional office last year.
chief operating officer for many years. Hazon
Regional Director Sue Salinger, former
now has several regional offices, including
director of lifelong learning at
San Diego, Denver and Boulder,
Temple Emanu-El, has an office in
Colo.
the Max M. Fisher Jewish Federation
Salinger said she is working with
Building in Bloomfield Township.
Jewish schools, congregations,
youth groups and other organiza-
With a name meaning “vision”
tions to promote eco-awareness in
in Hebrew, Hazon seeks to answer
the community.
questions about what it means to
Hazon Detroit is gearing up for
be Jewish in the 21st century and
a Detroit Jewish Food Festival next
how we, as Jews, should address
Sue Salinger
fall.
environmental changes in the
“This will be our signature event,” Salinger
world, Salinger said.
said. It will include a number of learning
Hazon was founded in 2000 in New York
tracks for cooking, health and food justice; a
City and, in 2014, it merged with the Isabella
shuk (market) for Detroit food vendors; and
Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, which was

lots of do-it-yourself workshops, like how
to pickle, make lip balm and compost with
worms.
Hazon is also eager to do oral histories
with people whose family members were
butchers, grocers, bakers and deli owners or
others who worked in Jewish food businesses
in Detroit.
“The Metro Detroit Jewish community has
given Hazon a very warm welcome,” Salinger
said. “We’re eager to collaborate on projects
that can create meaningful Jewish connec-
tions around health, the environment and
building a more just community for all.”
For information about volunteering for the
Detroit Jewish Food Festival or providing an
oral history, contact Salinger at sue.salinger@
hazon.org or (720) 434-0470.

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