Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Green Renter Lecture Series: Dispatches from the White House Organic Farm Project

Monday, May 4, 7:00pm
WhereSolar One, East 23rd Street at FDR Drive, Manhattan (map)

Green Renter Lecture Series: Dispatches from the White House Organic Farm Project with Daniel Bowman Simon Last year, Daniel Bowman Simon began The White House Organic Farm Project (TheWhoFarm), a quixotic quest to petition the winner of the 2008 presidential election to grow food on the White House lawn. After Waiting For Apples, a solar-powered publicity stunt held outside of Apple’s flagship store on 5th Avenue in Manhattan, Daniel and his friend Casey traveled across twenty-five states and ultimately to the nation’s capital on an upside-down school bus with a rooftop vegetable garden. Everywhere they went they talked to folks of all walks to raise awareness about the White House’s edible landscape potential, and gathered heaps of signatures in support of the project. As improbable as their vision may have seemed at the outset, it is in fact, in both spirit and objective, not unlike what has actually come to pass since the White House’s current occupant has taken up residence. On March 20th, with the help of a class of DC elementary school students, First Lady Michelle Obama broke ground on an 1,100 square foot vegetable garden at The White House. Since her announcement, the First Lady of California and the Mayor of Baltimore have announced plans for their own vegetable gardens. In this presentation Daniel will share a colorful account of his experiences on the road in 2008, discuss what motivated him to pursue the project in the first place, and talk about his most recent (and more local) agrarian ambitions: a small vegetable garden at New York’s City Hall. For more information on Daniel's project, visit www.thewhofarm.org