The I WILL Projects MISSION STATEMENT:
The I WILL Projects believes that all people have potential to live a life that has meaning. We are dedicated to developing linking community partnerships, which supports the teaching of skill sets to disadvantaged people in order to improve their lives and builds capacity for true self-sufficiency. The organization is committed to providing long-term prevention and intervention projects that produce lifelong benefits for the participants and their communities. The Indoor-Farming Innovation Zone (IFIZ) is an oasis in a suburban setting, demonstrating possibilities of climate-controlled agriculture technologies. Imagine a double-car garage with every square foot filled with modular growing systems of leafy greens, culinary herbs, tomatoes, cucumbers, melons, and more. We want to show people what is available on the market (see ZipFarm and OmegaSystems and JuicePlus Tower Gardens) and inspire them to invent new methods of growing food more sustainably. Although we may be far from seeing this jungle of food production, the IFIZ vision stands firm and we are starting with a unique educational aquaponics demonstration unit. VISION STATEMENT: Creating opportunities for people to expand their horizons for a better future by fostering collaboration and life-long learning CORE VALUES: Ingenuity, Synergy, Balance, Freedom, Transformation, Quality of Life, Self-Actualization We set up this learning laboratory to show how many edible crops can be grown year-round in a garage and to experiment with different crop varieties and new types of commercial growing systems that make urban farming a career option of the future. The I WILL Projects is sponsoring IFIZ as its premiere program because they see the value of STEM-based learning, or experiential education that leads to a greater sense of self-sufficiency and self-worth. There are proven benefits of horticulture therapy that we hope to observe in our regular participants. Community volunteers are encouraged to get involved as needed – if you are interested in giving your time, knowledge or resources that might be helpful to these urban farming experiments, please contact Dr. Kelly Gehlhoff. One of our major goals is to foster interdisciplinary, intergenerational knowledge exchange and sharing in the building of a work ethic around local food production as a catalyst for health and vitality for the generations to come. We believe that indoor farming requires renewable energy to become a sustainable business venture, due to the high electric costs of heating/cooling and artificial lighting. However, benefits of localizing the food system and creating year-round production are worth investments to learn how to grow this way. We want to contribute to MIT's call for an Open Agriculture Initiative to guarantee indoor ag. info remains open-source. Inspired by her work in college at the Biosphere2 facility in Oracle, Arizona and the Lunar Laboratory at University of Arizona where Dr. Gene Giacomeli has studied plant production for outer space, Dr. Kelly is bringing her passion for climate-controlled growing systems and sustainability education to a nexus of opportunity for creating significant leaps and bounds in data collection for MIT’s Open Agriculture Initiative. She believes vertical farming and other highly efficient indoor growing designs will become a solution for the world’s hunger and malnutrition issues over the course of the next century. The trouble is, most of this knowledge about growing crop species indoors is highly proprietary, trade secrets (link to PlantLab in NL). We want to support the growth of urban farming as a job of the future, especially for the sake of our community.
