Kitchen Favorites Sale and Cultivating Community - an Intern's Perspective

By Colton Babladelis

The annual “Kitchen Favorites” plant sale and fundraiser for Cultivating Community went really well! The sale bought in nearly $10,000—best ever. “It was one of the most well-run and smoothest Kitchen Favorites sales ever,” says Matthaei-Nichols education program manager Catriona Mortell-Windecker.

A special thanks also to the Campus Farm volunteers. They did an immense amount of transplanting that would have otherwise been a full-time job during the academic year.

Here’s a photo of the set up the day before the sale:

Greenhouse 3 the day before the Kitchen Favorites weekend sale (May 16). 

Now, time to talk about the actual Cultivating Community garden at the Ginsberg Center on central campus (see picture). We’ve put in new fencing, built a new compost bin, weeded both the greens garden in the back and the main garden up front, and we’re getting soil and are ready to start planting!

We’ve got lots of ideas for great projects over the summer, and would also like to get some plans for field trips. Thanks for reading and hopefully see everyone soon for some fun workdays in the garden!

Preparing the Cultivating Community garden at the Ginsberg Center on central campus

Colton Babladelis is a recent U-M graduate with majors in environmental studies, anthropology, Spanish, and modern Greek.

Editor’s note: Colton Babladelis was the lead intern on the Kitchen Favorites sale. He worked all of the winter 2014 semester with Matthaei-Nichols staff member Adrienne O’Brien on planning the sale, selecting the plants for sale, and growing the plants. Colton also worked with 2014 summer interns Jake Kornfeld, Lello Guluma, and Andrew Miller on the sale. The annual Kitchen Favorites sale is an important fundraiser for Cultivating Community and for helping fund the Arb & Gardens summer interns. Cultivating Community is the U-M student gardening volunteer group on campus.