A message from co-founder Eric Runstadler:

As some of you know, over the past few years I’ve created the Glencoe Homestead. My intention was to use the space as a tool, showing folks how relatively easy it is to keep a garden, bees, chickens, and goats in a very urban environment. The positive feedback has been more than I’ve ever imagined.

As a result, even more ideas have come up. I’d like to take this concept I’ve created here and introduce it on a much larger scale. I have visions of a place where, as a community, we grow fruits, veggies, crops, fowl, and bees. I’m hoping to create a place where anyone in the community can come, enjoy the space, educate themselves and their loved ones on where their food comes from, while being an active participant in the advancement and sustainability of the space.

A place where anyone in the community can have access to organic fruits & veggies, free range eggs, and all done in a very local environment.

We can utilize the restored historic Train Depot as our central office, place of commerce, meetings, education and instructional seminars, community events, and information.

The land will be cultivated, we’ll plant a fruit orchard, erect fencing/structures for fowl, grow seasonal fruits and veggies, and year-round growing in a community greenhouse. The intention of this space is local, fresh, organic, all natural food production, and community. We’ll have a living farmers market, where the consumer harvests their own food thus eliminating excess waste and connecting the community with the food they eat.

This is where you come in!!

Urban Farming is all about self-sustainability. We’re currently building our team and looking for folks interested in helping with this project and, it’s potential impact on the way neighborhoods and communities all over can benefit. We’re in the process of writing this  proposal in response to the RFP (request for proposal) put out by the City of Englewood.

We’re looking for people who are excited as we are about this project and want to contribute and help to achieve the collective vision.

If you have experience in any of the following:
Farming, ranching, Horticulture, Sustainability, gardening, beekeeping, Architects, Event/Community Planners, artists, cheese/soap makers, and brewers. We’re also looking for Homesteaders, Educators, Fund-raisers, HR, Landscapers, Construction, Carpentry, Electrical, Grant writers, Caterers/Chefs, Solar, Irrigation, Attorneys, secretarial, and Master Gardeners. We’re also looking for someone good with managing books and accounting.
Or if you feel inspired to just BE the change you want to see in the world, we want you!

If you’re at all inspired by this, please let us know and if you wish to contribute in any capacity please don’t hesitate to offer.

The working board members will be assembled immediately following the acceptance of our proposal by the City of Englewood and we will use the seed money, $7,500 (still needs to be donated) to finance the Funding Resource Team. By August, our goal is to have the $500,000 needed to get started on the restoration and remodeling of this historic landmark.

Copies of the proposal are currently available upon request.