Shaping Careers, Nonprofits, and Experience
Communications Coordinator & Marshfield Clinic Health Systems AmeriCorps Member, Braedon Richlen, and New Leaf Foods President, Lynn Walter, presented to Bay Port High School students on career paths, what New Leaf Foods is, and what skills are required to keep the organization afloat. The following is a summary and more information on what was discussed in the forum.
It’s difficult to determine a rest-of-life career path before graduating high school. Many times, people change their career choice to something completely different than what they were doing previously. The only way for someone to find their true vocation is by exploring different careers. Students should take advantage of their grade school experiences by trying out different types of classes to find their skills and interest areas. One of the best educational examples of this is the HSSD Graduate Profile. The Graduate Profile is the Howard-Suamico School District’s vision to prepare each student for success in their career beyond grade school regardless of whether the student attends college or not. This model encourages each student to find their interests and hone their craft before they enter their career field. If a student does go to college, they shouldn’t be afraid to explore other interests there, either.
One example of this is Lynn Walter, the President of New Leaf Foods. Lynn traveled a long path career-wise before she decided to help start New Leaf Foods. Before her 35-year career as a professor at UW-Green Bay, she grew up on a five-generation farm in Illinois and worked in a little small-town restaurant. After that experience, she worked as a cook in a co-op restaurant in Madison named the Green Lantern Co-op.
Lynn developed her cooking skills and passion for healthy food when she started cooking with her family, in home economics, and 4-H. Her motivation for healthy food advocacy started when her father, a pesticide-using farmer, died of cancer. Because of this motivation, she started a research Center for Food in Community & Culture at UW-Green Bay with seven faculty members and then retired to work on healthy food as an academic subject and personal interest. This is when New Leaf Foods started.
New Leaf Foods supports the health and well-being of the people of Greater Green Bay by promoting healthy food access and education, and by cooperating throughout Northeast Wisconsin to build a thriving local food system in a clean environment. We also advocate for policy change to encourage healthy food access. In the past, New Leaf Foods helped allow people to grow herbs and plants in their front yard and advocated for people to have 4 hens on their residential property. We’ve also battled rising healthy food costs by encouraging people to use food stamps at farmers markets such as EBT, SNAP, and Senior Farmers Market Vouchers.
We’ve been around since 2010 and 14 years is a long time for a small, local nonprofit to stick around. We wouldn’t have been able to survive this long without you. New Leaf Foods is a grassroots organization which means volunteers are our number one resource. There isn’t a single team member who takes a paycheck from New Leaf Foods. All of the Board members and team members are volunteers - just like you!
Since Lynn started volunteering for the organization, she’s learned a few lessons:
Working for a nonprofit organization is a slow build and a long-term commitment. This commitment has to be based on your interests in the same way your career choices are.
To successfully run a nonprofit, one must be prepared with the correct experience and knowledge. Even though Lynn didn’t have a lot of experience at first, she gained valuable experiences and education from her careers and in the community.
Find people to work with (preferably with similar interests and values). This includes working with other organizations, businesses, nonprofits, and anyone else who can help complete the mission. New Leaf Foods’ survival would not have been possible without sponsors, donors, and partners. We have to stay in our capacity and try to change what we can change, and partners increase that capacity for change.
Volunteers are extremely important and contribute valuable knowledge, labor, and experience. On top of this, the community can come together to help build a sustainable nonprofit, which in turn, helps the community. Everything we do is for the community, so we are delighted to have the opportunity for the community to help itself. If you’d like to contribute, visit www.newleaffoods.org/volunteer.
Although Lynn is no longer a farmer, she agrees that while not as prevalent today, farmers are still undervalued, but are the pillars of society. Local, fresh food is dwindling when it comes to local farms, but local farms provide the freshest produce at the most reasonable price. This is why New Leaf Foods cooperates throughout Northeast Wisconsin with farms, businesses, schools, and other nonprofits. Don’t worry about missing out, though! You can join in on the action and learn more about local farmers markets at www.newleaffoods.org/local-foods or join a future CSA (Community-Supported Agriculture) program at www.newleaffoods.org/csas.
For those of you who are new to gardening and don’t know where to start, fearlessly jump right in! There are perennial fruit trees, bushes, and herbs that come back every year, and they’re pretty set-them-and-forget-them and easy to maintain. These also pay themselves off quickly as they’re cheap and produce a lot of food you won’t have to buy at the grocery store. There are plenty of resources for new gardeners and educational events hosted through the Brown County Seed Library, a place/program where people can take and exchange seeds for free. The Seed Library can also teach you how to save your seeds and replant them for next year. If you’d like to get started with growing your garden, purchase plants from our Bountiful Branches plant sale or use the seeds from one of the fruits at either one of our Community Orchards locations or the Seymour Park Food Forest.
