Our Supporters: Thanks!

Brad’s Big 2011 Post-Fiesta Thanks

I’m in awe. I loved the Desert Harvesters Mesquite Fiesta today, and was blown away by the incredible offerings and giving. The diverse array of delicious treats was sooo great! And they just kept coming. You wonderful bakers and cooks would just keep walking up with a platter, bowl, or plate of such YEAH! I can’t thank you enough.Then there was the joyous music of the Brambleberries, the snakes, the tortoises, puppet shows, the cookbooks, the waffles, the mesquite flour and prickly pops, native medicinals and teas, and demonstrations and info on solar cooking, native plants, planting of rain and stormwater for those plants, growing bicycle boulevards lined with those plants to encourage more human-powered transport through neighborhoods harvesting the food and medicinals from those aforementioned native plants while enhancing habitat for the tortoises, beneficial snakes, and myriad life! Makes me want to dance – and we’re back to the Brambleberries.Three hammermills running. One from the Tohono O’odham Community College steered by Clifford Pablo who first introduced me to the amazing flavor of Tucson grown and harvested mesquite flour. One from the Cascabel community who with their annual event  inspired Desert Harvesters to bring a hammermill with a celebration of mesquite and other native foods to Tucson. And our trusty Desert Harvesters mill funded nine years ago by PRO Neighborhoods.All at a community garden planted in 1998 within a former softball field turned parking lot on the grounds of the Dunbar school. A school that was built in 1918 during the days of segregation for Tucson’s Black community. The school building almost became an inner city jail after it was closed, and today is being turned into an African American Cultural Center, Museum, and Community Center by a partnership of the school’s alumni, the Tucson Urban League, the Juneteenth Festival Committee, and the Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Association.

And none of this would have been possible without the incredible volunteers who have stepped up to lead, share, support, and live this beautiful evolution. Today was 100% volunteer steered and powered. The giving of your time, skills, knowledge, passion, and love is at the heart of it all. It can transform any situation into something greater and more beautiful. What an amazing community. You/we have made something wonderful, and which keeps getting more wonderful as more step up, lead, share, support, and live it up as we did today.

Thank you!
- Brad Lancaster, 10pm, 11-20-2011, Tucson, Santa Cruz River Watershed, Sonoran Desert

Desert Harvesters would like to directly thank the following for their generous support of our 2011 fiesta:

All the cooks and bakers for our bake sale
- the incredible diversity of delicious offerings

Desert Harvesters volunteers and staff
- the engines of greatness

Dunbar/Spring neighborhood volunteer tree planters
- you plant the trees from which we harvest

Dunbar/Spring Organic Community Garden and the Dunbar Project
- for the fiesta oasis

Clifford Pablo and the Tohono O’odham Community College
- hammermill and millers

Cascabel Hermitage Association
- hammermill and millers

Brambleberries
- musical libations

Exo Roast Co. and Wilko
- for the locally-roasted fair trade coffee

Food Conspiracy Co-op
- donations of organic ingredients

Monsoon Kitchen
- waffle and fried banana demos and eats

Desert Tortoise Botanicals
- native teas and medicinals

Skeleton Creek
- prickly pear and mesquite popsicles, mesquite flour, prickly pear jams, and drink mixes

Native Seeds/SEARCH
- native seeds, foods, and courses

Watershed Management Group
- water harvesting and green streets info

Living Streets Alliance
- human-powered transportation

Baja Arizona Sustainable Agriculture (BASA)
- solar cooking demonstrations

Tucson Herb Store
- native teas

Mano y Metate
- Amy Schwemm is one of our key organizers, and creates incredible moles

Arizona Native Plant Society
- native plant promotion and conservation

Bean Tree Farm and Jill Lorenzini/Green Goddess
- native and wild foods, cookbooks, calendars, and salves

Robert and Arizona Herpetology Society
- live reptiles

Desert Survivors Plant Nursery
- living, native, food-bearing Christmas trees and saguaro totems

_________________________________________________________________________

A note from Brad, following the 2010 Mesquite Milling and Pancake Fiesta:

Now rested, I just want to thank you all for the incredible efforts you put into our 8th annual Mesquite Milling Fiesta and Pancake Breakfast on Saturday. I felt this year was the best ever. All flowed so well. I saw a sea of smiling faces. And a friend noted that he did not see a single cell phone in use. People were present and loving it.

This could not have happened without all of you superhero volunteers. Superhero is not an exaggeration. It is what you are – superheros! You step up to the challenge to make things better. To help. And to advance a better way. We exist only because of you – THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU. And please continue to bless us with your superpowers of engagement. We never seem to be able to express the depth of our appreciation adequately. This email is just a small gesture.

I also want to thank everyone who just showed up. Showing up shows you, us, and the world what is possible. Showing up is sharing and shining on all the hard work that went into creating what occurred this past Saturday.

Amazing how such a thriving community event so quickly went up, and the quality of people it attracts. None of it would be possible without such an incredibly dynamic bunch of volunteers – the heart of Desert Harvesters. That heart is made up of choice community people, who attract and build still more choice community through their efforts enhancing this Place.

The Desert Harvesters event strikes me as unique in that at its core is the celebration of food native to this place, grown and harvested in neighborhoods, and fed by neighborhood rain and runoff. It nourishes the community that plants and cares for it — a life cycle. Made so much richer by those awesome mesquite and prickly pear pop cycles (ok, popsicles).

Y’all are planting, growing, and enhancing the culture here through your engagement and thoughtful action, and I love ya for it!

And all that thanks, acknowledgment, and wonder of course also flows out to the incredible team that put our new cookbook Eat Mesquite! together. Everyone who gave to the project — recipe submitters, tasters, testers, writers, editors, photographers, designers, illustrators, researchers — was key to it happening!

Now please help spread the word that our cookbook is available for sale with all proceeds going to the continuation of Desert Harvesters’ work. They make great gifts! We’ll be selling the cookbook via PayPal from our website (soon!) as well as at the following events:

Watershed Management Co-op & Desert Harvesters: Local Foods Potluck & Native Food Demonstration,  Nov. 11

12th Annual Cascabel Mesquite Milling Festival, Cascabel Community Center, Cascabel, AZ, Nov. 12

6th Annual Santa Cruz River Farmers’ Market Mesquite Milling, Nov. 18

a  presentation on Desert Harvesters by Brad Lancaster and cookbook sale at Bookman’s Speedway location from 1-3 pm on Saturday, Nov. 27

and perhaps a December 10 presentation with Slow Food Tucson…. Keep checking our events page for more on this!

- Brad Lancaster
www.DesertHarvesters.org

………………………………….

Desert Harvesters would like to thank the following for their generous support of our 2008 season
and mesquite milling and pancake fiestas:

Desert Harvesters volunteers and staff
We can’t do it without you, and you’re such great folks that it’s always fun!

Dunbar/Spring neighborhood volunteer tree planters
Thanks to all those who have planted and cared for native food trees, we were able to harvest enough native mesquite pods primarily in the Dunbar/Spring neighborhood to provide enough mesquite flour to make over 1,300 mesquite pancakes at the Dunbar/Spring Mesquite Milling and Breakfast

Harvest Players
Huge thanks to our mesquite fiesta band Matt Weber, Ronny, Mark Febbo, Ted Warmbrand

Food Conspiracy Co-op
www.foodconspiracy.org
412 N. 4th Ave.
Tucson, Arizona 85705
624-4821
A huge thanks to the Food Conspiracy Co-op for the $300 2008 Cooperative Community Grant awarded to Desert Harvesters
The co-op is a great source of organic foods that regularly donates organic foods for our organic mesquite pancake breakfast

Crooked Sky Farms and the Tucson Community Supported Agriculture
www.crookedskyfarms.com
Crooked Sky Farms, owned by farmer Frank Martin in Glendale, Arizona grows and supplies fresh, organic produce for several Arizona Farmer’s Markets and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)s through subscriptions. Crooked Sky provides us with the locally-grown and ground wheat flour we mix with mesquite in our pancakes.

Dunbar Coalition
www.theDunbarProject.org
PO Box 86132
Tucson AZ 85754-4072
To rent event use of the Dunbar Auditorium contact
Shirley Hockett
Dunbar Project Operations Committee
622-6989
shirly@aztraveltips.com
The Dunbar Coalition has made the Dunbar/Spring Organic Community Garden possible in the effort to turn the Dunbar School at the southwest corner of 2nd street and Main Avenue into an African American/community cultural center and museum. In addition, the Coalition provides us with tables, chairs, the use of their restrooms, and a back up location of the Dunbar Auditorium should it rain.

Dunbar/Spring Organic Community Garden
NW corner of 11th Ave and University Blvd
Tucson, AZ
The garden provides us with the beautiful space for our annual fundraising mesquite milling and mesquite pancake breakfast

Community Food Security Center of the Tucson Community Food Bank
Promotes local food security through a farmers’ market program, creation of backyard and community gardens, hosts the Santa Cruz Farmers’ Market annual mesquite milling and mesquite pancake fiesta, and provides us with fantastic volunteers.
www.communityfoodbank.org/dynamic/foodsecurity.aspx

Moiagroup
For the latest upgrade of our website www.DesertHarvesters.org

Desert Tortoise Botanicals
418 E. 7TH Street
Tucson, AZ 85705
520-275-2105
desertortoisebotanicals@gmail.com
Provides us with prickly pear fruit, native foods, and demonstrations and sales of native medicinals

Tucson Herb Store
412 E. 7th St., Tucson, AZ 85705
520-903-0038
www.tucsonherbstore.com
Provides us with wonderful locally-made teas

Mano y Metate
www.manoymetate.com
Amy Schwemm is one of the key organizers of our mesquite pancake production. She also creates incredible mole offerings which she donates for our raffle.

Jill Lorenzini/Green Goddess
amphibiangrrl@gmail.com
Greens Goddess local organic produce and products; Wild Recipes cookbooklet; Wild, Native, Cultivated Desert Foods Calendar; sun-printed and local plant-dyed clothing/fabric; Desert Wisdom Herbal Salve.

Time Market
444 E University Blvd
Tucson, AZ 85705
(520) 622-0761
Provides our mesquite pancake breakfast with organic coffee

Clamdiggin
These artists/ecologists turn out wonderful creations connected to the natural world. Thanks for their custom T-shirts donated for our raffle
www.clamdiggin.com

Native Seeds/SEARCH
Provided our raffle with a generous gift certificate
www.nativeseeds.org

Antigone’s Books
This wonderful local book store provided our raffle with a generous gift certificate
www.antigonebooks.com

Sunflower Market
www.sfmarkets.com


Desert Harvesters would like to thank the following for their generous support of our 2007 season and mesquite milling and pancake fiestas:

Desert Harvesters volunteers and staff
We can’t do it without you, and you’re such great folks that it’s always fun!

Dunbar/Spring neighborhood volunteer tree planters
Thanks to all those who have planted and cared for native food trees, we were able to harvest enough native mesquite pods just in the Dunbar/Spring neighborhood to provide all the mesquite flour to make over 600 mesquite pancakes at the Dunbar/Spring Mesquite Milling and Breakfast

Slow Food Tucson
www.slowfoodtucson.org
A huge thanks to Slow Food Tucson for the $500 donation to Desert Harvesters. Slow Food Tucson is a non-profit, eco-gastronomic organization that supports a regionally-based, biodiverse, sustainable food supply, local producers, heritage foodways, and rediscovery of the pleasures of the table.

Food Conspiracy Co-op
www.foodconspiracy.org
412 N. 4th Ave.
Tucson, Arizona 85705
624-4821
A huge thanks to the Food Conspiracy Co-op for the $300 2008 Cooperative Community Grant awarded to Desert Harvesters
The co-op is a great source of organic foods that regularly donates organic foods for our organic mesquite pancake breakfast

Crooked Sky Farms
www.crookedskyfarms.com
Crooked Sky Farms, owned by farmer Frank Martin in Glendale, Arizona grows and supplies fresh, organic produce for several Arizona Farmer’s Markets and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)s through subscriptions. Crooked Sky provides us with the locally-grown and ground wheat flour we mix with mesquite in our pancakes.

Dunbar Coalition
www.theDunbarProject.org
PO Box 86132
Tucson AZ 85754-4072
To rent event use of the Dunbar Auditorium contact
Shirley Hockett
Dunbar Project Operations Committee
622-6989
shirly@aztraveltips.com
The Dunbar Coalition has made the Dunbar/Spring Organic Community Garden possible in the effort to turn the Dunbar School at the southwest corner of 2nd street and Main Avenue into an African American/community cultural center and museum. In addition, the Coalition provides us with tables, chairs, the use of their restrooms, and a back up location of the Dunbar Auditorium should it rain.

Dunbar/Spring Organic Community Garden
NW corner of 11th Ave and University Blvd
Tucson, AZ
The garden provides us with the beautiful space for our annual fundraising mesquite milling and mesquite pancake breakfast

Community Food Security Center of the Tucson Community Food Bank
Promotes local food security through a farmers’ market program, creation of backyard and community gardens, hosts the Santa Cruz Farmers’ Market annual mesquite milling and mesquite pancake fiesta, and provides us with fantastic volunteers.
www.communityfoodbank.org/dynamic/foodsecurity.aspx

Debbie Daly and Diane Daly
For original design of our website www.DesertHarvesters.org

Moiagroup
For the latest upgrade of our website www.DesertHarvesters.org

Desert Tortoise Botanicals
418 E. 7TH Street
Tucson, AZ 85705
520-275-2105
desertortoisebotanicals@gmail.com
Provides us with prickly pear fruit, native foods, and demonstrations and sales of native medicinals

Tucson Herb Store
412 E. 7th St., Tucson, AZ 85705
520-903-0038
www.tucsonherbstore.com
Provides us with wonderful locally-made teas.

Brooklyn Pizza
534 N 4th Ave
Tucson, AZ 85705
(520) 622-6868
www.brooklynpizzacompany.com
Provides us with complimentary pizza at many of our planning events

Mano y Metate
www.manoymetate.com
Amy Schwemm is one of the key organizers of our mesquite pancake production. She also creates incredible mole offerings which she donates for our raffle.

Time Market
444 E University Blvd
Tucson, AZ 85705
(520) 622-0761
Provides our mesquite pancake breakfast with organic coffee

B-Line Restaurant
621 N. 4th Ave
Tucson AZ
(520) 882-7575
blinerestaurant.com/
Provides our mesquite breakfast with butter

Wilko
943 E University Blvd
Tucson, AZ 85719
(520) 792-6684

Sunflower Market
www.sfmarkets.com

Dan Lehman – Blacksmith
801 N. Main Ave.
Tucson, Arizona
991-8684
Provides us with beautiful metalwork for our milling operation