May
It is farmers market season: asparagus, strawberries, broccoli, and kale are making an appearance!!
This growing season, The Locals are helping spread the word about the places in Conway where you can get local food. With the support of an Arkansas Community Foundation grant, we are developing a marketing campaign for The Farmstand at Bell Urban Farm, Conway Locally Grown, the Conway Farmers Market, and the Downtown Farmers Market. Click on the image above to preview one of the videos you might come across on your FB or Instagram feed :)
The Locals are also proud to announce the winners of our Growing Farms Grant! Thanks to donations from supporters like you, we are going to be able to help the Bradford Valley Farms build a new brooder for their pastured chickens. We are also helping expand the Burrows Craft Chocolate bee hives, which will provide all the honey they will need for their new local and hand crafted chocolate business.
The Locals just made a pledge to support The Rogue Roundabout Kickstarter, and you should too! The Rogue Roundabout will be the first micro-brewery and restaurant in Conway. They plan to use local ingredients in their Craft Kitchen, and brew craft beers in their Beverage Lab. Learn more about their project, and help make this dream a reality by clicking the image above!
Stay tuned for more updates on our awesome community. Thanks for all your support!
The Farmers Market Promotion Program
Funded by the USDA's Agricultural Marketing Services, this project helped us increase the demand and enthusiasm for local food in our community, open six retail spaces for local food located in food desert areas, and coordinate activities to recruit and train young potential farmers. The sites of the new retail spaces include farms, schools and small stores in and around Searcy County. As part of this program La Lucha Space planned and coordinated two farm tours visiting diverse farms in Arkansas including AR Killer Bee and Tomato Farm, Armstead Mountain Farm in Jerusalem, Falling Sky and Ratchford Farms in Marshall, Rattle's Garden in Vilonia, and Meadowcreek in Fox.
We also organized two local food festivals in Conway collaborating with the Faulkner County Urban Farm Project and the Public Library: Backyard Gourmet, celebrated in Spring, and the Urban Farm Festival, celebrated in the fall. These events include live music, educational demonstrations, games and food prepared with ingredients grown on-site.
As part of this project we also collaborated with the Arkansas Local Food Network to develop an online interactive tool that lets you search for participants of the local food movement by category and location. The info includes data on farms, community gardens, restaurants and more. Explore the Fresh Directory
Farmers Market Promotion Program
The Farmers Market Promotion Program
Posted by S S · December 29, 2021 8:21 PM · 1 reaction
October 2021 updates
Check out all the fun activities that are right around the corner!
Join the Urban Farm Project's Potluck Social. This coming Saturday, October 23rd from 5-8pm. Celebrate the end of a great season and, if you haven't yet, meet the new garden programmer Erica Lunde. Enjoy roasting hot dogs and marshmallows around the firepit, and some fun games for adults and kids. The library will provide the hot dogs and fixings, and the drinks. Bring a dish to share, such as a salad, soup, vegetable side, or dessert. For all the info and to invite your friends visit https://fb.me/e/4xENXBp2x
For this month's online movie Club we are watching Adaptation with Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep. This meta-film takes you on a screen writers journey to adapt a book into a film, while taking every opportunity to take a filmic cliche and completely turn it on its head. Watch on your own and join us for a fun discussion via Google Meet on Thursday, October 28th, at 830pm https://meet.google.com/ngx-gqxa-mas
Visit Downtown Conway to enjoy drinks and small bites, live music, retail shopping, and art demonstrations! Conway Art Walk will happen every third Thursday of the month from 5–8pm. Each month, new artists will be featured in retail shops along Oak Street, between Chestnut and Front Street.
On October 21st, 5–8pm, in honor of Hispanic Heritage month, artist in residence, Sector Sick, will be creating live art throughout the event. Live music will include an African drum circle by Ron Jensen-McDaniel and a duet by the Conway Symphony Orchestra.
Help Conway develop its Public Art Master Plan by filling out this survey! https://surveymonkey.com/r/XG8MGWZ
September 2021 updates
We are so happy to see things starting to pick up around the community. If you know of any activities or events you want to spread the word about, please let me know.
Also, we recently had a problem with our website and lost a bunch of our newsletter subscribers :(
If you enjoy our newsletter, please forward it to a friend (or two, or three :) and encourage them to sign up to receive monthly community updates www.thelocals.be/newsletter
Great news! The Locals received a grant from the Arkansas Community Foundation to create a marketing campaign for local food, as well as to help farm stands, farmers markets, and any place where local food is available, to apply and get set up to accept SNAP/EBT benefits. If you are interested in this please contact me at [email protected]The more people know where local food is available, and the more accessible it is, the more local food sales will increase! Please share this so it can reach the people that can benefit from this opportunity.
Carolyn Lewis Elementary in Conway is searching for a service member to manage the school garden from September 2021- July 15th 2022. This is an amazing paid professional development opportunity. This position pays $22,000 over the course of 11 months and includes health insurance. There is also potential for childcare assistance.
Apply using this link: https://foodcorps.org/apply/
To learn more about FoodCorps Arkansas, click here:
You can also check out our recruitment powerpoint, here.
For any questions contact [email protected]
Hope to see you soon!
Newsletter
Sign up to our newsletter to get updates and information about upcoming events.
Online Movie Club
Let's face it, social distancing has many of us watching a lot more TV and movies than usual, so why not try to make the best of it--together!
We will all watch a movie on our own time, and then get together through a video conference to chit chat about it. The films we pick will all be available through Kanopy.com, a free online streaming service made available through the public library. And our friend, and Movie Night host, Felipe Pruneda would be the moderator.
If this sounds like something you would be interested in participating in, register for the Movie Club and receive a special goodie package in the mail https://forms.gle/5ZLrh7vziLrXb1ZS7 before each meeting--you must participate in the meetings to continue receiving the packets.
Our next meeting will be Thursday, March 25th at 830pm. For this month's movie club we will be watching Miss Juneteenth.
Tensions between Turquoise and her daughter Kai erupt when they prepare the young woman for Texas' Miss Juneteenth pageant. Turquoise, a former winner and single mom working as a waitress at a bar and a beautician in a mortuary, pushes Kai to follow in her footsteps, but might be confusing what she wants with what her daughter needs. As the contest approaches, Turquoise will begin questioning her choices for her family and wonder if her idea of her future is all that clear.
Director Channing Godfrey Peoples's eloquent, lucid portrait of a resilient Black woman celebrates personal and historical forms of liberation while bringing the community around the pageant to vivid life.
Watch the movie on your own time and join the discussion via Google Meet (https://meet.google.com/dah-jtha-rks).
School/Community Garden Grants
The Locals wants to help get a couple local gardens ready for this year's growing season. The Locals will be awarding two $500 grants for school or community gardens in Faulkner County, AR. To apply please fill out this application by March 31st, 2021 https://forms.gle/8Wxp11xbGfbkKE8E7 Please help us spread the word about this grant!!
For questions contact [email protected]
The Locals Statement of Inclusion
The Locals is committed to cultivating a strong community that is inclusive and diverse. We believe each person is different and can contribute their unique gifts in terms of ideas, abilities, opinions, perspective, culture, education, ethnicity, race, sex, gender identity and expression, national origin, age, languages, color, religion, sexual orientation, and beliefs, and any other manifestations of being human.
Our goal is to help people develop their particular skills and pursue their passions by connecting them with other people, projects, and groups with shared interests.
We do not tolerate any form of discrimination or harassment.
If you believe there is something we can do to stay true to our values, please contact us at [email protected] and we will do everything we can to honor our commitments.
Student Short Film Showcase
Buy tickets to the show at https://www.thelocals.be/movienight
On February 26th, 2020 The Locals Movie Night will feature a selection of short films directed and produced by local students (high school, college, and others welcome!) After each film, students will have a chance to talk about their piece and answer questions from the audience. After all the movies are screened, the audience will vote for their favorite one and the winner will win a prize!
If you are interested in submitting a piece for selection please fill out this form (even if your project is not finished yet).
https://forms.gle/w5KF2VVvp294wzCy9
All submissions are due on February 10th, 2020
Movies should be a maximum length of 10 minutes, and should be submitted in DVD format by mail to:
ATTN: The Locals. 2125 Hickory St, Conway AR 72034.
If you need help converting your film into DVD format please contact us at [email protected] and we can help you sort it out.
If you have any questions please contact Felipe Pruneda at [email protected]
Conway Home Brewers Club
Do you brew your own beer, or are you interested in learning how?
The Locals is helping start Conway's Home Brewers Club. The purpose of this club is to promote fellowship, mutual support, and share knowledge amongst brewers. Anyone interested in the craft is welcome.
We will meet every third Thursday of the month at 630pm, at TBA.
Join our Facebook Group by visiting https://www.facebook.com/groups/conwayhomebrewers/
If you would like to sign up for the Conway Home Brewers email list, please email [email protected]
Programs
Volunteer Workdays
Posted by S S · February 01, 2018 12:16 AMChildren's Garden Club
Posted by S S · February 01, 2018 12:15 AMPeas Take One Veggie Cart
Posted by S S · February 01, 2018 12:08 AM
Donate Monthly
La Lucha Space is a 501(c)3 non-profit that coordinates projects benefiting the community of Conway. Our work represents the contributions of many diverse community members. Your donations support our staff's work to organize programs and projects such as The Locals and the Faulkner County Urban Farm Project.
Recurring donors are a huge help - they allow us to more easily budget and cover overhead so we can better focus on providing programs, and support small local creators.
These funds stay in your community, they support local people doing work that strengthens the local economy and contributes to the vibrancy of our community - help us make change happen!
Creative Coffee Club
These three ladies have been a constant source of support and encouragement. Since the beginning of this project, Pat, Jan and Linda have helped us turn our vision into reality. From their home-studio, the ladies get together to sip coffee and put together one of a kind pieces with materials spanning from cultured sea-glass and kazuri beads from Kenya, to lava hematite and tagua nuts from South America. They believe in sourcing materials with a conscience, making their jewelry not only beautiful but caring and compassionate. Their presence at The Locals always brightens up the space and their creations are constant source of compliments among visitors. Find them at etsy.com/shop/creativecoffeeclub
How can I get involved?
A:There are many ways to get involved with The Locals and help us further our mission.
You can volunteer to help at one of our projects or events. You can help us spread the word, and most importantly you can show up and participate! To check out upcoming events around the community click here
Finally, a great way to support our organization is by making a donation. Every little bit helps us continue offering programs and services to our community. We strongly encourage supporters to be our super heroes and set up a monthly recurring donation. These donations help us with plan for the future and pay for staffing and overhead costs--the things that are most needed but are hardest to fund. Once you set it up you don't have to think about it and you'll automatically send your love to our organization.
Conway Symphony Orchestra
The Conway Symphony Orchestra exists to create meaningful experiences through performances and education. The Conway Symphony Orchestra is unique in many ways. We provide our pre-professional musicians an unparalleled opportunity to play alongside professionals in an orchestra setting.
