Rooted WI, Inc.

Flavor Temptations has been associated with Rooted and the Badger Rock community center for the past 7-8 years. The kitchen facility at the center was used to create, develop and market Flavor Temptations Indian spice kits and curry sauces. Over the years, Rooted has been instrumental in supporting our small business to grow and pursue our dream of helping our customers learn about Indian culture by cooking wholesome and delicious Indian foods.

The Rooted program and their paid internship opportunities have been making a name in Madison for bringing targeted skill sets and hands-on learning to Madison youth in three locations across the city.

Exceptional organizations run by exceptional people also tend to listen to the people they serve, and the Rooted staff reached out to community partners like us to build more relationships with their youth and purposefully extend the depth to which youth can choose to focus. Our team was able to join their regular working hours in order to share information, instruction and resources used to create digital media projects that are parallel to the work they were already doing in the program. See https://www.teenbubbler.org/creations/rooted to view these teen documentaries that follow their experiences in the program.

What's more, the staff at Rooted also continue to layer the program and build their own leaders by creating a pipeline for interns that enjoy or excel at media production to choose to mentor the next set of seasonal interns. And with more community connections they were able to find even more paid opportunities for their interns to take on larger production roles with other organizations that learn of their skillsets and request their work.

Jesse Vieau & Rob Franklin
The Bubbler @ Madison Public Library

My name is Annetta Wright and I live in Madison, Wisconsin. I'm fortunate enough to live down the street from Rooted WI, a community garden that I've been a part of for over 3 years now. I started as a client and graduated to being a volunteer, then a paid person helping in the garden. Rooted WI is more than just a place to grow food; it's a sanctuary and a safe haven for me.

When I initially became a member of Rooted WI, I had no prior experience in gardening. In fact, I had never even owned a plant before! However, the other community gardeners welcomed me and taught me everything I needed to know about gardening and promoting food sustainability. This has been an amazing journey for me, and I am now working on initiating my own business to teach others how to adopt a plant-based lifestyle and use gardening to sustain it.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Rooted WI continued to provide food for the community and families in need. It was a constant source of support and connection during a difficult time. The community at Rooted WI is incredibly diverse and welcoming, and there's always someone willing to lend a helping hand or share their knowledge.

Overall, Rooted WI is more than just a community garden; it's a place where people come together to learn, grow, and support each other. I'm grateful every day to be a part of such an amazing community.

CEOs of Tomorrow partners with many businesses and organizations on a daily basis, and Rooted is among the best we have had the pleasure of working with. Having worked with organization for close to 4 years, I know first-hand their unwavering dedication to serving youth, growing food, stewarding land, and supporting community gardening.
~Dr. Roxie Hentz, Founding Executive Director

From my perspective as a volunteer community leader, this organization has filled vital roles even when it had different names. When Madison adopted a sustainability framework, the Center for Resilient Cities (founded in 1996) was already active in the community and became a supportive partner. When our community gardens needed an organization to administer its programs, Community GroundWorks (founded in 2001) was there to help to create the Gardens Network. Since 2012, when the Madison Food Policy Council was authorized, we have relied on both organizations for education and advocacy on issues of food access, equity, and markets; the merger of the two in 2020 has only amplified their engagement and effectiveness in the community.

As our regional governments embark on food systems planning, Rooted is an essential partner. Its mission of “collaborations rooted in food, land and learning”, pursued by a staff with knowledge, expertise and commitment are a powerful combination. We are fortunate to have such dedicated and effective colleagues to work with on this important project.

Kennedy Heights Community Center youth participants have taken part in gardening experiences with Rooted for the past few years. This opportunity has and continues to afford our youth educational skills such as science, math, social and emotional development, and nutrition awareness. It also equips them with lifelong skills and hobbies such as problem-solving, patience, and relaxation-gardening can be therapeutic and provide a healthy outlet for emotional expression. Gardening also teaches responsibility, social skills by working with others, and a sense of accomplishment. Additionally, it engages the youth in mental and physical health through stress reduction by spending time outside and interacting with nature; they engage in a natural physical exercise aiding their fine and gross motor skills and are exposed to the most natural sensory stimulations through touching soil, smelling flowers, plants, and herbs and observing the many different colors and textures in the field.

Rooted has helped to build lasting, culturally-relevant, beautiful examples of community-based, community-led collaborations. Their youth programs work closely with families, educators, and learners of all ages to offer hands-on experiences -- both at schools and at their own sites -- that bring classroom learning to life. Through community-led, intergenerational opportunities around learning, eating, exploring, and gardening, Rooted is helping to grow the next generation of stewards and community leaders.

Rooted is a treasure, bringing people together and giving voice to the talents and needs within the community.. They consistently engage folks of all ages with skill and expertise, encouraging many to take leadership roles as they share specific skills related to urban agriculture, food justice and education. Rooted has been an important force in bringing neighborhood people together to care for one another and to publicly applaud successful endeavors. Rooted staff has made a strong and positive commitment to the community and supports their goals with scores of volunteers drawn from varied segments of greater Madison including the University of Wisconsin. Badger Rock Middle School students, alumni and their families rate their Rooted experiences with ten thumbs up. Rooted spreads positive energy and dignity to all. Often people who benefit from a Rooted interaction give back. It is a rich and nurturing part of The Badger Rock Community.

My wife and I have been financial supporters of Rooted and its previous two incarnations for many years. My volunteer experience has been as a farm laborer at Troy Farm, a 5-acre, organic certified, vegetable farm located within the city limits of Madison, WI. I started volunteering there in the fall of 2014 and volunteer two days per week, year around. I love the Troy Farm mission and the many things it does to try and build community. This year the farm hosted several amazing workshops about seed saving, foraging, medicinal plants, tiger nuts, grits, and tropical plants. Guest chefs used the vegetables grown on the farm to create a wonderful range of delicious foods including African American, Asian, Latin American, and Caribbean cuisines served at our Thursday night community dinners. Occupy Madison put on a family friendly Flower Empowerment event, and the farm hosted Packers Community Learning Center, Sherman Church, Lakeview Elementary, and Vera Court Neighborhood Center for community center nights. All of those community centers as well as Kennedy Heights Community Center got a weekly delivery of fresh produce, and the farm also sold its produce to the wider community at the Northside Farmers Market. The farm also hosts a spring plant sale to help community members get a head start on their own vegetable and flower gardens.

Although I deeply appreciate the breadth and depth of Rooted's mission, it is my time at Troy Farm that keeps my 67-year old batteries charged and my soul nourished. I get to work along-side amazing young people, doing physical labor, outside, getting my hands dirty, growing vegetables that I know will go to a wide variety of people in the community. Most days I end up singing in my head, and sometime out loud - "Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day.... I've got a beautiful feeling, everything's going my way."

Rooted is the absolute bedrock of the community in the neighborhoods they serve. I have been so impressed with how they lead by allowing the community to lead, which is to say, by giving access to the power and resources they can offer to those whose lives are most immediately impacted by these things. They are consistently asking the community what they (Rooted) can do to better serve. They listen to the answers they get and help turn those ideas into actions.

The Center for Resilient Cities is unique in that they truly live and breathe the mission of their organization. Not only do they have a commitment to working with neighbors to build communities that are good for people and good for the environment, they care deeply about the relationships they are building to make this happen. In every interaction I have had with the organization, I have found warm, caring individuals who are highly intelligent and determined to make a difference in the lives of others.

Center for Resilient Cities provided a unique opportunity for School Food Focus to locate the Upper Midwest Regional Learning Lab in this region. (www.schoolfoodfocus.org) CRC understood the organizational needs of the backbone organization and supported the collaborative, collective impact structure by physically housing staff, assisting with infrastructure needs and providing professional support upon request. It really was a demonstration of the organization's ability to live, breathe and carry out their mission in a very synegistic way - CRC's impact is visionary and truly greater than the sum of it's parts!

I have been so impressed by the commitment to the community expressed through this organization. Time and time again, the mission of holding the community as the driving vision and owners of the work is expressed whether by a name change or a moment's pause to make sure all contributions (monetary or not) are given their recognition. It's no wonder they are seeing change in the resilience of the neighborhoods in which they work. When you nurture the whole being and work on increasing their health and general well-being, you are empowering people with resilience.

What a wonderful organization! From the concept of only going where invited and engaging the community in all aspects of the planning process, it is easy to see why the Center for Resilient Cities has such a successful track record. When a community invests its time, energy and resources in creating its vision, how can the outcome be anything but successful? Wrapping those concepts in a resilient platform concentrated on doing the earth good while at the same time revitalizing a community and everyone wins. I read some of the other reviews and I whole-heartedly agree with Nancy who said that the Center for Resilient Cities simply "gets it."

Our agency has collaborated with Center for Resilient Cities many times over the years on a number of projects and successful grant proposals dealing with inner city greening efforts and food system work. One of the Center’s programs – Alice’s Garden – has been a key participant and vendor in our farmers market, selling sustainably grown produce sown, nurtured, and harvested by by local neighborhood residents at the Garden. Several participants from Alice’s Garden are also participating at our Port Washington farm to help transition from a smaller, “backyard” garden to a larger, income-producing plot.

As a background, our agencies are located in an area underserved by quality grocery stores and overpopulated with fast food restaurants and corner convenience stores. The chronic shortage of fresh fruits and vegetables, when combined with poverty and a lack of transportation, create “food insecurity,” or the inability to obtain and consume affordable food. While our agency is working to solve some of the food security issues in the area, we also realize that healthier food is meaningless without safe places for families to walk and play, nutritious school lunch programs, and access to educational and economic opportunities.

This is where the Center for Resilient Cities comes in. The Center brought together many competing nonprofits, social service agencies, government agencies, and churches and started a shared conversation about how to create a vibrant, robust, and healthy community. The strength of the Center for Resilient Cities lies in their ability to listen to residents and to put together projects that promote resident-identified wants and needs. They excel at synchronizing the efforts of distinct and sometimes competing entities to work towards a common goal.

The Center for Resilient Cities implements an outstanding model for sustainable economic development and community revitalization to meet the needs of local communities in Wisconsin. The impact of their catalytic efforts in Milwaukee and Madison has been outstanding and the innovative Madison Research Center will serve as a model platform for cutting edge education, sustainable practice and scalable project assessment that will help diverse communities transform themselves for years to come. The Center is on the cusp of some of our most pressing issues and poised for expanded impact in the years to come. Outstanding!

Board member for many years. Started by one communty member of inexhaustible energy who had/has a vision for the use of a very long and very wide area in the central city of Madison, Wisconsin. What bettter use than a community park with amenities and attractions for all ages and abilities. The planning has taken years and still isn't a reality but focus of the park is now a project of the city of Madison. The board and staff have moved to a new emphasis and name. We are now called the Center for Resilient Cities. Our current project is the development and building of a new school in conjunction with the Madison Metropolitan School District. The of the curriculum is education and production of sustainable agriculture. This has included the design and development of a new public school with active involvement of the surrounding community in defining the design of the school as well as the development of the curriculum.

The Center for Resilient Cities is constructing The Resilience Research Center in Madison Wisconsin. This project has focus's on urban agriculture, neighborhood revitalization and education. The site of the project is an urban island where no grocery stores are present and all the children are bussed to school many miles away due to no elementary school in this area. This project will provide a charter school on a 4 acre parcel that is completely vegetaded with edible plants, trees and shrubs. Fruit and nut trees, vegetable gardens and berry plants will abound and will be irrigated using captured rainwater. The fruits and vegetables will be harvested, cleaned and cooked in the commercial kitchen in the school. Beside the building housing a charter school there will also be space for offices for Growing Power, an international urban agriculture non profit headquartered in Milwaukee Wisconsin and lead by Will Allen - one of Time Magazines top 100 people in the world for 2011. Also, a neighborhood center will be located in the building along with offices for Center for Resilient Cities. This building will be a LEED Platinum building. Energy consumption will be less than half of what a conventional building of this size uses. All rainwater will be captured from the entire site and utilized for irrigation. Aquaponics will be done in greenhouses and possibly hoop houses. PV solar energy is utilized. Waterless urinals are used. Tinted glazing is used to minimize solar gain which minimizes air conditioning load. This project is a phenomenal green project that deserves accolades from around the world.

Seeks to fundementaly change man's interaction with the urban environment and place it on a sustainable footing, while improving the lot of traditionaly underserved neighborhoods and populations.

The Center for Resilient Cities simply "gets it". The staff and fellow board members "get" that successful urban neighborhoods and sustainable cities require attention to the whole person and the total environment--natural and built. Our projects use intensive community engagement, organizing people around those things that we can help with--water, energy, food, healthy living--and the things that neighborhood people care about. I am always excited to hear our staff briefings about our projects; GreaterJohnsons Park in Milwaukee and the Resilience Research Center in Madison being our current projects underway. Troy Gardens, a project completed some years ago, has won awards and has been featured in publications as an example of best practices.

Center for Resilient Cities is building the most energy efficient building in the world. The building will have a geothermal water cooled variable refrigerant flow system with heat recovery. They also have community gardens, and will be growing perch and tilapia in their outdoor greenhouses. This building will serve as a great example and a beacon of hope in the distressed community it serves. It will also have a unique middle school that allows the students a real hands on approach to learning. This is an exciting project.