Summer 2025
August
Hey y’all, Ellie here. I hope everyone is drowning in peaches and tomatoes like we are in my house! I’m writing to share a construct that we think about a lot over here at Seed Change that might help you get through these dark days. Since our very early days, we have been preoccupied with how to bring more joy, ease, and connectedness into our work. Elizabeth and I came up with this little trifecta on a sweaty backpacking trip in Shenandoah in the summer of 2023. It’s stayed with us through dozens of projects, hundreds (THOUSANDS??) of meetings, and a trip this July to Bethany Beach where I taught Elizabeth how to pick crabs the Maryland way and Will taught us how to make hot wings the Will way.
Why joy, ease, and connectedness? Seed Change’s eternal guide, adrienne maree brown, put it like this: “Our revolutionary potential as a species lands in a reorientation towards work.” So much of our time is spent at work. For many people, work extends beyond paid labor to caring for families, neighbors, communities, gardens... It’s this work, both paid and unpaid, that drives our relationships with each other, with money, with time, with consumption, with politics. (Check out Work Won’t Love You Back by another luminary, Sarah Jaffe, for more on this.)
For those of us who are lucky to get paid for work that aligns with, and hopefully forwards, our values, this meaning runs even deeper.
Values-driven work can be exhausting in the best of times, much less when the federal government is taking over the already-problematic police force in my hometown of DC. (Donate to DC Migrant Mutual Aid if you’re feeling despair!) We’re trying to gain an inch against some of the most pernicious and powerful forces in the world. This uphill battle can lead to burnout, helplessness, and the isolating frustration of feeling like we’re competing for limited resources. We know. We’ve been there.
These feelings are compounded by white supremacy culture. After witnessing– and, admittedly, perpetuating– this culture, we know just how much it’s holding us back as individuals and as a collective. We want to make change today and tomorrow, but we also need the inspiration to hang in there for the long haul. At Seed Change, this starts by finding and creating joy, ease, and connectedness across our work. Joy drives out despair, hopelessness, apathy, and reminds us what we’re fighting for. Ease doesn’t mean easy; it means doing work that’s grounded in a mix of what you’re good at, what’s needed, and what’s fun. It requires that we play to our strengths while continuously pushing ourselves and each other to grow. Connectedness ties us to each other, to the natural world, to other people doing righteous work yesterday and today.
When we’re tired, frustrated, uninspired, overwhelmed, these tenets are harder to come by, and more important. So, as you grind, push, wrestle, slog through it, don’t forget to take a beat. Find a little joy by taking a walk around your neighborhood and looking for evidence of idiosyncracy in people’s yards (one of my neighbor’s kids appears to have a big thing for painting rocks). Find a little ease by asking what’s flowing right now and put your attention there. Find a little connectedness by reaching out to someone who might know what you’re going through, or reading about the tactics of historical social movements. And feel free to share what’s keeping you joyful, easeful, and connected right now. We certainly have lots more to learn.
Your friends,
Ellie, Elizabeth, and Will
P.S. - Not yet signed-up for our newsletter? Do so here.
We solemnly swear that we’ll never share your email or spam your inbox.
What We’re Cooking Up (it’s salad)
Will: I am a big, sweaty dude. My summer is full of stained t-shirts and mumbled apologies about slippery handshakes. I’ve made my peace with it; but I sure don’t seek out burning coals or roasting pans this time of year.
For that and many other reasons, panzanella is my favorite summer food, and a defensible pick for inclusion in my overall top five. More of a concept than a recipe, it’s a versatile entree salad that’s all about showcasing raw veggies still warm from the sun. My go-to ‘zanella uses tomatoes, cukes, Bull’s horn peppers, basil, fresh uncured onions, and toasted sourdough. It can be enjoyed only in the sparse weeks when all of those ingredients are at the farmers market or in the garden at once, and it should be eaten as often as possible during that time. Salt the tomatoes and cukes in a colander over a mixing bowl for an hour, and then use the extracted water as the base for your vinaigrette. Serve it cold with a sour goat’s milk cheese. It’s a beautiful, refreshing, shockingly red summer salad, and I dare you to get tired of eating it before the season ends.
Elizabeth: Around this time of year I start to panic. The days stop being punishingly hot, a cool breeze teases of fall, and I start to worry that I haven’t eaten a sufficient amount of tomatoes, peaches, sweet corn, and other summer delights to get me through the colder seasons. So for late August, I like to make a salad that combines it all - sweet corn off the cob, ripe peaches, heirloom tomatoes, basil, and burrata. Simply slice and gently combine the corn, peaches, and tomato. Top with about ⅓ c extra-virgin olive oil, 3 tbsp of white wine vinegar, a generous amount of salt and pepper. To finish it off add two balls of fresh burrata and fresh basil. Serve immediately and try your best to hold onto the memory of that first bite - because you’ll be dreaming about it come January.
Ellie: This time of year you don’t gotta do much to make amazingly delicious food. My favorite thing to eat in the summer is a Palestinian Farmer Salad, also known as “salata na’ameh” (finely chopped salad) or “salata falahiyeh” (farmers salad). The deliciousness of this salad correlates directly to the quality of your ingredients so be discerning! Finely dice roughly equal amounts of excellent tomatoes and cucumbers. Combine with about a quarter of that amount of thinly sliced yellow onion. Toss in some finely chopped tender herbs (mint or parsley, whatever’s your pleasure). Some recipes call for za’atar too which is great but I also love to keep it simple. Salt thoroughly, and add in a hearty amount of lemon juice and olive oil. Let it sit for a good minute to allow the flavors to meld together. Eat standing over the bowl in the kitchen.
Bonus round!!! The juices from this salad make a fantastic summer cocktail when mixed with gin and more lemon juice. This salad and cocktail both pair exceedingly well with a donation to the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund.
What’s on the Horizon
Will: I have never heard the word “resilience” used more than I have in the last 12 months. I’ve been in different nooks and crannies of food systems movements for about 15 years, and for most of that time, I’d say the most common words I heard were “local” and “scale,” both of which bring their own complicated histories and contexts. But today, many of the conversations I find myself in are not about reach or trajectory, but durability. As our movement seeks to grow food lovingly and feed all people in the face of climate change, economic extraction, and a reckless federal government increasingly hostile towards our objectives, we’re called to develop strategies that can survive - and even thrive - under worsening conditions.
We’re supporting the City of Denver on a food resilience assessment project this year. We’re working within a cool risk assessment framework that the folks at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Liveable Future put together, and we’re able to draw from a bunch of great work that the City, County, and community groups are already doing. Denver defines a resilient food system as one that provides "sufficient, appropriate, and accessible food to all, in the face of various and even unforeseen disturbances.” Ultimately, we’re looking to articulate some of the biggest threats to food systems resilience in Denver, and lay the groundwork for coordination and policy strategies that can help mitigate those threats.
Like most of our work, this is a project grounded in deep listening.
As we work to better understand the assets, actors, and potential vulnerabilities in the Denver food ecosystem, we’re also trying to be comfortable with the recognition that resilience is not monolithic, even within a single jurisdiction. Threats to the food system impact different communities differently, and as we try to center equity in our analysis and recommendations, we’re creating spaces for conversation around exactly what it is about the food system that we want to endure, and who it will serve.
Does that resonate with the work you’re doing? We’d love to compare notes - shoot us a reply and let’s talk!
Bops for the Beach Bums
Warm weather, bubbly beverages and personalities, the color orange.
This season’s playlist captures that smooth and exciting relief of sipping on an Aperol Spritz with your toes in the sand. Pull up a beach chair, press play, and get lost with us in these songs of the summer.
Learning Corner - An Op-ed from Our Associate
We’re all familiar with the adage: “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” After spending the last year working with Elizabeth, Ellie, and Will, I’ve grown to reframe that sentiment: “Choose a job you love, and you will want to work every day of your life.” Mission-based, systems-change work doesn’t stop when you clock out. The values that drive your work ethic, the fundamental belief that the work you are doing is good and important, these ideals guide your personal decision-making at home, in the grocery store, in interactions with momentary strangers. They are also the wind in your sails when the going gets tough. Surrounding yourself with folks that share your convictions is vital to sustaining them, ensuring you’re never pouring from an empty cup.
Ellie, Will, and Elizabeth do this so well. They are constantly pouring into each other (and me!), greasing the wheels, and fanning the flame. You would think after years of hopping on calls and facilitating meetings they’d treat them all casually, but they don’t. There is always room for improvement, and who else is better to hold you accountable to that commitment than your closest friends. They foster a culture of transparency, growth (nurturing, really), and intentionality. I have found so much delight in knowing that if everything we do flows from the heart, what Seed Change Strategies does is good, full, and for all.
I’ve gained endless amounts of technical knowledge from them - this time last year, I’d never heard of USDA LFPP grants, cross-docking, or five fingers of consent. But NOW - now I’m not only familiar with these and so many more things, but I feel skilled in my understanding of them. They champion an environment for questions, ownership, and learning together.
A selection of sauces featured in our attempt at a Hot Ones episode. (sweat and tears not pictured)
And man, are they fun. You know that feeling when you’re laughing so hard with your bosses that one of them spits milk across the table? I do.
A sense of humor is valuable when networking and dealing with clients, sure. But cracking jokes on a virtual meeting that goes past five with no end in sight, that makes the time fly. I won’t say it makes the work easy, but it certainly does make it enjoyable. I’ve loved every day of working with Seed Change Strategies, so much so that it made the decision to go to grad school, something I had my heart set on for years, really difficult.
As my wife, Allison, and I venture west this month from Raleigh, NC to Davis, CA, I’m feeling full. I’m bringing the wealth of knowledge, spirit, and clarity that Will, Elizabeth, and Ellie have cultivated in me into my studies, and even further into a lifetime of loving the work that I do.
I’m eternally grateful to them, and may or may not be crying typing this. Happy tears. Big tears of happy gratitude.
And who’s to say what the future holds? Sure would be cool if SCS had an office on the west coast . . .
In the words of Patches O’Houlihan: “Bye Bye”
- Charlie Robinette, The Best Associate Seed Change Strategies Has Had to Date
You made it this far, showing us that you’re really along for the ride!
As a reward, I give you a SECOND playlist - that’s right, real bang for your buck this quarter - that follows our ride west from coast to coast along old Route 66.
Thanks for being a friend. - Charlie