Take Over Artists

Give us our this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses. This was a banner hanging on the building on Turk St, behind the Free Farm. The building owned by the Catholic Church that has been an eyesore in the neighborhood for years was appropriately Occupied on Sunday by the SF Commune with the idea of creating a community center and also a place that shelters the homeless (ironic that the archdiocese has ignored the homeless people camped on the sidewalk next to this building for years). By Monday afternoon the police with the request of the Church cleared everyone out and I read arrested 75 people. The police in their enthusiasm to get rid of the “trespassers” cut the chain and lock of the Free Farm and invaded our sanctuary and place of peace.

This doesn’t directly have much to do with the Free Farm Stand, but I am super inspired by the “Commune” and their ideals and actions. They are the true and beautiful Take Over Artists even if only for 24 hours! I have looked at those vacant buildings for the last two years while working at the Free Farm and have myself dreamt of them being a house of hospitality Catholic Worker style or an urban kibbutz so that free farmers could live next to the farm, take in stranger for dinner, house a homeless family, and give meaningful work to people, growing food to feed those in need. These folks took the courageous step of Occupying so called private property and made a bold statement saying vacant buildings, especially those owned by a church, should be put to use for the common good. We at the Free Farm have been lucky so far to have a church that supports our goals of feeding the hungry and letting us use their vacant land temporarily to do that.

I am not sure what it will take to get our neighbors who own that property to get real and see the crisis we are in, to hear the message the artists are putting out their. In the meantime, any constructive program we can undertake these days to make the better world we want is going in the right direction.

The green abundance is upon us and I had the almost more bread and produce than I could fit in the van on Sunday. One highlight for me was the 81lbs of oranges that my friend Bilkis gleaned with her mother from a neighbor in Marin. The fruit tree is a symbol of hope in that it can provide so much for us to feed on. I also brought a lot of seedlings to give away (and I still have a lot left over).