But on Aug. 18, Gottlieb posted this message on the Selma Cafe website: ”Dear friends and supporters of Selma Cafe, As we move towards September, the board of directors of Selma Cafe, and I, are discussing what is next for Selma Cafe. The monthly breakfast parties are currently on hold. Please stay tuned for updates on activities, and thanks to all for the love!”

Selma Cafe began as a weekly breakfast salon in 2009, held on Friday mornings at the home of Gottlieb and Jeff McCabe in Ann Arbor’s Eberwhite neighborhood, on the city’s west side. Operations were suspended in mid-April of 2013, after the city notified the group that the breakfasts were violating local zoning ordinances. At roughly the same time, Selma’s previous fiscal sponsor – the nonprofit Food System Economic Partnership (FSEP) – froze funds it held on behalf of Selma Cafe, citing violations of a memorandum of understanding between the two entities. Artrain, an Ann Arbor-based nonprofit, agreed to take on the sponsorship responsibilities, and the IRS expedited Selma’s application for nonprofit status.

The volunteer-supported fundraising breakfasts resumed in June of 2013 at a new location – in the common house dining room at Sunward Cohousing, 424 Little Lake Drive. The cohousing community is located off of Jackson Road, west of Ann Arbor in Scio Township. The events shifted to a Saturday brunch, held monthly and featuring guest chefs and locally sourced food. Chefs this year have included Eduardo Rubio of Aventura and local attorney Nick Roumel, among others.

About a year ago, Selma Cafe received a 501(c)3 nonprofit designation from the IRS, a final step needed to secure financial autonomy.

Board members for the nonprofit include Roumel, local farmer Nathan Lada, long-time Selma Cafe volunteers Susie Baity and Kyoko Yamamoto, and McCabe, who also is owner of Nifty Hoops.

Gottlieb, who emailed The Chronicle with the news on Aug. 18, indicated that the transition over the past year has been difficult, requiring a tremendous amount of work for her personally, although she stressed that Sunward Cohousing has been welcoming and has worked to accommodate Selma Cafe’s needs. She has also become interested in nonviolent communication (NVC), describing it as “a form of conflict resolution and peace making that seems essential to our world these days.” She’s been working closely with NVC-certified trainers to bring workshops and classes on into the Ann Arbor area, including a year-long training program. “I am finding that is currently where I have passion and stamina,” Gottlieb wrote in an email.

“The board of Selma Cafe and I are in discussions about what is next for our organization,” Gottlieb wrote, “and we are all very invested in finding new and creative ways to support local food and sustainable agriculture in the near future, while allowing the format of the breakfast parties to shift to other activities. We are all tremendously grateful and appreciative for the love and support from volunteers, guests and friends of Selma Cafe. I’ll keep the website updated as we move forward.”

The county’s position is that Act 88 can be levied without voter approval to fund economic development and agricultural activities. This year, the proposal is to levy 0.07 mills in December 2014 – the same rate that was levied in 2013. It’s expected to raise an estimated $1,022,276 in property tax revenues.

In previous years, the resolution setting this millage has outlined how the revenues would be allocated. The largest allocations have gone to the county’s office of community & economic development, and to the nonprofit Ann Arbor SPARK.

However, at its Nov. 6, 2013 meeting, the board adopted a new policy for allocating Act 88 revenues, drafted by Conan Smith (D-District 9). [.pdf of Act 88 policy] The policy included creating an Act 88 advisory committee to make recommendations to the board and prepare an annual report that assesses how Act 88 expenditures have contributed toward progress of goals adopted by the board. The policy allows the committee to distribute up to 10% of annual Act 88 revenues without seeking board approval. The policy also allocates up to 30% of revenues to the county office of community & economic development, which administers Act 88 funding.

This year, the 10% amounts to $91,753. Of that, $3,993 remains unallocated and will stay in the Act 88 fund balance to support future projects. Beyond that, a total of $87,760 in funding was allocated for six projects initiated by two organizations – the Michigan State University Product Center, and Ypsilanti-based Growing Hope [.pdf of staff memo]:

• $10,060 to the MSU Product Center to study the potential for enhanced food processing in Washtenaw County.
• $12,700 to the MSU Product Center to develop “MarketMaker,” a food industry business network and database.
• $20,000 to Growing Hope/Reconsider to run community education events on the Michigan Invests Locally Exemption Act and to study the potential and processes for investing locally in Washtenaw County.
• $13,000 to Growing Hope/Revalue to provide two full-day educational events to assist investors in incorporating local investment offerings into their financial plans.
• $13,000 to Growing Hope to create a study on increasing food assistance sales at farmers markets in Washtenaw County.
• $19,000 to Growing Hope to support the development of an Ypsilanti “MarketPlace,” a year-round farmer’s market, and “MarketHub,” a food distribution center serving underserved communities.

These recommendations were made to the county board by the Act 88 advisory committee. Members are: County commissioners Ronnie Peterson (D-District 6), Alicia Ping (R-District 3) and Conan Smith (D-District 9); Todd Clark, president of United Bank & Trust; and Art Serafinski, chair of the Ypsilanti Convention & Visitors Bureau board. Staff support was provided by the county’s office of community & economic development.

During the Aug. 6 meeting, commissioner Dan Smith (R-District 2) brought forward an amendment for both the projects resolution and the resolution to levy the tax this year. After some discussion among commissioners, the board unanimously passed this amendment on the projects resolution [strike-through reflects a clause that was struck during deliberations]:

FURTHERMORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners directs Corporation Counsel to provide an exhaustive written opinion, by December 31, 2014, detailing the lawful uses of sums raised under Act 88 of 1913 (MCLA 46.161), and that this opinion address in similar manner other possible interpretations.

A similar amendment was passed unanimously for the resolution to levy Act 88:

FURTHERMORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners directs Corporation Counsel to provide an exhaustive written opinion, by October 1, 2014, detailing the exact mechanism under which Act 88 of 1913 taxes may be levied in excess of Article IX, Section 6 constitutional limits without a vote of the people.

This brief was filed from the boardroom at the county administration building, 220 N. Main St. in Ann Arbor. A more detailed report will follow.

Screenshot of March 26, 2014 note to readers from publisher Jim O’Rourke announcing the changes at Heritage. Image links to the article.

As of April 10, the Ypsilanti Courier, which currently maintains its office in Saline, will be amalgamated with the Chelsea Standard, Dexter Leader, Manchester Enterprise, Milan News-Leader, and Saline Reporter to form a media entity called Washtenaw Now. The weekly Ypsilanti Courier usually runs around 24 pages, according to its advertising department. Though it will combine six similar local newspapers, the weekly Washtenaw Now likely won’t contain 144 pages; by comparison, 120 pages made up last Sunday’s New York Times.

Compared to 20th-century Ypsilanti newspapers, our community coverage will inevitably be reduced – to a level that could fairly be regarded as a homeopathic dilution. The University of Michigan used to have a homeopathic college. It closed. Aside from a possible placebo effect, homeopathy doesn’t work.

But in the early 1930s, the full-strength Ypsilanti Daily Press provided a powerful remedy to ailing residents. It galvanized Ypsilantians to join a massive two-pronged community project that united clubwomen, farmers, the destitute, church ladies, storekeepers, city officials, and myriad other community members.

Because of the paper’s intervention and leadership, hungry Ypsilanti children ate nutritious food the following winter.

Ypsilanti’s First National Bank took out a triumphant quarter-page ad when they processed a single transaction with an exotic ‘foreign country’. June 9, 1931 Ypsilanti Daily Press.

As the Depression deepened in Ypsilanti, limited resources existed for the poor or unemployed.

There was no federal unemployment insurance, Social Security, or food stamp program.

In the spring of 1931, a year and a half after the stock market crash, President Roosevelt’s New Deal programs did not yet exist to help out-of-work Ypsilantians.

In addition, just a few years earlier, the majority of Americans lived in rural areas. Even such urban areas as Ypsilanti remained insular.

One period ad from a downtown Ypsi bank describes the astounding novelty of a single transaction it conducted involving a “foreign country.”

Because of these conditions, relief for the poor had long been locally organized.

Commissioner of the Poor was a long-standing city job; in the early 1930s it was held by Ralph Southard, who was also police chief.

When the Depression created privation, the city drew on this local tradition.

Led by the Ypsilanti Daily Press, the city of 10,300 devised its own solution.

Local Gardens

“Social Service Worker, Daily Press, Sponsor Home Gardens,” read an April 1, 1931 headline in the Ypsilanti Daily Press. Municipal social worker Inez Graves and the paper asked property owners to allow disadvantaged neighbors to create vegetable gardens on vacant property. Residents could call the paper or drop in to its downtown office at North Huron and Pearl, opposite the now-Riverside Arts Center, to register their open land. Graves was in charge of matching needy families to available lots, wrote the Press. It was one of many roles Graves would assume for the Home Gardens project.

Residents responded immediately, noted the Press. Lots near Recreation Park, another on Davis Street, and one near Ecorse Road were immediately donated, with 124 additional lots to follow including one three-acre swath. Lots were not requireed to be within city limits, said the paper, as Graves would assign more distant lots to families with some means of transportation.

Between 40 and 50 gardens were soon under cultivation, according to the June 3 Press, with gardeners guided by advice from Ypsilanti High School agricultural instructor Charles Osgood. Residents without property to lend could help in other ways. Some gave money. A local greenhouse donated cabbage and tomato plants. Ypsilantians were also asked to donate any extra vegetable seeds. For some Ypsilanti families in poverty, like those who kept children home from school for lack of adequate clothes to wear, there was no money for a packet of seeds.

Despite donors’ generosity, a few lots remained unclaimed. The June 4 Press advised, “People who called upon the city for help during the winter, but who failed to help themselves during the summer, can scarcely expect sympathetic consideration if next winter they again find themselves without food.” Many, however, took advantage of the chance to grow fresh food.

Local Canning

In September, the second part of the city’s effort to feed hungry residents began. Residents and local farmers were asked to bring surplus vegetables and fruits to the Board of Commerce offices at Michigan Avenue and Adams street throughout September and early October. The bushels of tomatoes, potatoes, beets, carrots, peaches, and apples collected there would be redistributed by a dedicated city truck to local groups for numerous canning sessions.

The Press asked local churches and clubs to help with this massive canning venture by scheduling one canning bee each. The Press asked the public to contribute any canning jars, canning lids, sealing paraffin, sugar, salt, or money to the effort. The paper asked each participant to bring her own paring knife, at least a pound of sugar, and as many Mason jars as she could donate.

The Baptist Church led the endeavor with a squadron of women canning for four hours in the church’s kitchen on a mid-September Saturday afternoon. Peaches, plums, pears and tomatoes were canned, according to the Sept. 19 Press. Capping off 156 finished quarts of canned food, the energetic Baptist ladies volunteered to do an additional bee. The local Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, Catholic and Congregational churches held their own canning bees, as did the Daughters of Veterans, Order of the Eastern Star, other clubs, and a group of teachers in the high school kitchens.

“Every Day a Canning Day for Ypsilanti This Week,” read a Sept. 22 Press headline. One of many donors, the Kiwanis gave $25 [$380 in 2014 dollars] to the effort. Boy Scouts joined members of the Women’s Study Club on drives into the country to ask for additional donations of surplus vegetables and fruit, which, said the paper, were gladly given. The entire community contributed to the titanic effort, as the Press continued to publish appeals for donations and thanks to participants and donors.

Refrigeration

It is interesting to note the apparent ubiquity of canning skills.

During the Depression, Ypsilanti piano dealers the Grinnell Bros. branched out into ammonia refrigerators. The units were expensive and could be bought on time.

Presumably the preservation process was second nature to many women. Home refrigeration beyond the small, primitive icebox was an emerging technology in the early 1930s. The Press carried numerous ads for home refrigeration units in the summer of 1931. The majority of units operated not with the familiar electric compressor but with a small fuel burner.

These were absorption refrigerators, the kind still found in RVs. Unlike modern compressor refrigerators, absorption refrigerators use a nonmechanical thermochemical closed-loop system that exploits the evaporation of ammonia to draw heat from the food chamber. The system is quiet with no moving parts. As it requires no electricity, it was marketed to rural residents. Rural electrification had yet to arrive to much of Washtenaw County. However, absorption fridges are less efficient than compressor types. In terms of home refrigeration, fuel-powered fridges were a short-lived transitional technology.

At the end of the city canning bees, the finished jars of food were collected from sites throughout town and transported to City Hall, then located in the former Quirk mansion at 304 (now 300) North Huron. Special shelves were built to hold the winter treasure, sorted by type of food. Ypsilantians had turned their hallowed hall of governance into a giant pantry.

The final tally was 2,080 quarts of canned food. A quart Mason jar with lid is 6 and a half inches tall. If laid end to end, the colossal production of the citywide canning effort would have extended for the better part of a quarter mile – and far into the coming winter for neighbors in need.

The success came thanks to the efforts of the invaluable, now-vanished onetime local newspaper.

Mystery Artifact

Many readers correctly guessed last column’s artifact, which is a miner’s carbide lamp that could be clipped onto his helmet.

Mystery artifact.

A quantity of the chemical calcium carbide was placed in the lower chamber, and water in the upper chamber. A controlled drip of water falling on the calcium carbide produced acetylene gas which could be ignited to produce light (and heat). A legend on top of the lamp reads “GUY’S DROPPER,” with a patent number.

Congratulations to Jim Rees, Cosmonican, Ray Hunter, Fred, Vivienne. Ray also shared a great anecdote: “When I was a kid growing up in a small mining town in Pa, we would use carbide to make our own 4th of July firecrackers. Just take an old empty gallon paint can, put a nail hole in the lid, put a few grains of carbide in the can along with a little bit of water … then shake the can … touch a flame to the nail hole and BOOM!”

This time we have a simple artifact related somehow to something mentioned in the article. The color is not natural; it’s a bit rusty. What might this be? Additionally, does the fact that I keep picking mystery artifacts from my own magpie stash of junk treasures mean it’s time for a garage sale? Nah, there’s room for one or two more things, isn’t there? Thanks for reading!

Laura Bien is a local history writer unskilled at canning. Reach her at ypsidixit@gmail.com.

The Chronicle relies in part on regular voluntary subscriptions to help remind readers of those who’ve been forgotten. If you’re already supporting The Chronicle, please encourage your friends, neighbors and coworkers to do the same. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle.

The county’s previous funding for this program was a two-year, $361,519 Kresge grant from Jan. 1, 2011 through Dec. 13, 2012. According to the program’s website, the purpose is ”to increase fruit and vegetable consumption among patients with low income, and to build capacity of clinics to expand the traditional medical model to include the food system.” The program also aims to strengthen relationships between clinics, farmers markets and the local food system. [.pdf of grant application]

According to a staff memo, analysis of feedback from 930 participants in 2011-2012 showed the following results:

Both years, the average daily consumption of fruits and vegetables increased by nearly one cup per day among patients who visited their local farmers market as measured by a pre- and post-program survey.

Participants overwhelmingly agreed that visiting the farmers market helped them and/or their family members eat more fruits and vegetables (96% Year 1; 94% Year 2).

Participants increased their awareness of other resources in the community. Both years, the number of participants who said they were aware that food stamps (Bridge/EBT cards) could be used at local farmers markets greatly increased from pre- to post-program (48% difference from pre to post Year 1; 43% difference Year 2).

Participants indicated that they were very likely to visit the farmers market again in the future at the conclusion of the program (98% Year 1; 97% Year 2).

The program had a positive economic impact on the local farmers markets, generating over $26,000 in new sales ($5,967 Year 1; $20,279 Year 2). Prescription for Health represented 9% of total sales at the Downtown Ypsilanti Market and accounted for 23% of the total sales at the Chelsea Bushel Basket Market.

This brief was filed from the boardroom of the county administration building at 220 N. Main St. in Ann Arbor. A more detailed report will follow: [link]