Friends of Roethke Present Urban Gardener Tepfirah Rushdan on Tuesday, March 30th at 7 PM

The Friends of Theodore Roethke Spring Reading Series continues at 7:00 PM on Tuesday, March 30th, with a presentation by Tepfirah Rushdan, Co-Director of Keep Growing Detroit. 

A Detroit native that is passionate about serving the community, she has combined her love for people and nature through various environmental projects in the city of Detroit, including developing conservation skills in youth, vacant land remediation, youth and adult farmer training programs, wild edible walks, community gardening, climate change and resiliency research.

She has also worked hard to provide resources and technical assistance to hundreds of gardens in the city over the years through her work with the Garden Resource Program.

A few of her accomplishments include graduating from the Urban Roots class of 2010, holding a seat on the Detroit Food Policy Council, and guiding the work of the Uprooting Racism Planting Justice Initiative. Other notable projects have included helping complete the Detroit Residential Parcel Survey in 2009, which helped to map vacant land in Detroit and make this information available to community members.

She is co-founder of the Detroit Black Farmer Land Fund and currently serves as the board member for grassroots community organizations such as the Detroit Paoples Co-of, GreenThumbz Consulting, and Black to the Land Coalition.

According to Friends of Roethke Director Anne Ransford, while not a poet like other speakers included in this series, Tepfirah brings important elements of community involvement to the table.  “Part of our mission with the Roethke Foundation is educational outreach and some day we may want to have a working greenhouse or garden available to the community.”

“Roethke wrote greenhouse poetry and if we made a step not only into poetry but something functional and fully beneficial to the community through a working greenhouse or garden, this could be incredibly beneficial,” she notes. “It’s been done before and the prospects are very exciting.”

People can make a $5.00 reservation online by registering at https://friendsofroethke.org/event-registration. You can also respond to info@friendsofroethke.org to make a reservation and send a check to FOTR, PO Box 6001, Saginaw, MI 48608.

A Zoom address will be sent to you and proceeds will help save the Stone House.