A really great cover story appeared in last week’s issue of the Orlando Weekly, our local independent news source. It talks about the Homegrown local food co-op, a community-supported agriculture non-profit organization here in Central Florida. They recently re-located to the Florida Hospital’s “Health Village” campus. Seventh-Day Adventists are really into a healthy diet – I believe their patients eat mostly vegetarian/vegan – and they run the hospital system, which is one of the largest in the country.
But Florida Hospital’s Paradis deliberately partnered with an entity outside of the hospital’s insular system, rather than re-create the project within the hospital system. “I’m big enough to do the whole thing,” says Paradis of the hospital’s resources, “but I’m choosing to talk to (Homegrown Co-op), because (those) guys are so passionate – I call Michael and Emily ‘community passionaries.’”
They will also be opening a retail store sometime in the Fall, according to the article. On Orange Avenue, on one end of the “Antique Row” along Lake Ivanhoe. Orlando has sorely needed something like this for a long time, and now thanks to a generous matching grant program from Florida Hospital, it can become a reality, despite a rough economic climate.
The Weekly article says Homegrown will not be selling pork products because of Florida Hospital’s involvement. That’s a small price to pay for such a huge leg-up in your third year of existence. I honestly can’t wait for the retail store to open, and for Orlando to become a bit more self-sustaining.
All week long, the roof of the Downtown Orlando Library will be filled with voices reading some of their favorite words. It’s called 67 Books, and it’s the latest creation of serial performer Brian Feldman.
Above: Terry Olson reads from The Tale of Desperaux
It’s not just humans getting into the mix, either. Puppets and Monsters are sure to appear during the hour organized by Brian’s wife, a member of a local performance group called Thunderhag & the Thunderland Orchestra.
If you’re not able to make it downtown, or you’re house-bound, Brian will be Tweeting and Live-streaming pretty much every major (or minor) event during the week.
Ryan Price and Mike Anello (Andrew is still recovering from SXSW) are joined by Salim Lakhani from WebEnabled.com to discuss recent events in the Drupal universe as well as our new partnership. DrupalEasy has been using WebEnabled's services for almost a year now and we've decided to make it official!
Our beloved Amway Arena will soon be replaced by the… Amway Events Center, down near the intersection of I-4 and 408. This means the current Arena and that huge parking lot will become mostly useless. The Bob Carr will remain in operation – possibly indefinitely – until the new Performing Arts Center is built. As for the rest of the land, well, let’s just say that Mayor Buddy has big dreams!
There are lots of watercolor drawings and slideshows with maps available on the City of Orlando’s website. They have a page with a few downloadable documents created that outline the gentrification of Parramore, creating lots of “party curb” streets (so drunk people don’t trip?), and making greater use of parks and public spaces. They also want to make sure the venues and other city buildings are “good neighbors”, whatever that means.
If you want to hear this BS in person, they’re having an event on Monday at City Hall. It seems to be open invite, so if you care about the future of downtown, make some time in your schedule for this.
Creative Village event March 22nd
If I’m allowed to videotape, the meeting will show up on our Watch Live page.
Edit: Lately I've been thinking Battledecks would be a great addition to the Fringe. The Pecha Kucha mentioned below is pretty similar. Edit 2: The short slideshows will be held at the Outdoor Stage on Monday, May 24th, around 7PM. Edit 3: We have a facebook event for Small Talk at Fringe: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=364435458753
Orlando Event TV interviews Ann Lemis of Green Sky Growers, a technologically sophisticated and sustainable rooftop garden in Winter Garden, Florida.
This 4th-floor hydroponic sustainable garden is located immediately next to the Garden Theatre in a city called Winter Garden, which is just comical. Green Sky sells their lettuce and other products to 8 local restaurants and at the local weekly farmer’s market. See more video about Winter Garden at the Daily City.
As I get older, I tend to have more and more visitors come down looking for a break from the rest of the world. Orlando can be a pretty good place to do that. It’s one of the top vacation spots, after all!
As we have people visit, we’ve started to compile a list of activities (some are mega-touristy) and restaurants that we can recommend to everyone. Here they are, in no particular order:
After almost 26 years on the staff of the Orlando Sentinel, Elizabeth Maupin has been writing and creating community togetherness. For my part in this game, I'd like to congratulate her and wish her the best.
Above: Maupin with Boris the Robot at the Orlando Fringe. Boris is a retired robot. As of this post, Maupin is a retired Journalist.
Mike and Jesse talk about the beginnings of database-driven web sites, teaching the concepts of Drupal, usability in Drupal, Russians and COBOL (seriously!), and who should really be responsible for your web site.
Liberatr is here to give you some music, culture, laughter, film, theatre and lifestyle perspective. We have some blogs and some podcasts, but we hope your'e here for the community. Some are serious, interview-style, others are conversational and open-ended. Take a look at the tabs labeled "Podcasts" and "Blogs" for more information. Not Liberator, Liberatr!
