Applied class assists volunteer project
A University of Indianapolis Applied Sociology course recently teamed up with Global Peace Initiatives to participate in a service-learning project to create Peaceful Grounds Café and Farmer’s Market.
Members of the applied course volunteer on the site of the project every Tuesday. The café and market will be located in Southport at the site of an abandoned concrete factory. UIndy students and volunteers are working to refurbish the building.
Graduate assistant Amanda Belcher and junior Josh Ford participate in Global Peace Initiatives project. Photo by Garrison King
The UIndy Applied Sociology students contribute to the project by performing manual labor, such as constructing the tables for the café. Junior sociology major Josh Ford explained that the project strives to reuse materials to keep the construction as sustainable as possible.
“[Peaceful Grounds] is a long way from being up and running, but their big goal is to do everything sustainably,” Ford said. “So they are taking people’s waste and creating something new with it, and that’s the idea behind sustainability.”
According to the organization’s website, Global Peace Initiative’s mission is to “create transformational opportunities for individuals and communities through food growing and service initiatives that promote sustainability and peace.”
The farmer’s market’s goal of sustainability will be accomplished through the location of the Peaceful Grounds Center for Agriculture and Sustainable Living. According to the Global Peace Initiative website, this center will seek to educate the community on issues such as gardening and food preservation.
Peaceful Grounds will feature an on-site demonstration garden with “food grown in highly fertile soil created through intensive vermiculture production [worm farming],” according to the website. The hope is that residents of the community will use the garden as a model to aid in their own food production.
“The idea is that when people have food to feed their family and themselves, they will become more peaceful because they won’t have that pressure, because when people don’t have food to feed their family, they become desperate,” Ford said.
Founder and Executive Director of Global Peace Initiatives Linda Proffitt says that sustainable living is directly related to being more peaceful.
“The more we can learn to be self-sufficient, the more likely we are to have a life of peace,” Proffitt said.
According to Proffitt, the completed café and farmer’s market will be a “destination point” and source of economic development for the surrounding community. Between the café, farmer’s market, training center, working farm and demonstration farm, Peaceful Grounds is expected to employ more than 100 people.
“[Peaceful Grounds] is a major economic development tool for Southport, Perry Township and Central Indiana,” Proffitt said.
In addition to students from educational institutions, the Peaceful Grounds project has attracted many more. According to Proffitt the project has seen 750 volunteers in the last two-and-a-half months.
Ford said that while he enjoys serving others, he sees the value of service in the learning opportunities it provides.
“I think that a lot of times when people go into service, they go into it with the attitude of ‘Oh we’re doing this for people who are really needy and not as fortunate as us,’” Ford said. “But I think that a new, and possibly better, way to look at doing service is that we can learn so much from participating and working with people in the community.”
