Here’s the official web site of the Sweet Water Foundation.

http://sweetwaterfoundation.com/

Worm Mon Show And Movie

Transforming Sweet Water Great Farm: A Community Worker Co-op Experiment

Solidarity Economics Experiments

5 in 5, 20 by 20

5% of our nation’s schools with digital or miniature aquaponics experiments in 5 years, 20% by 2020.

Why not?

Nice Short Audio Summation of Sweet Water’s “Theory Framework”

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7PuixleeLyDRm4tWHh5Y2VEMEU/edit

Sweet Water Resources And Domains Advancing Ecological Cities

Innovation Resources for Core Initiatives

Biomimicry Informatics 1.0
“Sweet Water Nutrients For Ecological City Co-Creation”

     Innovations inspired by nature
     Information organizing architecture
     Natural, social, cultural capital

Ecological & STEM Education 1.0

     Art & Science
     Science & Spirituality
     Ego & Eco, Commerce and Community

Solidarity Economics 1.0

     Earth Community Partnerships of All Living Forms
     Open Source As Much As Possible
     Hybrid Enterprise, e.g. Corporation, Cooperative, Non Profit
     Multiple Bottom Lines, Multiple Value Streams
     Boomer MillennialPartnerships
     Social Entrepreneurship

Collaboration of Civilizations: India Start Up 1.0

    Eco Change Work Learn Tours
    Digital Information Exchange
    Globally Minded Leadership Development

Core Initiatives

Badge Program 1.0

Teacher Training l.0

Eco Tourism 1.0

Workshops 1.0

School Installations 1.0

Foreclosed Homes 1.0

India Collaborations 1.0

Radio Show W. 3rd Graders on School Neighborhood Aquaponics Miniatures

Miniature aquaponics systems costing about $100 can be “community
garden prototypes” if the schools, like Chicago’s Jackie Robinson and
Wells Prep, wish to connect with the neighborhood.

Chicago 3rd graders from Jackie Robinson and 6th graders from Wells
Prep interviewed about their classroom aquaponics adventures, as are teachers and
neighborhood elders.

Clicking on this place

http://www.sendspace.com/file/k94b8x

at that site, click at this spot first

Click here to start download from sendspace

Many South Side Chicago schools’ experimenting with aquaponics as way to bring families into schools, schools into neighborhoods, and STEM hands-on, work based education for our learners, young and old.

Or this might work as well:

http://www.vocalo.org/aquaponicsinclassrooms

Here’s upgraded web page for the Sweet Water Foundation.

http://sweetwaterfoundation.com/

Sweet Water Chapter in CPUL Book

by James J. Godsil, ABD, co-founder Sweet Water Organics, Sweet Water Foundation President, Sweet Water Foundation

Sweet Water is an emergent, hybrid enterprise experiment, a social business and innovation center, advancing the commercialisation, democratisation, and globalisation of aquaponics, an eco system method of food production. But Sweet Water offers more than aquaponics produce and protein production. Sweet Water is a science lab; a school; an eco-tourist destination; an artist and tinkerer’s workshop; a community and new enterprise center. Sweet Water aspires to grow urban farmers, green tech start-up businesses, beloved communities, and… organic cities!

The Stars Aligning for Great Aquaponics Experiment

Asequence of events inspired me to team up with a web of partners to launch the Sweet Water experiment. The first happened in 2005 when young citizens at a public meetingin Riverwest Milwaukee, the most successful “integrating neighbourhood” in Wisconsin, challenged the community to constructively respond to an incident of “black on white, straight on gay” violence rather than pound drums of race rage. This inspired my deciding to check out Will Allen’s Growing Power, which I had heard involved an African American ex-pro basketball player harvesting urban “waste streams” to grow rich soil for use by teams of urban youth transforming vacant lots into community gardens. I was “seized as if by a madness” by the Growing Power “magic” and decided to intensely promote Will’s teams through the MilwaukeeRenaissance.com wiki platform. My work led to a front page story
about Will in the local alternative weekly, “The Shepherd Express,” and a position on the Growing Power Board.

I focused deeply on the Growing Power model, both its food production systems, especially vermiculture and aquaponics, and its methods for “growing farmers and communities” with a hybrid model, aimed both at multiple income streams through standard market sales as well as funds from workshops, tours, foundations, donors, and public private partnerships.

A number of other developments were critical in setting the stage for the Sweet Water aquaponics experiment. In the spring of 2006 Michael Macy, a State Department cultural attache and new friend through our mutual interest in the poetry of Rumi, lent great luster to Milwaukee’s urban agriculture govement/industry when he orchestrated a London visit by Will Allen to address the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce as well as a visit by an eminent group of London “agrarians” in the Fall of 2007. The “London Farmers” then published a now classic report, “Edible Cities” including Growing Power projects in Milwaukee, Chicago, and New York. The Milwaukee Urban Agriculture Network(MUANbecame both an inspirational/educational coalition as well as a grass roots political force. In March, 2008, MUAN organized a highly successful international urban agriculture conference at which the head of Milwaukee’s Department of City Development, Rocky Marcoux, proudly proclaimed Milwaukee as the centre of American urban agriculture. A month later urban agriculture made front page news in Milwaukee, for the first time, with a report on a partnership between Fred Binkowski of the Great Lakes Water Institute and Growing Power to raise 10,000 perch in Will’s aquaponic system. Jon Bales’ Urban Aquaculture Centre connected Will to Binkowski, as well as drumming up community awareness of urban fish farming’s possibilities. In September 2008 Will won the coveted MacArthur genius award. My daughter Rachel Godsil, a law professor and convener of the Obama Urban Policy Team, introduced me to some of that
group’s leadership, increasingly intrigued, as was First Lady Michelle Obama, by the flaws of oil based, unhealthy, and polluting industrial agriculture system. My business partner Josh Fraundorf led our roof system restoration company to a $40,000 profit for Sweet Water investing. His friend and business associate offered very low rent, $15,000 in capital, and the promise of another $20,000 in sweat equity as a partner in Sweet Water. Emmanuel Pratt, a doctoral candidate in Columbia University’s Planning and Architecture Department, film maker, and close associate of Will Allen, signed on the help out with the social business,
democratizing, and globalizing vision piece; Josh and Steve to focus on the commercial upscaling.

A “grand alliance” was manifesting! The stage was surely set for an impressive
commencement on December 31, 2008, when the Mayor’s City Development chief, Rocky
Marcoux, along with Will Allen, pledged to provide support for what has become
an audacious experiment called Sweet Water.

Sweet Water Vision Shared at Wild Flower Bakery

The group proceeded from meetings at Wild Flower bakery to the new Sweet Water site. The building felt colder than it was outside.

ADD GODSILL picture

We believed aquaponics to be quite possibly humanity’s most earth friendly and prolific method of food production, a major response to the challenge of food security, global warming, and the transition from industrial cities of consumptive capitalism to organic cities with cultures of respect and care, for all life forms, in harmony with nature. We opened our story to the public and the media from the get go, despite the possibility of substantial mistakes. Zorba the Greek was present in my mind’s eye, as was this mantra: “You wished it stranger. You left the path of your own free will. And you are lost if you believe in danger.” The cause was important enough that it had to be tried. And, we’re still trying!

Continued at Sweet Water Chapter in CPUL Book

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Recent Sweet Water Organics Sweet Water Hybrid News Flows

Chinese Delegation Visit

Purple Cow’s Sandy Syburg at
Great Table of Bay View Alterra,
soon to house some SW gatherings
and book club on Science and
Spirituality. Sandy gearing up to
partner with Sweet Water Mahattil
India project experiments.

Lovely garden from the Joan of Arc and
Shanty Irish compost experiment. Story
about this soon to appear.

Sweet Water Bee World. Story someday.

Emma Kraco and preying mantus

Michael Carriere, Shelly McClone
and children arriving to start the
Heartland House Sweet Water
Experiment Democratizing
Aquaponics. More to come!

Day One of Community Roofing, Summer
1974, evolved into the company Josh
Fraundorf led to a 2008 profit of $40,000,
the start-up capital for Sweet Water Organics.

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20 Sweet Water Testimonials

Click on to learn about Sweet Water collaborators thoughts about possibilities.

Sweet Water “Partners” Listed

These are some of the organizations that have been collaborating with Sweet
Water, i.e. Sweet Water Organics(SWO), “The Farm,” and the Sweet Water Foundation(SWF), “The Academy.”

Chicago

Whitney Young
St Ignatius
Community Christian Alternative Academy
Kwame Nkrumah Academy
Betty Shabazz International Charter School
Jackie Robinson Elementary School
Wells Prep Middle School
Phillips Academy High School
Dunbar High School
Center For New Horizons
Enrico Fermi Elementary
Woodlawn Charter
Roseland Community Development Corporation
Lindblom Math and Science Academy
Wendell Phillips Academy
Richards Career Academy

Milwaukee

Scooter Foundation
Texas Bufkin Christian Academy
La Causa charter school
Rufus King High School
Bay View Middle and High School
Riverside University High School
Grandview High School
Centro Hispano High School
Fernwood Montessori School
Milwaukee Vincent High School
School for Career and Technical Education
Morse-Marshall High School
Shorewood New Horizons

ACTS Housing Urban Ecology Center

UW Madison

national association of black veterans (milwaukee | chicago)
center for veterans issues (milwaukee)

St. Alberts Colleges Aquaculture ( Kerala, India)

Chicago State University
IIT
Depaul
MSOE
UWM
School of Freshwater Sciences
Marquette Univ

Cornell Univ
Columbia Univ

Harvard Business
MIT Co-Lab

Florida International University (FIU)

Kentucky State University (Aquaculture)
Parsons (New School NYC)
UN Global Cities Compact
IBM (Smarter Cities)
Praxia Partners

Artistic Jeanius
Smartwave

Snowfall Collective
Sylvia Bernstein (?)
Aquaponics UK (?)

Walnut Way (milwaukee)

Transition Stories

Media Coverage