User:Vamariah/sandbox

Background

Lauren Maloney grew up in a rural town in New Jersey always passionate about agriculture and the environment. Maloney completed a Masters in the University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources and the Environment (SNRE). Maloney is business director at CityFARM, a company that specializes in urban farm installation and sustainable agriculture. Maloney’s efforts with CityFARM’s urban garden business provides food and therefore life to the community by bringing attention to the agriculture and the mission, and, as a result, people to each other. CityFARM’s social mission builds community through goals to alleviate world hunger. Twenty percent of undernourished people live in cities and 50 million people in the United States are food-insecure. Maloney combats the intersection of these issues with urban farming. Around the country, 15-20% of food consumed is now grown in an urban environment.

Travel and Peace Corps

Maloney cultivated her passion for agriculture growing up in rural New Jersey. It has travelled with her ever since. From studying abroad in South Africa, as a farmhand and an environmentalist in the Northeast United States, followed by an internship in St. Eustatius in the Caribbean, she transplants her enthusiasm. Her time in Niger with the Peace Corp helped her develop these ideals. From 2008 to 2010, Maloney was immersed in a small village speaking Zarma to provide for a community that in turn provided for her. She considers her biggest impact on the village the application for grants to harvest particular climate appropriate fruit bearing trees. She helped provide resources and inspiration but her task was not to demonstrate new techniques or take credit. It is more important that the village take ownership. The project was solely for the community’s cultivation and benefit. She and fellow Peace Corp member, Eli Hydes, found love and brought their communities together through a cultural marriage ceremony in Africa. After meeting in Niger, Maloney and Hydes, moved back to Ann Arbor together, where their marriage is not culturally recognized, to pursue a graduate program at University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and the Environment. Maloney’s extensive travel demonstrates her global compassion and environmental concern but she understands the significance in enacting large-scale change through small-scale initiatives.

Professional

Before her last semester at the School of Natural Resources and the Environment, SNRE, Maloney began applying for jobs, one of which was an office assistant position at Beal, Inc.. But after Stewart Beal saw her resume, he approached her with a bigger idea. With this insignificant interview, Maloney got more than she expected. His original vision for the company CityFARM still needed a Business Manager, and Maloney was just the woman for the job. “…I was looking for staff whose urban agriculture and farming passion was even greater than mine…” said Beal. “Lauren's experience is CityFARM. Without Lauren there is no CityFARM.”

Community Contribution, Triple Bottom Line

As a branch of the Beal Group, CityFARM installs and maintains urban garden beds. For each commissioned bed, a plot is cultivated in their urban donation space on Adams Street in Ypsilanti and hopefully in the near future, another Detroit hub. Maloney mentioned that a few clientele are turned off because of the for-profit costs, but ultimately, their social mission tries to give back to the people they cannot reach. The profits made by CityFARM allow them to create positive impact in other avenues. “There are not as many grants or money in public sector to support business… [but] we are here to support ourselves and do some good,” said Maloney. The commissioned work creates opportunity to pay forward into other avenues of the community, through the donation of the food from the Yspilanti community garden. CityFARM has donated 500 pounds of food in their first season. “Right now we fight hunger with local food but [this translates into] … the community,” said Maloney.