Community Partnerships: Growing a Perfect pair the Green way Session
Community Partnerships: Growing a Perfect pair the Green way, Wednesday Jan. 12, 2011
WCTE-TV, Cookeville, TN
Cindy Putman, WCTE-TV
Reggie Brown, WCTE-TV
Erica Duarte, WCTE-TV
Blogger/Reporter: Kate Spears
Panel:
Cynthia Kent, Pick TN Products
Lisa Shively, Local Table Magazine
Kate Spears, Southern Belle Simple Blog
Cindy Putman did some brief introductions about partnerships between WCTE, Susan G. Komen and Live Green & Prosper as well as the folks sitting on the panel.
The goal for this project was to take something creative & successful and then create a new product without exerting efforts to reinvent the wheel. Instead, WCTE decided to identify what it was really good at and then try to connect with other community organizations who could help to do those things even better. The attendees were instructed to think of 3 possible partnerships and jot them down.
Dreaming Big: (Identify these)
3 most successful partnerships/projects
3 ideas for your station if money was no object
3 ideas to take to your GM/Station Managers
WCTE found out that CPB was going to distribute funds through an Economic Response Grant. Erica was one of the people involved in writing the grant and so they began brainstorming about some needs in the community that might be met through the grant. GM Becky Magura had recently read Barbara Kingsolver's novel about living & eating local and was inspired by this. WCTE staff started doing research and found that if each community member bought from local farmers' market, it could boost the economy by $1 million. It was then important to identify people and resources on the state level who would be able to help. The creation of an advisory panel helped to bring together the Dean of Agriculture from the local university, farmers, agriculture workers and others.
The advisory panel/partner panel helped lead in the direction of what/who to feature on the Live Green show which opened up a revenue stream that was previously not possible. Ex. FarmAid, Southern Regional Ag. Agency, etc.
The initial project involved buying local food at the farmers' market and cooking it in a brainstorming session. Some partnerships already established were with Head Start & Susan G. Komen.
"Eat Your Zip Code" slogan
Teamwork- Getting everyone on board wasn't hard, but keeping them onboard was a bit tougher.
Some of the events that helped to bring all of this together were: Local County Fair (WCTE provided coverage), Weekly farmers' market, Stations of Imagination, Susan G. Komen Race
Panelists presentation:
Cynthia Kent - detailed the issues faced in State product marketing, including reaching out to farmers when it's much more difficult to reach consumers.
Specialty Crop Block Grants are part of the USDA effort to help farmers transition particularly in tobacco states to other crops, if you will grow a specialty crop (honey, cut flowers, horticulture) you can get funding. Also, Rural Development offices are trying to build economic strength in rural communities and this might be a way for public television stations to partner.
Working with scientists who knew a great deal in their fields often presents challenges in that they don't know as much about marketing themselves and writing grants. In the beginning of PickTN Products, it was all about processed products via grocery stores because everybody thought small farms were dead. Now that there has been a resurgence of local agriculture and small farming, PickTN products changed its focus to farm products and then things began to take off.
Cynthia said that working with public television gave her org. a better deal and her dollars went further. She learned the phrase "lifetime learners," folks who are more interested in experiences than acquiring material things. She has been approached by people who were excited to have seen/heard her on television through spots on WCTE. This connection with the community has been invaluable to Cynthia's organization through the impact being made. Even though her funding for this year is going to be cut, she is still planning on keeping the partnership alive when future funds are available.
Lisa Shively - She started Local Table Magazine which combines stories about local farmers, events, farmers' markets, etc to inform the community. Each issue contained news about the Live Green & Prosper program and Local Table was written into grants so that it was a win-win for Lisa's funding and reach.
Lisa is part of the advisory to help identify stories and farms and covers all of Middle Tennessee (south to Giles County, west to Lawrence Co. and north to KY). Erica said that Local Table allowed WCTE to avoid doubling efforts to achieve results.
Cindy Putman then showed some clips from Live Green Tennessee one in which staffer Amanda Collier demonstrated making her Award Winning Peach Jam. All videos can be viewed on http://www.wcte.org
Kate Spears spoke about the blogging partnership she formed with WCTE where she was given a permalink on WCTE's site in exchange for writing one post per week about green topics and sending traffic back to the Live Green site.
Tonight is the Jammin' at Hippie Jacks Event where local product Tennessee hams were donated by Benton's Country Ham (famous vendor in Madisonville, TN).