Local Business

The Rings

My friends Dave and Sara Ring own and operate an organic grocery store in my hometown of Muncie, Indiana. 

I wrote about them in my book Where Am I Eating?”: 

The Downtown Farm Stand is located in the heart of Muncie.  Like our food moving overseas, like farmers moving to the burbs, life in Muncie has moved to McGalliard Road, a long strip of middle America strip malls and every chain restaurant a binge eater could want. The Farm Stand is the only place downtown where Munsonians can buy groceries these days.”

Recently Dave and Sara announced that for a variety of reasons, including declining grocery and deli sales, their store…

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Staying in it

(Cliff playing a song for Enemias)

When I was in Colombia learning from the Arhuaco about their relationship with nature, my friend Cliff accompanied me. Cliff is a talented musician and photographer. (And he is exhibiting his work on Saturday December 10th at 201 E. Charles St. Muncie, IN 47305, starting at 2 pm and ending with some words and music from Cliff at 7 pm.)

The Arhuaco are an Indigenous People who live in the Sierra Nevada mountains of northern Colombia. Like most Indigenous People around the world, they’ve had less than favorable interactions with the outsiders. They were hesitant to have us visit and much of our first day was spent sitting with one of their spiritual leaders, who had…

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Change Starts with a $6 Soccer Ball

The World Cup is underway, so I thought I would share a few soccer stories from around the world from my reporting involving the beautiful game.

In India, I got to spend time with Ashok Rathod, who founded the OSCAR Foundation. I wrote two chapters in my book Where Am I Giving? on my experiences in Ashok’s community. In the chapter below I meet Ashok and learn how he’s impacting his community through soccer.

If you like what you read, consider following OSCAR on Facebook and consider buying a copy of Where Am I Giving? for more stories of awesome givers like Ashok. 

Buy Where Am I Giving? at Bookshop / Indiebound / Barnes & Noble /Books-A-Million / Amazon

 

Chapter 16: Start With Your Local…

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What is land worth?

Winter is almost here and the field beyond the auction sign looks like a desert. Corn stalks as tumbleweeds. Lifeless soil, dusty as sand. Vultures feasting on mammals that couldn’t outrun the reaping. 

It’s a windy day in Indiana, and if you picked up a handful of dirt and threw it into the air, it would blow to the highway? The next county? The Sahel?

Yesterday a mammal lifted a bidding number and bid $15,000 per acre for the land. To be clear, the animal was a human. Although the mental image of a raccoon lifting up a number with its five, long, tapered raccoon hands, little nails scratching on the paper, is one I’d like to sit…

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