- Hi everybody, here I am at the farm in
- Fayetteville, Arkansas.
- Fayetteville, we got that right
and I am not stepping on the
- Collard greens.
- Collard greens I just got in trouble
and you know I'm a city boy so,
I don't even know what a collard green is.
- You thought it was grass.
- (laughs) I don't know what the heck that is.
- Anyways for those of you that have been following
Invisible People for a while you might now of how this
started but, what happened three years ago?
- Sure, well three years ago by Twitter, I think connects
and mutual friends, you ended up here in Fayetteville,
and we did an awareness event to bring issue
around the homeless in our community
and it really brought a whole lot of people together
to talk about the issue to look at it differently,
to break down stereotypes and really begin to start to
ask questions like, okay what do we do,
not just to meet symptoms if you will,
but to work towards solutions and in our community
in our context we knew that agriculture was a way to
start to use that for not just feeding people,
and that's very important obviously,
but really to work towards development and create jobs
and you know, put some money hopefully in people's hands.
- So here it is three years later and you know
they got this farm going, that's really cool,
gotta give Mike credit, his is the only place that has
lured me three years in a row, and he said there was
hot chicks here he didn't tell me that they had gotten
chickens and there's like chickens now.
- You can have them all (laughs).
- Whoo hoo! I would have came earlier if I'd have known.
Ya know, I love sunny side up eggs.
- It's the questions you don't ask.
- It's the questions I don't ask.
- No, but you know this is one of the cool things
about social media is three years ago
I really didn't know Mike, and he said hey come here
and let's do this great event and I remember cause
I was thinking about it
cause I have the dashboard camera now
and the first night I was like late I missed
- You were late.
- Right, and then you said I was like watching
Norad, when Santa Claus comes cause he's worried
if I was even gonna make it.
- That's right.
- You know, cause I didn't get in till like
three or four in the morning - That's right.
or something it was really crazy.
And he had an event scheduled that night
an event that was kinda the catalyst
that created this farm.
- Yep
- So, tell me, well first off this farm is really cool
they're using solar power,
they're doing all this kinda stuff.
Half the crops go to feed people
and then half are sold to
- Create that economic development.
- Yeah to create the economic development jobs
or whatever and to pay for the farm.
And Mike has a real job he doesn't, ya know,
he's not a farmer.
- I'm not a farmer.
- So how do you manage something like this?
I mean, this is your baby. It really is.
- Well, I have the privilege of talking to you
and being your host I guess while you are here,
but honestly it's about all the people that you don't see,
you know, we've had over a thousand people
that have come out here this summer this season,
and it's the partnerships, it's absolutely the people
the organizations, it's been the people that have walked
these fields when nobody else has been here
to make sure that this vision comes alive
and I think I started three years ago by getting everyone
kind of, rallied around a central idea and focus,
and the benefit of that is today
and so it is not me it is the community
it is some amazing people here that make it happen.
- And you know tho coolest thing to me is really the people
I mean behind us it's a fall festival where they're partying
and celebrating the farms going closing for a season,
because it's fall or winter coming
and it's just you know the people come here
they bring their kids, its a great place for kids
it's just really amazing.
- That's right, I mean we know that community
is grounded in a place, and so this piece of land
has really become just the symbolic nature of that,
not only just coming together as a community to work,
but tonight we celebrate
and we should rest and play together
and so tonight that's what were doing.
- And he's actually letting me rest this trip,
usually he has like this, well so far so good to be true.
And you do another project
that actually Don was the first person housed.
And that was created on the same night of
invisiblepeople.tv visitage.
What has happened there?
- Well with Our Step which is really a collaborative
homeless reentry program, we're trying to figure out
those people who fall through the cracks
of all the other services that happen
and so we've come together with some amazing organizations
local Seven Hills Homeless Center,
Northwest Arkansas Women's Shelter,
Samaritan Community Center, the University of Arkansas,
to where you start to create a program that puts people
in housing that maybe otherwise wouldn't be
and so far you know we've put seven people
and their families through that
most of them victims of domestic violence
most of them single parents but you know
those are seven families that wouldn't have a home
today most likely. - Right
- And their in housing?
- They are.
- Right, so this one night, twitter me at the time,
unemployed I'm on a leave of absence now
my financial situation personally is not that much better
but you know through social media,
twitter, and relationships,
relationships is the key, come here one night
and this organization is started that's housed
seven people and is continued - Seven families
- Seven families that's gonna continue growing
and this farm, I mean that's just amazing,
and that's thanks to all of you.
- Absolutely
- So how do people get ahold of, find out more about
Cobblestone or the farm.
- You can go to thefarm.cobblestoneproject.org
and you can see our stories and track our progress
not only what happened this year
but what is going to happen next year too.
- Yeah, he's about to put Charlie Brown Pumpkin something
- And we're gonna go on a hayride.
- Maybe, I'm still the city boy hayrides, ya know,
and I'm gonna try not to step on the broccoli.
- Uh, close enough (laughs)
- Yeah, okay thanks everybody. - Thank you.