Kiss the Ground Screening at The Terrace Theater
Suggestion donation of $10
People are calling KISS THE GROUND “The Most Important Film You’ll Ever Watch” -- which is a really big claim. But after watching, we're pretty sure it’s true. Find out for yourself. This documentary will be shown for our community at The Terrace Theatre, followed by a 45 minute conversation to bring the focus to our local grounds.
Come learn more about how to integrate regenerative farming techniques into your own farms, backyards, community gardens, and beyond. Or just come to find hope. We can do this!
"Human beings emerged in paradise. If we restore all of the degraded land on the Earth, we can return to paradise. ―So, let's restore a little bit of paradise every day. It's not that difficult. If we stop distracting ourselves with shiny objects and we start to think about what's really important to us. ―To see biodiversity return to a place that was completely devastated. This is where everyone can find tremendous satisfaction and the meaning of our lives." - John Liu
Panelists:
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Jeff Siewicki (pronounced suh-wick-E) is a farmer and farming coach. Jeff started Vital Mission Farm in 2017 to grow food that is healthy for people, animals, land and environment. His mission was to innovate and develop new agricultural techniques that act as a solution to climate change while supporting farmer stability. Through a lot of hard work, trial and error, he figured out the key elements to being successful financially, mentally, and environmentally while farming on small acreage. In addition, to raising pastured poultry and perennial crops, Jeff teaches other farmers how to start and scale up a successful regenerative farm so they too can become profitable doing what they love. He is passionate about regenerative agriculture and believes that small regenerative farms are the key to improving human health, farmer success, and environmental stability. |
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Germaine Jenkins (she/they) is the co-founder of Fresh Future Farm Inc. which operates a nonprofit farm and grocery store that grows the quality of life their neighbors deserve in North Charleston, SC. Ms. Jenkins is a nationally-recognized, visionary leader in the urban agriculture space and passionate advocate for food justice. Born in Hartsville, SC and raised in Cleveland, OH, Germaine returned to South Carolina to earn degrees from Johnson & Wales University and pursue liberation for her family through food. Ms. Jenkins and the FFF team have collaborated with Seedlight Pictures on a 1,000+ hour oral history archive for upcoming social impact website Rooted Stories and 90-minute documentary, Rooted Film, where she serves as principal participant and Co-Producer. As Community Network Manager for Equitable Food Oriented Development, they are excited about curating in-person and virtual content aligned with BIPOC community led food system principles. |
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Lucy Davis, born and raised in Eastern Kentucky, received her undergraduate degree from Georgetown College in Environmental Science and Chemistry and went on to pursue a graduate degree in Environmental and Sustainability Studies and Public Administration at the College of Charleston. Lucy has been working in the sustainable agriculture field in both the private, public and non-profit sector for over ten years and she currently is the Director of the Sustainable Agriculture Program at the College of Charleston. In the role, she works with both undergraduate and graduate students that help maintain and grow five dynamic student gardens. Lucy wears many hats in this role including managing a planting schedule and ordering resources to maintaining and building community partnerships, such as the partnership with the South Carolina Aquarium, the Gullah/Geechee Nation and the Green Heart Project, just to name a few. She facilitates workshops for planting, growing, harvesting, building raised beds and food prep and organizes all the volunteer days that happen weekly during the semester and by appointment over the summer. She directs the education program, Project Inspire, so she works with teachers at the three partner schools on Johns Island, and the CofC group does in-class lessons along with coordinating field trips to Stono Preserve, where they incorporate our specialized lesson plans and create stations where students can learn freely through hands-on experience. She also provides teachers online professional development opportunities and access to lesson plans so that they can continue to bring in sustainable agriculture practices into their everyday lessons. She also helps write grants for garden spaces that work to fund outreach, student worker opportunities, resources and maintenance. Lucy is also the president of the Charleston Area Beekeepers Association and she helps facilitate beekeeping programs, speakers, workshops that bring community beekeepers together and that help our community learn how to become a better steward to pollinators. Lucy’s greatest passions are community engagement, education, and developing stewardship for sustainable agriculture. |
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Merideth Garrigan, Merideth is a native of Mississippi and grew up exploring and photographing the vast back roads, gardens, farms, and dairies in her family history. Her experiences of connection in these landscapes really shaped her purpose in life. Merideth is a life-long learner, with an innate curiosity and wonder influenced by her dad in a deep and lasting way. She received a Journalism degree at the University of Mississippi and followed with a concentrated study of traditional and alternative photography at the Creative Circus in Atlanta, GA. She went on to work for several publications before starting her own freelance photography business in 2008.
Merideth has raised two daughters in Charleston, SC. She was drawn to the community here, its beauty, and to the familiar rural landscapes of home. As an avid grower of food, protector of water, and constant promoter gardens that support health through Biodiversity, Merideth has evolved a 20+year journey into a new career. Merideth is a certified permaculturalist and a master rain gardener. She is focused on whole-systems design and regenerative methods for land repair and water protection. Merideth’s first encounter with EnSoil Algae and the way it nourished the soil and the plant life is a milestone day in her life. The knowledge we need to design and develop a sustainable and regenerative culture has been provided by our ancestors and from all living systems in place on Earth. All we need to do is to listen. Driven by a deep desire to help heal people, communities, and to heal Mother Earth, Merideth find’s her fulfillment in helping people realize their dreams and supporting these dreamers at grassroots levels. She believes our strength is in our ability to collaborate to promote balance, biodiversity and resilience. We can do so much better. She is passionate about connecting humans with nature and with each other. She is here to act as a bridge in our community to foster those connections that ensure a sacred, healthy ecology and fair and balanced economy. |
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Tucker Garrigan, Tucker has spent his career in business development in the Charleston community. Originally from El Paso, TX with stops at The University of Mississippi and Atlanta, GA, he found a home in Charleston with his wife, Merideth, and their two daughters.
His 20-year career in business has included contribution and leadership efforts for three successful tech startups that have grown to maturity. His focus is on business development and building meaningful relationships. All of his business experiences share important characteristics: innovative products, driven and compassionate people, and an obsessive commitment to service. Like many of the best things in his life, Tucker was lead to Enlightened Soil Corp by his wife. He feels this is a lifetime opportunity to help dedicated people realize the vision of a planet with healthy soil free of synthetic-chemical fertilizers. He sees the exponential healing tied to these healthy soils and waters nourishing our bodies and minds. We will "do well by doing good" by finding like-minded people and recognizing how we can help their businesses and their missions succeed along with our own. |
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Kennae Miller (she/her), is an embodied Healing Guide, Speaker and Teacher. She shares practical decolonized healing tools and offers deep inquiry as ways to live out healing and liberation. Kennae currently resides off-grid on unceded Lumbee, Pee Dee and Waccamaw Indigenous land that her ancestors have stewarded since Emancipation near the coast in South Carolina. She considers herself an ancestor in training, as she homeschools, homesteads and guides her two children in their journeys through life liberated with her husband RJ. Kennae lives with her family off-grid in relationship with nature as a path towards liberation and as a form of resistance to the demands of American dominant culture. She is an E-RYT 200, CYT 600, CEP, PRYT-1, Reiki Level I, Ayurveda Wellness Coach, Apprenticing Herbalist and former owner of Transformation Yoga, Charleston, SC’s only Black woman and veteran owned yoga studio. Kennae enjoys the study of human and spiritual ecologies, trauma and ancestral healing. She believes in the liberation found in the philosophies of yoga that bridge social justice work to the whole of a person. Kennae creates community by grounding into Earth as the oldest ancestor and sharing nature wisdom with the collective as a reflection on how humanity can get it right.
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