![]() ![]() Though the bulk of that money came from donations, it also includes $15.7 million in support from the city of New York and a $10 million grant from the state. However, when Procope steps down at the end of June, she will leave her successor Michelle Ebanks – the Essence Communications executive who was named her replacement last week – with the proceeds of a nearly $80 million campaign raised to complete a renovation and expansion of the historic theater by 2025. And she had to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic when the hub of its Harlem neighborhood was closed for two years. ![]() Sure, the early years were a struggle, as the New York City landmark, where music legends from Billie Holiday and Stevie Wonder to D’Angelo and countless rappers graced the stage, dealt with financial difficulties and a shifting business model. "We learned that we have to start early by going to the greenhouse, and even buying the seeds, you have to buy early, so you don't miss out.NEW YORK (AP) - Jonelle Procope’s 20-year tenure as president and CEO of The Apollo Theater evolved into an era of prosperity and expansion, markedly different from the tumultuous, cash-strapped decades that preceded it. "We grew up farming, but it's different here when you have to grow for just one," she said. She said that getting vegetables they were used to in Kenya can be difficult in the U.S. Lonah Momanyi has been a mentor for the group, she said.įor Mutiga, who is a registered dietitian, nutrition is her background. "We had been thinking about farming, and (the pandemic) moved us to farming, which has turned out to be a major healing for us because of that community, and also being outside and giving life to something else." "We formed our group back in 2020, and of course with COVID, were going through a lot of personal losses," Mutiga said. ![]() She met the other women through a state group affiliated with Kenya Women in the United States. Murugi Mutiga is a part of a group of Kenyan women who farm in Minnesota. "If we found land that is closer to the city and incubate farmers there, then people are able to test out, build their business before they can move on to buy land a little farther away." "As immigrants, we come with the skill to farm, the zeal to farm, but we somehow get bottlenecked by just being in the city, and we don't find a way to continue that," Momanyi said. He said they are continuing to look for incubator sites in the Twin Cities. ![]() "When we were in Cambridge, they were driving one hour every day, back and forth to Cambridge from Minneapolis." "We also started looking for other places that we could farm that were closer to where the new farmers were coming from," he said. Momanyi said they expanded to Lino Lakes, Minnesota, to accommodate the amount of people interested in growing with them. Had 13 people participate in the incubator farm in 2020, then 19 in 2021, and 28 people in 2022. "And we felt that was a time we could open our land, so we opened it, and that's how the Kilimo incubator started." "They came to Cambridge, they wanted space, they wanted a place to farm, to grow, but also to just heal," he said. In 2020, Momanyi said they started to have more interactions with other immigrant farmers, who were looking for spaces to farm. He said they started by selling at local farmers markets along with doing CSA boxes. "We were able to do that in 2014, when we bought 20 acres in Cambridge." "The goal was to gain more experience, establish markets, and then, when I would be ready with my now wife, Lonah, we would go to the lender, which was USDA, and then be able to buy the land that we wanted," Momanyi said. ![]()
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