The First Library Takeover Team at Madison Public Library Wants to Help Transform Your Food Journey

MADISON, WI -- As part of the Library Takeover program at Madison Public Library, a group of four local women are offering a Full Circle Food Usage event at Meadowridge Library on June 8 from 11am - 3pm where families are invited to learn how to grow, blend, prepare and cook affordable, healthy and delicious food.

The event will feature four hands-on workshops - each led by one of the four members of the Library Takeover team hosting the event - that are designed to help participants learn about sustainable food pathways. The workshops include sessions on meal prepping, blending herbal teas, juicing, and seed starting.

“Food sustainability, holistic healthcare practices, and increasing access to healthy foods are all revolutionary acts. Black and Indigenous people are negatively impacted the most when it comes to disparities in health care coverage, racism within healthcare systems, discrimination from healthcare providers, medical negligence and biological warfare by way of food deserts and processed foods,” said Adwoa Asentu, a member of the Library Takeover team. “We want to empower our communities to take their health and their family’s health into their own hands. The best way to do this is to share with them the practices we have learned and integrated into our daily lives – practices that have aided us in curing ourselves of chronic illnesses, increased our energy levels, and decreased our dependence on fast-food.”

The team is made up of four Black and Indigenous women–Ciara Hartzog, Adwoa Asentu (aka Britney Woods), Ciera Carter, and Shyelle Aikens–each of whom bring a unique background and skillset to the event. Adwoa Asentu heads her own art and alternative medicine brands, while Ciara Hartzog ran her own meal prepping business and currently sits on the board for the Wild Root Market Co-op. Ciera Carter is a wellness consultant and herbalist at The Natural Food Shop in Milwaukee, and Shyelle Aikens, who works for Rooted and describes herself as a “generational green thumb”, will provide the gardening and farming knowledge needed to bring the seed starting workshop to life. READ THEIR BIOS

The team came together to apply for Library Takeover in January 2024. After being selected, they then went through a 4-part event planning bootcamp series in March that was provided by the library and included topics like logistics, budgeting, permitting, marketing and more. The event planning bootcamp was also accompanied by mentorship from other community-event organizers based in Madison.

“Attending bootcamps…has most definitely made us all better event planners,” said Adwoa. “We also realized that all of the information we have gained through this Library Takeover experience has given us the know-how we need to expand this event into more than just a one-time thing. We hope to recreate Full Circle Food Usage in many different community spaces in the future.”

The event on June 8 is family-friendly, and interested parties are incentivized to register in advance because those who do will be automatically entered into a giveaway for free items. Attendees could take home a grocery store gift card, cooking utensils or even a cold-press juicer!

“We want people to walk away from this event feeling empowered, inspired and uplifted, and having increased their understanding of food as medicine,” said Asentu. “We want to dispel the myth that healthy food is bland, boring, or expensive. Cooking awakens the creativity in those preparing the meal, which makes it fun! Making tea and drinking it daily is relaxing and improves digestion. Growing your own food or watching a seed turn into a full grown plant over time is so satisfying and rewarding. Juicing is something that children love to participate in and seeing food be transformed into a juice that is both medicinal AND delicious is not only exciting, it’s also a whole science lesson.”

When you sign up, you are registering for all four of the sessions listed below. All ages are welcome, but please register for each family member you anticipate attending.

Learn more and register: madpl.org/fullcirclefood

Library Takeover is made possible thanks to generous donations from the Madison Public Library Foundation and TruStage.

About Madison Public Library

Madison Public Library’s tradition of promoting education, literacy and community involvement has enriched the City of Madison for nearly 150 years.  Visit the library online at www.madisonpubliclibrary.org or @madisonpubliclibrary on Facebook and Instagram.

About Library Takeover

Library Takeover is a program where teams of 3-4 people get support from Madison Public Library to take their idea for a community event from the planning phase to execution. Following an open call for applications, four teams have been selected to host community events in library spaces during the summer and fall of 2024. In addition to space and resources, each team receives a $2,000 event budget, and individual team members get a $400 stipend. Plus, selected teams work with a mentor from the community, who shares their local contacts and connections and lends their expertise to the process. This year’s mentors are Sarah Akawa, Rob Franklin (Rob Dz), Araceli Esparza, and Charles Payne. Learn more about Library Takeover and the selected teams for 2024 online at madpl.org/librarytakeover.