Iris Peppard
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Iris Peppard '03 ISSM
Meet Iris Peppard, one of Monterey County's 2007 Women of the Year.
Iris received this honor from the Monterey County Commission on the Status of Women for her work organizing the Everyone's Harvest ~ Marina's Certified Farmers Market and coordinating the Soledad Street Community Garden Project.
"I really feel that everybody has the right to have access to local and organic produce," says Iris, a mission she lives out every day.
When Iris started college, she admits she was all over the place. When she transferred to CSUMB, she found a way to make that work for her through the Integrated Studies Special Major. Her focus was on community organizing. "I took classes from six different departments," she says. "I liked Integrated Studies because it allowed me to be self-directed. I really had to think about what I wanted to do, and then figure out how to get there."
A year and a half before she graduated, Iris struck on what she wanted to do. Her classes related to nonprofit work, entrepreneurship, and social justice, so for her Capstone she resolved to create a nonprofit certified farmer's market in Marina. "I felt Marina lacked a free public event that happens on an ongoing basis. I really think it is important for every neighborhood to have a free public space to come together. Marina is the seventh most ethnically diverse city in the United States. It deserves a weekly event where people can come together. "
Over the next year, Iris worked on setting up the Everyone's Harvest as a certified 501c3 corporation and organizing the opening day of the farmers market. She also made sure that the market could accept food stamps and WIC, so that low income families could participate and purchase fresh local produce. Two weeks after she graduated, Everyone's Harvest celebrated its grand opening as Marina's Certified Farmers Market.
Working as executive director of Everyone's Harvest has been a steady part-time gig ever since, which Iris has supplemented by working for other organic farms in the area. Then, in 2004, she took on the role of outreach coordinator for Return of the Natives, a plant restoration program run by CSUMB's Watershed Institute.
"Laura Lee Leink, the director of Return of the Natives, was a great mentor for me. She consulted with me during my Capstone, and then I wound up working for her," says Iris. "Her advice to me was, 'listen to the community.' This advice lead me to starting the farmers market in Marina. While working for Return of the Natives, I saw how Laura Lee passed on her excitement about planting native plants to locals in Salinas. Her enthusiasm and skill to empower other has really expanded my work today."
After spending a year with Return of the Natives, Iris took the opportunity to work with the Service Learning Institute on the Soledad Street Revitalization project. "I really like the garden project on Soledad Street because it allows folks who haven't been given much opportunity in life the chance to gain organic farming experience and job skills."
As garden coordinator, Iris organizes the daily activities of the nine garden employees, half of whom are currently homeless, and half of whom are very low income. "This project allows local community members to improve the Salinas Chinatown area."
In addition to providing job training opportunities, the garden also supplies fresh organic vegetables to Dorothy's Kitchen, where they are served to other currently homeless and low income people in need of a healthy meal.
Reflecting on all she has accomplished, Iris acknowledged the spark that made it all possible: "I am proud of my belief in positive envisioning. Before anything great happens someone needs to have a dream, a vision of something better. It is so important to have these visions. A positive envision does not guarantee the reality of a dream but without it, it does guaranteed the dream will not be a reality.
"When I began the process of starting the market I had a dream. I didn't know if it would survive but I didn't let that stop me from dreaming and acting on that dream-and now that dream is a reality. The same thing with the garden: a year ago it was just an idea and now it is a place where vegetables, flowers, and dreams grow.
Congratulations to Iris for sharing her vision of affordable, accessible, local, and organic agriculture with our communities.
~ Liz MacDonald, Senior Writer/Web Editor
Related Links
Integrated Studies Special Major B.A
100 Campus Center
