Project Sweetie Pie Founder Michael Chaney Is Growing Good in the Neighborhood Through Urban Farming and Community Power
Michael Chaney, activist, poet and founder of Project Sweetie Pie, has spent more than 30 years weaving together climate justice, urban farming and community organizing in North Minneapolis, using regenerative agriculture to build self-determination, food justice and economic opportunity for Black and Brown communities.
Michael Chaney is an activist, storyteller and poet who has spent more than 30 years advocating for climate justice in the Twin Cities.
For Chaney, agriculture has always been part of his story. Growing up on a 1,040-acre farm in Wisconsin, he spent much of his childhood learning to work the land from his elders.
“You know, you can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy,” Chaney said with a laugh.
His passion for activism was ignited by his uncle, Felmers O. Chaney, a civil rights leader and community trailblazer in Milwaukee. The elder Chaney was Milwaukee’s first Black police sergeant, president of the North Milwaukee State Bank and president of the NAACP Milwaukee Branch.
“I come out of that tradition of community-led, community-fed. That’s always been my passion and my contribution, and what I thought was expected,” Chaney said. “Community just doesn’t happen by happenstance. It doesn’t happen by accident. Somebody has to be the shepherd. Somebody has to be the steward.”
Though he spent 25 years in television as a cameraman and sound technician, Chaney eventually found his way into community organizing. In 1984, he helped establish a Juneteenth celebration in North Minneapolis, long before the holiday was recognized by legislation. In the 1990s, he co-founded the Wendell Phillips Community Development Federal Credit Union, which served primarily communities of color, a mission inspired by his uncle.
In 2010, Chaney shifted his focus to climate activism. As part of Afro-Eco, an environmental justice group composed of prominent Minneapolis scholars, artists and activists, he helped fight the potential closure of North High School. When he learned the school had a greenhouse, he saw an opportunity.
“I approached the school and asked if I could get youth involved in growing vegetables and utilize the greenhouse to bring back some life skills training,” he said. “They agreed, and thus Project Sweetie Pie was born.”
Chaney recites the organization’s mission in a spoken-word cadence: a reflection of how he weaves together poetry and advocacy.
“Project Sweetie Pie is the story of a community that worked together for the common good of its youth and families. Before it takes a village to raise a child, we’re growing ‘good’ in the neighborhood. Good food, good schools, good youth and families. Education never tasted so good.”
Through Project Sweetie Pie, Chaney has dedicated himself to educating young people about urban farming and horticulture, the practice of growing plants for food and medicinal purposes.
“Wars are fought and won over food supply,” he said. “It’s critical that our community maintain that knowledge, maintain those skills, and use it as a baseline so we can embrace our own self-determination, our own self-reliance, our own self-sufficiency, and not be at the mercy of those who don’t necessarily have our interests at heart.”
Chaney believes urban farming should serve as a “gateway to the trades,” much like the vocational training, carpentry and auto mechanics, once offered in schools. When federal funding for those programs was cut, he said, the consequences fell hardest on Black and Brown communities.
“When they severed that funding stream, it didn’t lift our community up and out of poverty. It pretty much cemented our feet to the concrete,” he said.
His vision is expansive. “I tell people I’m using regenerative agriculture to germinate and cross-pollinate circular economies… keep it in the hood. The whole effort is to put together what I call a food-focused future.”
Chaney hopes Project Sweetie Pie’s work will equip future generations with the skills to navigate uncertain times.
“One of my taglines is: public service, the breakfast of champions. We have one life to live, one Earth, one vision, one accord. All of the programming and initiatives I’m doing are really about building a better mousetrap. How can we raise agency for all, and how can we work to help save Mother Earth?”
On April 22, Project Sweetie Pie will host an Earth Day Garden Cleanup at Oak Park Center in North Minneapolis.
For more information, visit projectsweetiepie.org.