As winter marches on locally, plans are being made for preparing soil and what to plant in future months, while Soil Solidarity, a community gardening nonprofit project with anarchist roots, also tries to fill out its board.
"We need to build an alternative to capitalism. Not a bandaid," Katie Colling, the founder, says of her ongoing pursuits.
Her new base is called Groundswell at 1820 G street, where she and others have a three-year lease while being allowed to do whatever they want with the property in terms of landscaping, as a new model for sustainability and community building.
Paul Lenart who joined her for a recent strategy meeting is proud of the way Colling “smashed through the barriers and got it done. That’s all I’ve ever cared about in the left community in Reno; getting things done,” he added. “If you believe in human equality of opportunity for development of oneself and the community, you are a comrade of mine.”
Their discussion ranges from Paul’s thoughts on political ideology to Katie’s local concerns.
Katie is a mother of two with a disability who found a calling for activism during Occupy Reno.
“I was the vice president and free market director for the Reno Initiative for Shelter and Equality for six years,” she says of her journey. “That meant a lot to me because not only did I meet people who were like my spirit connection and found people who were like-minded, I got to actually actively do something (productive) for so long with them… They went on to open [the emergency housing provider for women and families] Our Place. I am proud of them for that.”
In addition to coordinating Soil Solidarity, Katie has been a transition specialist at the Nevada Youth Empowerment Project for a little over a year, helping young women get back on track, with the guidance of NYEP executive director Monica DuPea.
Katie says that self-sabotage can be an issue for the eighteen to twenty-four year old women that organization tries to help.
“Decision making skills (are) not always up to par… They’ll leave for boys. They’ll leave for shitty jobs. They had to do their chores every day and didn’t necessarily like it. But I also see really dedicated women who are busting their ass for the program and (learn a lot of) skills which I wish I’d had when I was (their age.)”
Katie is also proud of a document she co-created in 2022 called An In-Depth Guide of Homelessness in Washoe County. “It’s specifically ten organizations that did something about homelessness, our opinions on each of them, and twelve pages of recommendations of what we think anybody should be doing.”
A section called Recommendations for Social Change advocates that “the homeless encampment sweeps be stopped and replaced with intensive outreach. The Reno Ambassador program reports that it takes 89 engagements with a person experiencing homelessness by 6.5 different agencies over six months before a person will agree to be sheltered. Homeless sweeps are costly, ineffective… and courts have held that the failure to provide sufficient notice before a sweep that allows people time to safeguard their property or the destruction of property during a sweep violates the rights of homeless individuals.”
The document recommends specific funding of grant workers, housing retention specialists, and increased wages of shelter workers.
Katie encourages members of the community to find something they’re passionate about and commit.
“Soil Solidarity has been growing food far longer than we’ve been a nonprofit,” Katie explained. “We’ve been working with mutual aid programs for eleven, twelve years now.”
One new project is to develop the land at Groundswell itself.
“We want to install a food forest here (including) trees. …Draft a guide on how to do what we’re doing,” she explained.
Other plans include developing communications classes for local activists and finding a location for canning and other food processing.
The issue of filling Soil Solidarity’s board is on her mind. Two are active and two other board members are on medical leave. Open positions are many now: President, Vice President, Secretary, and Fundraiser.
The president will be expected to attend fundraisers and events while fully supporting the executive director, and ideally be someone who is dedicated to the cause: an alternative to capitalism.
As the discussion progresses, Paul states that egalitarian projects aren’t often victorious in Reno. “Can I out you as an anarchist?” Katie laughs. “Yes you can.”
“Think globally. Act locally,” Katie says of her pursuits after Paul explains some of his views on global economic structures and current strife.
“That’s the only thing that keep me stable. Is to hear the global stuff but I can’t tackle it. It causes me so much internal stress. So I focus specifically on Washoe County…” Colling says. “I would point out that there were different ways of viewing the same reality,” Paul chimes in. “That’s true,” Katie agrees.
“I think we share the same reality. It is not the fantasy world of everybody going after their own to the best they can and getting as much as they can and somehow it’ll all work out at the end. We see how well that works out when you drive down Virginia street,” Paul says.
“Right,” Colling agrees. “It’s like closed up closed up.”
The two speak about their collaboration and the importance of compromise.
“My point to that is that Paul and I have collaborated for years,” Katie points out. “Fifteen,” he says.
“And I feel like we compromise on our ideologies to help… And I think because we’re in the socialist democrats….compromising ideologies a little bit but collaborate with them and with other people. The problem is that other people don’t just onboard because of the infighting, because of the communication skills that we lack as a whole. Being overwhelmed by the drama of the world. And even just the drama of our local community it’s so hard to change things here. I understand why people don’t step in and stay but we need people to. And if it’s social democracy, which is a compromise for capitalism, we still need people to move to the left. Just come on you guys, I’ll get you closer,” she laughs.
The local Northern Nevada DSA is currently experiencing a transfer of leadership roles, which the two, both connected to democratic socialists, also discussed.
Paul says that “NNDSA feels that its role is to provide a communication network among all the various efforts for a greater degree of equality whether reformist, revolutionary, anarchist, whatever. We don’t care. If you’re not a Nazi, “hell, I’ll work with you. I work with democrats, shit,” he says.
Though Katie does believe voting is important, she'd like to see more activism.
She’d like other people to create their own versions of Soil Solidarity. “We want to build a model that other people can replicate… Do something with your house… in conjunction with the land owner. People know how to buy land and be a dictator about land. We want to teach people how to share their land and work together. Hence the communication classes. Conflict resolution, deescalation, and just basic communication skills. How to take constructive criticism,” Katie explains.
What else can individuals do? Here her mind went back to her mutual aid gardening.
“Decolonize. Pull away from white culture and centering Indigenous cultures and the way in which they interact with the land. One thing in Native language is they speak of the land first and the person last and we do it the opposite,” she said.
“Native to Nevada is good. I would say (grow) productive things. Does it bring bees? Does it bring healthy bugs? Does it protect your plants from bad bugs? Is it edible? Can you use it? Also permaculture is not just plants. It’s a whole concept around how people are part of nature. We’re part of that ecosystem and how we interact with it is valuable,” she went on further.
“There’s a (technological) compromise I’m trying to decide on right now. I have this plot, Project Dandelion, and about six-seven inches below the bed is this dead pan of hard clay. I’m torn between using a rototiller, digging it up and making it better from that point forward. But there’s a lot of arguments to be made that you should broad fork it and not destroy the mycelium in the soil,” she pondered, while Paul listened.
From minute intricacies to big picture issues, Katie is always trying to make the world around her a better place, starting here in Washoe County, excited about where Groundswell will go.