The Friends of the Wissahickon’s popular lecture series, Valley Talks, sponsored by Valley Green Bank, brings environmental leaders and the public together to discuss timely and important topics.

This fall's line-up includes Greensgrow co-founder Mary Seton Corboy and Philadelphia Orchard Project Director Phil Forsyth discussing urban agriculture and Andy Hamilton of the East Coast Greenway Alliance focusing on the East Coast Greenway. These lectures begin at 6:00 p.m. at Valley Green Inn and are free and open to the public.

During Urban Agriculture in Philadelphia on October 3, Corboy and Forsyth will lead a discussion on the benefits of fresh local food and the opportunities and challenges facing urban agriculture in Philadelphia. Mary Seton Corboy is Chief Farm Hand at Greensgrow Farm. Located on an acre in Kensington, it is a thriving nursery, market, and 500-member CSA, supported by a network of farms within 100 miles of Philadelphia. Corboy is on Organic Style Magazine's top 50 "Environmental Power List," and is also founder of the Neighborhood Urban Agriculture Coalition and  Co-Founder of the Farmers Market Alliance.

Phil Forsyth, director of the Philadelphia Orchard Project, has led the organization's orchard design and development since its first plantings in the spring of 2007. POP works with community-based groups and volunteers to plan and plant orchards filled with useful and edible plants in mostly low-wealth communities throughout the city. Forsyth is a professional landscape designer with ten years of experience in urban farming, landscaping, and gardening, and writes about urban food growing for various magazines. 

Andy Hamilton will present Creating the East Coast Greenway on November 7. Hamilton, the Mid-Atlantic Trail Coordinator for the East Coast Greenway Alliance, will discuss how this trail system enhances local communities as well as the region at large. As a long-distance, urban, shared-use trail system, it links 25 major cities along the eastern seaboard.

Hamilton will consider the benefits to public health that access to active transportation and natural and cultural experiences provides to the millions of Americans that use the East Coast Greenway on bicycle and foot. He has spent almost two decades working in landscape architecture at Carter Van Dyke Associates, enriching spaces such as the greenways or linear park segments.

Valley Green Inn is located on Forbidden Drive in Wissahickon Valley Park. Register for this event by contacting Sarah Marley by sending email to: marley@fow.org or 215-247-0414 ext. 109. Spaces are limited.

9/17/2012