what Maren is doing now

I found the building in the spring of 2013. It had been a grain co-op office, then a tax prep place, then nothing for two years. The windows were painted over and there was a broken ceiling fan turning slowly in the corner. I stood in the middle of the empty floor and thought: this is exactly the right size for a potluck. That was the whole plan. I signed the lease in January 2014, borrowed a truck, and spent three weekends hauling in donated furniture. The first event was a soup swap in February. Fourteen people came. I had made too much bread and not enough bowls.

The first two years were genuinely hard. I was working part-time at the food bank to keep the lights on here, and there were months when I was not sure we would make it to the next one. What kept us going was not a strategic plan. It was the Thursday Spanish circle, which started with four people and grew to eighteen without any advertising. It was the woman who showed up one October asking if she could use the kitchen to make tamales for her daughter's quinceañera, and ended up teaching a class that ran for three years. It was the seed library, which I started mostly because I had too many tomato seeds and nowhere to put them. Slowly the place found its shape, not because I designed it that way, but because the neighborhood told us what it needed.