YOU SHOULD ONLY BE HAPPY ....

Column: You can help Ann Arbor's Avalon Housing win an orchard to feed its residents

By Mary Bilyeu AnnArbor.com Community Contributor

Posted on Tue, May 17, 2011 : 5:57 a.m.

I'm declaring that today is Mitzvah Day! A mitzvah (pronounced MITZ-vuh) is literally translated from the Hebrew as "commandment," but it's taken to mean "good deed."

And this is an easy mitzvah to perform: Please vote for one of my very favorite nonprofit organizations — Ann Arbor's own Avalon Housing, which provides homes for those with extremely low incomes who often have mental/physical disabilities further complicating their lives — to receive an orchard to help feed its residents.

Here's a summary of what you need to do, with many thanks to Jude from Avalon for letting me borrow her very succinct phrasing for this explanation. (We all know that I'm usually found way, way over on the opposite end of that spectrum, long past "verbose!") Unfortunately, it's not just a "one click"-er, but it's still not too much trouble:

Please go to: CommunitiesTakeRoot.com. After you have logged in or registered, click the "Vote Now" link. Select the "List By State" tab at the top of the map that appears. Scroll down to "Michigan" and you'll see the listing for Edible Avalon. Just click to plant your vote!
You can vote every day, and help us win an orchard of 20 fruit trees. In just a few years, the trees will produce enough fresh fruit to distribute among our tenants, helping to stabilize their food security — in addition to the many vegetables and fruits already grown through the Edible Avalon program.

According to Avalon's website:

If we win, we'll select 20 fruit trees and shrubs to plant around our Carrot Way apartments. In just a few years, the orchard will produce fresh fruit for our tenants, to be distributed through our network of Community Centers and Food Pantries. You can help us transform our one lonely peach tree into a full orchard!
The orchard space will also enhance the community, providing a picnic and meeting spot, and acting as an outdoor classroom!

Please vote every day until May 31, and pass this along to all your loved ones, as well! This means a very great deal to me, as Avalon Housing is a cause very near and dear to my heart.

has won or placed in more than 60 cooking contests and writes about her adventures in the kitchen. She was thrilled to have her post about Scottish Oatmeal Shortbread named as one of the daily "Best of the Blogs" by the prestigious Food News Journal.

Go visit Mary's blog — Food Floozie — on which she enthuses and effuses over all things food-related. She is also the Ann Arbor Cheap Eats Examiner on Examiner.com, scouting the best deals in town for good food on a very tight budget. Feel free to email her with questions or comments: yentamary@gmail.com.

The phrase "You Should Only Be Happy" (written in Hebrew on the stone pictured at the top of this post) comes from Deuteronomy 16:15 and is a wish for all her readers as they cook along with her ... may you always be happy here.