Momone Maley Revamps Library Garden

Momone Maley is known to many at MUM for being a very hard working student. Having been involved with many different projects at MUM ranging from farming to beekeeping, Momone has learned and achieved a lot in her time here. Now she is close to earning her MBA degree, but even with all of the responsibilities that come with earning a master’s degree she still finds time to pursue her sustainability projects. Last year she decided to dedicate her time toward breathing new life into a section of land next to the MUM Library that had been neglected for the last couple of years. With her love, attention and skills gained from her studies, she was able to turn the land into a lush and thriving place once more. I was able to catch up with Momone about the project and her experience in the Sustainable Living department:

What brought you to MUM, Momone?
My journey to discovering MUM began when my yoga instructor in Chicago recommended I do some reading on Ayurveda. I ended up reading every book on ayurveda that was available in the Chicago Public Library system. One of those books was Depak Chopra’s “Perfect Health.” During this time I was already an avid urban gardener and was looking to obtain skills that would make me useful to off grid sustainable communities. During a google search on sustainability, the link for MUM’s Sustainable Living program came up. I submitted a request for information and within hours I was talking on the phone with Bernard in admissions making plans to come to MUM for the visitors weekend that was just 3 weeks away. During visitors weekend I sat in on Dr. Elaine Ingham’s Living Soils class. After that there was no doubt in my mind that I had to come to MUM so I could learn from her. I spent a year and a half taking sustainable living classes and then a year and a half studying sustainable business. At the end of June I will have completed all of my course work for my MBA.

What was it that first got you interested in studying Sustainable Living?
Well my first degree was in Theatre Performance, and I would always say that my first love was theatre, but in order to have theatre you have to have an earth. Eventually my love for conserving nature and living sustainably overtook my love for theatre. Toward the end of my theatre career I often struggled with the competitive ego driven nature of show biz. I felt I needed to do something that would contribute positively to the collective consciousness. The ability to transcend the ego through the practice of TM and the opportunity to learn and practice sustainability made MUM an obvious choice for the next part of my life’s journey.

That’s really great. I think we’ve all seen that being able to operate from a deeper, more compassionate level of ourselves makes all of our goals that much easier to achieve. When you were studying SL did you have a favorite class?
Living Soils was hands down my favorite class, though Natural Building with Mark Stimson was an experience I will never forget. In Mark’s class 14 of us spent one week gathering and making all of the supplies we would need to live and work in the Chihuahuan desert. For five days I worked with Allie Anderson around the clock to make as many nonperishable organic meals as possible to feed 14 people. We were literally cooking 24 hours a day using slow cookers and dehydrators when we would break to sleep at night. We packed everything we needed into a bus and a trailer and drove to the Big Bend area of Texas where we spent 14 days building an adobe structure and learning how to survive in the desert as a pop up community with no running water or other grid ties.

Nice, that trip sounds like it was intense! Sounds like quite the adventure. So now you’re close to earning your MBA degree while also working on other things. Can you tell me about your current project over on the south side of the MUM Library?
Two and a half years ago, the faculty member who had been in charge of the Old SL Gardens left the university. At that time I was first told that If i made a proposal for the future of the gardens that the department would consider it. The department was very unsure of what the future of the organic agriculture program was going to look like, which led me to pursue other opportunities in organic agriculture and composting. The gardens were left mostly fallow for two years, with just a couple of rogue gardeners clearing space to grow a few plants for personal use. We started to call the gardens “the sunflower jungle” because that is what they had become. The space was terribly overgrown, and in the fall of 2014 the department began to talk about tilling the gardens and turning them back into lawn. I stepped in and proposed to bring back the integrity of the space in exchange for sole use of the space as a market garden. Since October 2014 I have been clearing the garden, adjusting the layout, applying biology to the soil, fighting the overgrowth daily, planting and finally harvesting the crops for sale locally.

Wow, that sounds like an incredible undertaking! I think I speak for everyone in saying thanks for doing it. It’s so great to be able to use that space for growing food. So what are you going to do once you graduate?
After I am done with my final course work at the end of June I am planning to apply for jobs in the general area of sustainability and organics. I would love to work for a local company that is involved with the Non-GMO project (such as Fairfield’s FoodChain ID). I will continue to maintain the garden through the fall with the help of my life partner. Nothing is definite, so we have plans to be flexible and pivot as a team to make sure the gardens are cared for.

Awesome. Do you have any advice for younger students that are interested in pursuing sustainability as a field of study or career?
When you take classes in sustainability don’t just read the books and do the course work. Find ways to practice what you are learning. There are so many opportunities in Fairfield to do this. Turning what you learn into daily practice makes the learning experience much richer, and it helps to have these projects for your resume and portfolio as well!