Tim W. Shenk
Bilingual Communications Specialist
I grew up in small-town Indiana helping my mom pick tomatoes and green beans in our small backyard garden. When I was eight years old and wanted a bicycle, my parents asked me how I proposed to earn the money for it. I decided to grow sweet corn. It was a drought year, so we made weekly trips to my small plot to water the rows of beleaguered corn with jugs of water I filled at home with the garden hose. I sold the runty ears to sympathetic friends at church and made $55 — enough to buy a prized second-hand bike.
Now at the Small Farms Program, I've returned to my family's roots in agriculture, though I may not get to have my hands in the dirt as much as I'd like! I'll be responsible for the multifaceted communications strategy at Futuro en Ag and will support the project's Spanish language online and in-person education.
In high school and college I studied Spanish, and afterward I was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship for an urban rooftop gardening project in the Dominican Republic. The project was a complete flop. Soil was in short supply, composting was a tough sell, scarce water was needed for household cooking and cleaning — and most importantly, most families wouldn't plant a garden on their rooftop because that's where their dogs lived.
Thanks to patient guidance from local Dominican leaders, I learned that this sort of community project succeeds or fails based on the depth of the relationships we build in that community. Project ideas must respond to felt needs, not be hatched in the minds of outsiders, well meaning as they might be. Mentors invited me to continue on after my scholarship year to do participatory research and community organizing. I stayed a total of five years, listening much more than I talked. My experience in the DR has deeply shaped my vision, values and commitment to ending systemic racism and poverty and developing a society of abundance and dignity for all.
I returned to the U.S. and for ten years directed the Cornell-based Committee on U.S.-Latin American Relations (CUSLAR), where I supervised student interns, taught courses, edited a newsletter and led student and community exchanges on campus and in Latin America.
As Futuro en Ag's bilingual communications specialist, I bring expertise in Spanish language communication, journalism, research, popular education, curriculum development and classroom pedagogy. I look forward to nurturing a growing network of Spanish-speaking farmers in New York State and beyond.
