10.16.10 Garden Party Fundraiser

9.18.10 Koshland Park and Garden Workday

On Friday, July 30th CommunityGrows lead a field trip for the Buchanan YMCA to Alemany Farm in San Francisco.  Alemany Farm is a 4.5 acre working organic farm in southeastern San Francisco. The Farm is collaboratively managed by volunteers, San Francisco city officials, and residents of the Alemany community. Friends of Alemany Farm (FoAF) is a volunteer-managed project sponsored by the San Francisco Parks Trust.  Friends of Alemany Farm oversees organic food production at the site, offers workshops and educational courses, coordinates the volunteer efforts, manages a free neighborhood produce delivery, and hosts field trips for children and adults.

The YMCA bus arrived around 10:30 and youth were greeted by Nora Brereton and Genina Elimore from the farm.  Dividing into groups they walked through the fields, learned about and ate different fruits and vegetables and saw the bee hives!  Everyone was happy to be outdoors and climbing hills, looking under rocks and getting their hands dirty.  In fact, a number of fluffy caterpillars got transported around the farm wiggling up sleeves and tickling hands and arms.  The day was a blast, even for a foggy San Francisco summer!

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On Friday July 26, 2010 CommunityGrows organized a second summer field trip to Green Gulch Farm, thanks to our partnership with Mo’Magic and Prince Hall Learning Center on Fillmore Street.  About forty youth from six to eighteen years of age, boarded a bus and headed out to a foggy summer day at the farm.  We were met by Suki Parmalee, garden outreach program manager, received name tags, broke into three teams and took off on various adventures throughout the farm.  Each group got to do a well-rounded tour of the gardens, the bee hives, the compost piles and a walk through the fields.

With great preparation workshops lead by the Green Gulch garden team, the youth enjoyed learning about the bees, got to peek into their hives, and even taste their honey.  They also got a lesson in compost building, and had a blast looking for bugs and wiggly worms.  They were amazed at how much food was grown on the farm as they walked through rows and rows of vegetables, trying out many different kinds.

Everyone brought their lunches and we sat in the garden and shared our stories of the morning.  After lunch we boarded the bus and drove on down to Muir Beach.  It was a cold and overcast day, but that didn’t stop the excitment of the kids, who ran in and out of the water, collected stones and shells, gathered seaweed, and flew kites.  Great to be out doors in a wide open space to run and play.  Thank you Green Gulch for a wonderful day!

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This summer Koshland Garden was host to many VIPs including Jared Blumenfeld and Keith Takata from the Region 9 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  Mr. Blumenfeld is currently the Regional Administrator for EPA’s Region 9. This region encompasses California, Arizona, Hawaii, Nevada, the Pacific Islands, and over 140 Tribal Nations. He spent eight years as the Director of the San Francisco Department of Environment, and also managed the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department.  He and his colleague Keith Takata came to see our garden and hear about our programs.  This visit also paved the way for Tamar Hurwitz, Environmental Education Manager of  San Francisco Environment, who joined us in Koshland Garden to talk about programs and collaborations.

Other local VIPs visiting us this summer in the garden were Chris Rosenberg, new principal of John Muir Elementary School, and Ritlesh Chand, manager of Hayes Valley Housing.  Mr. Rosenberg, accompanied by his daughter Julia, met with us to see the site and hear about our science program with John Muir Elementary students.  Mr. Chand (Ren) also checked out our garden site and brought his daughter Ava to enjoy a garden lesson.

Finally, another wonderful surprise happened this July when we were visited by Yvonne and Mary Koshland, who came to see CommunityGrows and our programs in action.  It is always a pleasure to have them in Koshland Park and share with them how much we love the park and garden.  Thank you all for coming!

Veggie Stir-fry, Mexican Salsa, Sushi, Bowtie Pasta, Spring rolls, and Baked potatoes!  Every Wednesday in July from 3-5 PM, a culinary theme was chosen and three dishes made.  Twenty to thirty youth,  parents, and volunteers came together to harvest, prepare, and serve delicious, nutritious and healthy meals which we sat down and enjoyed together.

Each week youth harvested different vegetables from the Koshland Community Garden, including greens, lettuce, salad fixings, carrots, tomatoes, zucchini, and potatoes, and transported them across the street  to the Hayes Valley Apartments Community Room.  There, after washing hands and putting on aprons, the youth washed and chopped vegetables, rolled out dough, or cooked rice to make a meal.

One of the most exciting days was the making of sushi. Perhaps after a class at William-Sonoma or Sur La Table, making sushi would still be a daunting task.  How could we teach kids to make sushi?  What about the bamboo mats, the special techniques, the chopsticks?  How could we do it?  Well, it was so easy!  And so much fun!  We didn’t even use bamboo rolling mats, we place the nori on the table, spooned out some rice on the bottom, added strips of our favorite veggies we had sliced beforehand, and roll them up and sealed.  Then we cut the rolls into bite-size pieces.  They were delicious.  Everyone got excited about making as many as possible.  Another successful, fun time.

The next week youth rolled out dough to make bow-tie pasta.  It was a great workout, as the dough needed to be paper thin.  Then they pinched the edges together to make bow-ties.  We made an amazing tomato sauce with zucchini, and onions.  Heated bread and grated cheese rounded off a very satisfying meal.

Spring rolls were another surprising success.  Who would have thought we could make spring rolls?  So easy.  Soak the round wafers in water, place soft white rice noddles and strips of veggies, then roll up and seal like tortillas.  So healthy and delicious.

We are thrilled to have such a great partnership with Hayes Valley Apartments who have allowed us free range of their kitchen and community room for the past five years.  We also appreciate all the youth organizations that participated with the youth in the neighborhood, including the African American Arts and Culture Center, the YMCA and the Hayes Valley Youth Center.

Thanks to incredible volunteers and teen interns, our summer program at CommunityGrows was a smashing success!  We could never have served over 300 youth from thirteen organizations without you!  Thanks to Adrian Gaino, Ariel Miller, Stephanie Geballe, Beth Sachnoff, Veronica Nommensen, Braegen Carroll, and Gloria Lee.  Our summer youth interns, Quincey Martin and Auriana Mixon from JCYC (Japanese Community Youth Council) New Ways Workers, and Bridges programs were exceptional.  We also got help with our cooking classes from Hye-Jin Yun from Lowell High School. Thank you everyone!

The volunteers worked in the Koshland Garden and the Hayward Recreation Center Garden, as well as accompanied us on field trips.  They also joined us for our Seed-to-Mouth Cooking classes, every Wednesday afternoon in July.

Building upon its long-term commitment to community involvement, Starbucks Coffee Company recently awarded more than $1 million in Starbucks™ Shared Planet™ Youth Action Grants in the U.S. The company’s goal is to engage 50,000 young people to innovate and take action in their communities by 2015. CommunityGrows was selected as a grant recipient in order to advance its efforts toward environmental education and its BEETS Program (Band of Environmentally Educated and Employable Teens).

“We’re pleased to support organizations (like CommunityGrows) that are dedicated to cultivating tomorrow’s change-makers,” said Ben Packard, Starbucks vice president of Global Responsibility. “We hope our Youth Action Grants will enable a new generation of creative problem-solvers to make a meaningful impact in their communities while gaining valuable life skills.”

On May 21, 2010 Starbucks presented a check for $10,000 to CommunityGrows at John Muir School Environmental Day.   Julie Hurlbert, Starbucks District Manager, and her associates Richard and Payne,  joined students on the third floor of the school for activities which included recycling, re-use designing, leaf pressing, bug and insect viewing.  Then we took them on a tour of the Koshland Park Community Learning Garden.

A few weeks later a great crew of Starbucks employees came out with other neighborhood volunteers, to help us on our Koshland Park and Garden Workday, June 19th.  It was a beautiful and productive day.  The biggest accomplishment was that we painted the garden fence and took out all the large weeds outside the garden.  The park and garden were transformed!  Thank you Starbucks and we look forward to our continued partnership!

On April 21, 2010 Nora Brereton and Barbara Wenger, both staff of CommunityGrows, met with Rosa Parks Elementary School Garden Team to discuss starting a new garden on the school site.  What a beautiful school with lots of space.  We met the school nutritionist, Louise Hjortenfalk, PTA President, Lora Hirschberg, and parent Barbara Fujimoto to talk about dreams for the garden.

Over the next few months the garden will be taking shape, so stay tuned for some exciting photos!

On May 20, 2010 the Western Addition Beacon after school youth weeded out their plots and dug for worms, as well as gathered seeds from vegetables that had run their course.

Imagine our surprise when we uncover delicious potatoes!

Lina Ortiz joined us for the afternoon and then went off to visit her family in Columbia the next day!

We also gathered eight of our biggest artichokes and brought them to the Hayes Valley Community Room to cook.  Most of the kids had never had artichokes before. A good deal of ranch dressing made the artichokes taste delicious!

It was a great day to work with these lovely children. We hope to come back another time.