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| volume 2, number 2 |
February 2009 |
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Welcome to the ninth issue of The Root of the Matter. Through our monthly electronic communication, Collective Roots will keep you informed about recent successes, new initiatives, upcoming events, and ways you can get involved and support our work for food system change in East Palo Alto.
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| SUPPORT COLLECTIVE ROOTS |
Collective Roots is always grateful for financial contributions that allow us to continue and expand our programs. You can make a secure online donation here. To contribute by mail, or for more information on matching gifts or in kind donations, click here. If you have additional questions, please do not hesitate to call us at (650) 283-7530.
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| EAST PALO ALTO |
Interview with Laura Martinez
Welcome to what will be an ongoing series about the amazing people and exceptional leaders in East Palo Alto. This month, we are pleased to begin this series featuring an interview with Laura Martinez, the youngest elected official in the history of East Palo Alto. Click here to learn more about her work in our community.
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| PROGRAMS |
GARDEN BASED LEARNING
Kindergarden-5th Grade
Our K-5 program is off to an exciting start in 2009 with garden classes, after-school and service learning projects. Fourth graders from the East Palo Alto Charter School, while researching the effects of companion planting, are diligently caring for their garden experiment plots. This month, first graders practiced newly-honed planting skills while third graders conducted internet research of the salt marsh harvest mouse, an endangered wetlands species, for the Baylands garden that we will plant in the spring.
 Garden Clubbers Are Dancers Too!
Garden Clubbers traded their gardening gloves for dancing shoes for the Castilleja School’s annual “Arts with a Heart” performance and fundraiser on February 12th and 13th. Aptly themed “Save the Earth”, this beautiful event was organized by Georgi Shea, Karen Toby and numerous Castilleja staff, students and parent volunteers. The performances raised $5000 for fruit trees to be planted in the EPACS garden!
Garden Clubbers showcased the dances that they had been rehearsing for over a month, including “Recycled Rhythm”, a fun piece that turned plastic bottles into music makers, and “The 3 R’s”, danced to the song by Jack Johnson urging everybody to reduce, reuse, and recycle. These were just some of the incredible performances, many of which were choreographed by Castilleja students. Collective Roots’ students were thrilled to be a part of “Arts with a Heart,” and we are all thankful for the opportunity to work with Castilleja and for their generous support.
Girls to Women
The Collective Roots after-school program at Girls to Women has been successful and lots of fun! The program serves as a reminder that gardens, no matter the size, can connect young learners in meaningful hands-on activities. Twice a week, girls from the program meet to maintain their raised bed, prepare meals with garden-fresh, organic produce and reduce, recycle and reuse through creative arts and craft projects. Recently, girls planted peas, broccoli and kale plants! We are all looking forward to harvest time!
 Middle School Elective
The 7th Graders are looking forward to a field trip to Hidden Villa on February 24th! They will be preparing a meal from winter greens in their garden, talking about healthy eating choices, and learning about the work of Hidden Villa. In the meantime, the students continue to learn about nutrition by cooking in the outdoor kitchen at EPACS. Recent culinary explorations have included Asian cabbage salad, wheat berry salad and a green leaf salad. They have enjoyed cooking with Napa cabbage, lettuce, cilantro, parsley, oregano, thyme, carrots, onions, garlic and mint from the Collective Roots garden!
As the trimester soon comes to an end, 7th graders are also finishing the digital stories they have been creating with the help of Institute for the Future. Students have been writing about their futures, finding and taking photos related to their stories, and working towards formatting them into a video!
49ers Academy
Middle School Students at the 49ers Academy continue to learn about gardening and cooking in the Collective Roots afterschool program. Students also continue to beautiful the campus by planting violets, forget-me-nots, onions, kale, cilantro, mint, and other lovely plants! They have also enjoyed cooking and eating: the past weeks have included Asian cabbage salad, spiced apple juice, applesauce and pancakes, using wheat they ground themselves!
College Track
The new cooking class at College Track is off to a great start! Fifteen high school students participated in the first three sessions of the cooking class, making Fettuccine with Brussels Sprouts and Pine Nuts (see recipe below), Asian cabbage salad, potato soup, and a seasonal fruit salad.
FOOD SYSTEM CHANGE |
Let’s Take This Show on the Road!
The Stanford Population Health group implemented the first-ever Food System Change Road Show at the East Palo Alto Family YMCA on February 18th. For the past four months, these first-year medical students have been designing activities that emphasize healthy food and lifestyle choices for youth. These include: a fishing-for-fruit bicycle blender activity, green team salad relay race, and a plant-your-own-fruit seed germinating exercise. Following this first run of the road show, the Stanford students are conducting an evaluation and assessment, and after making some modifications and improvements, will implement a second version in the coming weeks.
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| MONTHLY GARDEN WORKDAYS |
Upcoming Workday
The next garden workday will be Saturday, March 28th, from 9 AM – noon. Spring has sprung in the garden: bulbs are blooming and the plum tree is flowering! Come out to help with spring cleaning! Click here for more information and directions. To sign up to be a team leader, call 650.324.2769 or email volunteer@collectiveroots.org.
Past Workdays
East Side Academy, Sports4Kids Pitch In at the Garden
In the beautiful morning weather on February 21st, over 120 volunteers came out to Collective Roots for a spring-cleanup in the garden! With students and parents from East Side Academy, the San Jose Sports4Kids Americorp group, a Palo Alto youth group, and Collective Roots staff and board members, many big projects were accomplished in the garden! Some highlights of the day include bulb and tree planting, compost turning, weeding, mulching, cleaning the pond, preparing new beds, clearing a large new area for fruit trees and greenhouse seeding!
Hidden Villa Interns
On February 2nd, Collective Roots enjoyed a visit from interns from Hidden Villa. As a part of the Hidden Villa internship program, interns visit local organizations to learn about and contribute to their mission. Interns toured the garden with Bryden and Eron, and helped in the garden by seeding tomatoes in the greenhouse, digging trenches to plant asparagus, and cutting and painting signs to label fruit trees.
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| FARMERS MARKET |
 Gearing Up For Spring
The East Palo Alto Farmers' Market Committee is meeting once again to plan for the market's spring launch. Some big challenges lie ahead, but the committee is more excited than ever to build upon the successes of our first season. Committee members collected nearly 200 community surveys from around East Palo Alto, which asked residents to submit their opinions on what they want to buy at the market, where they want the market to be held, and what time is most convenient for them to shop. In the coming weeks, the committee will be exploring various days and times for the market, and looks forward to re-launching in the spring.
Do you have ideas for how we can improve the market, or do you want to get involved or volunteer when we reopen in the spring? Please contact David Kane at david@collectiveroots.org.
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| COMMUNITY EVENTS |
Local Gardeners Invited to Use Greenhouse for Seedlings
It is the perfect time to start seeds in the new greenhouse! Collective Roots invites the community to use the greenhouse to plant seeds for their own backyard gardens! Contact Eron Sandler (eron@collectiveroots.org or 650.324.2769) for more information and to get your own section of the greenhouse.
Past Events
 Eco-Farm Conference
Our two garden educators, Eron Sandler and Bryden Johnston, attended the 29th Annual Ecological Farming Conference (Eco-Farm) in late January.
For four days every year, Eco-Farm brings together farmers, school garden educators, distributors, chefs, and others dedicated to sustainable agriculture for an informational and inspiration-packed conference. We kicked off our eco-farm experience with the school garden bus tour, visiting three amazing garden programs in Santa Cruz County. Led by John Fisher of Life Lab, we visited Green Acres Elementary, Pacific School and Bonny Doon Elementary. Each of these schools offers an excellent example of garden and program design. We were incredibly lucky to dine at the Pacific School, where 5th and 6th grade students plan and prepare the entire school’s lunches every day (!), under the expert guidance of Stephanie Raugust.
Throughout the next three days, we attended many workshops with topics including: media relationships, roots demystified, youth on the farm, sustainable farming and celebrity chefs, edible landscaping, and K-12 garden education. We are thankful for the opportunity to have attended the Eco-Farm and will continue to translate ideas gained at the conference into our work here at Collective Roots.
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| FEATURED PARTNER |
Collective Roots has worked hard to establish numerous partnerships with organizations, institutions and companies that share a mission similar to ours. We find these partnerships to be so rewarding, because they enable us to spread our roots even further into the community. We plan to feature a different partner in this column each month.
Revolution Foods Is Staging a Lunchroom Coup
We are pleased to partner with Revolution Foods, a company committed to delivering healthy school lunches as well as nutrition education to schools across the San Francisco Bay Area and the Los Angeles Metropolitan area. The company was co-founded in 2006 by Kristin Richmond and Kirsten Tobey, both graduates of Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.
Last year, Revolution Foods began serving food to all the children at East Palo Alto Charter School and other sites in East Palo Alto. Collective Roots considers Revolution Foods to be a strong partner in changing the food landscape in schools serving under-served communities. Recently the Revolution Foods team and Nest Collective launched several healthy, delicious new kid-friendly, organic consumer snack products which are sold through Whole Foods; a portion of the proceeds from this product line are used to support their efforts to serve more underserved school districts. For more information, visit http://revfoods.com/our_products.
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| WHAT'S GROWING |
Our Brussels Sprouts are now ready to eat! Students participating in after-school programs at College Track and the East Palo Alto Charter School will enjoy making this delicious dish this month.
 Fettuccine with Brussels Sprouts and Pine Nuts
Gourmet, November 2007, by Maggie Ruggiero
3/4 pound Brussels sprouts, trimmed
1/2 pound dried egg fettuccine
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons pine nuts
Accompaniment: grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
1. Slice Brussels sprouts in a food processor fitted with slicing disk.
2. Cook fettuccine in a pasta pot of boiling salted water (3 tablespoons salt for 6 quarts water) until al dente.|
3. Meanwhile, heat butter and oil in a large heavy skillet over medium heat until foam subsides, then cook pine nuts, stirring, until golden, 1 to 2 minutes. Add Brussels sprouts, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper, then sauté over medium-high heat until tender and lightly browned, about 4 minutes.
4. Reserve 1/2 cup pasta-cooking water, then drain pasta and add to skillet, tossing with enough reserved water to moisten.
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| FOOD SYSTEM NEWS |
On our website we gather an abundance of articles on issues related to our work in food system change, children’s diet and health, the environment, the green tech economy in Silicon Valley and beyond, and other articles of interest. Click here to read recent news on these topics.
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NOTE: This newsletter employs hyperlinks that act as shortcuts to related documents or web pages. Click on the green underlined words in the articles above to find out more information.
If someone forwarded you this newsletter, please click here to add your name to our mailing list.
To read past newsletters, go to http://collectiveroots.org/news/newsletters.
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