THE PEOPLE OF COLLECTIVE ROOTS Mayra Betancourt, a recent graduate of Berkeley, joins Collective Roots this month as the new Public Health Projects Manager. Mayra will manage a team of two interns and one youth leader. Her position is funded with a grant from the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. Click here to read more about Mayra and the project she will lead. Food Justice Leaders Thanks to a collaboration with Job Train, seven young people from San Mateo County have been chosen for paid positions as Food Justice Leaders this summer. They will each work 15-20 hours per week on assorted organizational projects, and will receive leadership training, go on field trips and make community site visits. One Youth Justice Leader, Aaminah Khan, will be helping to implement the Healthy Development Management Tool Project. Read more about her below. We will introduce the rest of the group in next month’s Enews. Aaminah Khan, a sophomore at Santa Clara University, will work as a Youth Health Advocate at Collective Roots. Read more... Interns We are also thrilled to welcome a bright group of summer interns who have traveled from universities across the country to help bring about food system change in East Palo Alto. Our interns will assist on multiple projects, such as the EPA Farmers Market, the Healthy Development Measurement Tool, developing and researching garden-based learning curricula, and will also help with garden projects. Rylan Rosario is a third year health science major at San Jose State University, born and raised in San Jose. Read more... Emily Viggiano just finished her freshmen year at Brown University, where she is enrolled in an 8-year combined undergraduate and medical school program. Read more... Jade Wang is a senior at Stanford University, majoring in Earth Systems. She is from Oak Park, in Southern California. Read more... Allison Reimer, from Half Moon Bay, just finished her 3rd year at Occidental College in Los Angeles, where she majors in Urban and Environmental Policy. Read more... Jen Awakuni recently completed a 30-hour internship with CR for a Human Nutrition class. Jen, a native of Honolulu, HI, just graduated from Stanford with a degree in Biological Science (Honors.) Read more... Speaking of volunteers . . . coinciding with Michelle Obama’s recent visit to the Bay Area to talk about volunteerism, Collective Roots is thrilled to announce that our application (through Health Trust, a Silicon Valley health collaborative) to AmeriCorps was approved. This means that, starting in September, we will welcome six volunteers who will each work 10 hours/week for one year.

Mayra Betancourt Aaminah Khan Rylan Rosario Emily Viggiano Jade Wang Allison Reimer Jen Awakuni

Help Us Make Ourselves A New Home!
As we reported last month, the staff of Collective Roots and the East Palo Alto Community Farmers' Market are moving into a new office space at the end of June, thanks to an in-kind contribution from PageMill Properties. We are presently seeking support, including donations of furniture and office supplies, to help us get settled in and establish a Center for Urban Agriculture there. If you think you can help, click here for a list of items that we need. Donations, both new and old, will be warmly and gratefully accepted. Please contact us at 650.283.7530 for more information.

We are grateful to the following institutions and individuals who have already donated to our new office space:

• Notre Dame de Namur University
• Marianne Mueller
• Volt Information Sciences
• East Palo Alto High School
• Stephanie Ekoniak and Beth Steinberg
• Sonia Kashyap

Funding Announcements
We are pleased to announce that we have received the second installment of $50,000 in a 3-year grant from the Franklin and Catherine Johnson Foundation. The funding will provide general support to Collective Roots, and will help our efforts to develop a sustainable model for garden based learning.

The 10% of proceeds promised to Collective Roots during the KALW membership drive in March has resulted in a contribution of $5700 from the radio station! Thank you, KALW and all the donors who contributed!.

A $20K grant from the Sequoia Healthcare District funds 2 new garden projects: a school garden at Clifford Elementary School in Redwood City, and the development of a community garden in Belle Haven, a neighborhood of East Menlo Park. Stay tuned for developments!

A $10K grant from the Grove Foundation provides general support to Collective Roots.

A $15K grant from CISCO funds the development of Garden Power!, a new curriculum that links photosynthesis and photovoltaic conversion of the sun’s energy and builds upon the STEM science framework.

Garden Donations:
Thank you to the businesses and individuals who have donated plants to make our summer garden possible:

• Gamble Garden
• Bountiful Garden Foundation
• Cottage Garden Nursery
• Leslie Lee
• Laramie Trevino
• Marianne Mueller

Garden-Based Learning: K-5 Program

This month the Garden-based Learning program had year-end celebrations at EPACS and also at Girls To Women. Many miles were clocked on the bicycle blender, as students and teachers made delicious smoothies and enjoyed them in the garden. We also shared our reflections of our garden experiences over the past year--many students had great memories of tasting new and delicious fruits and vegetables from the garden. All are looking forward to next year’s lessons and can’t wait to explore the vibrant and abundant summer garden when they return to school.

Garden-Based Learning: Middle School Elective

In honor of the end of the trimester and school year, 6th grade Garden Elective students took a trip to Hidden Villa. With Claire as our guide, we had a farm scavenger hunt with freshly harvested strawberries as a reward at the end. We also took a hike through the forest with time for a special ‘alone walk’ to experience the beauty and quiet of the woods individually. Many thanks to Claire and Hidden Villa, as well as to the parents who helped with transportation!

Students also provided EPACS families, teachers and staff with some beautiful and HUMONGOUS onions from the Collective Roots garden. Students harvested, washed and distributed the onions. Many people came back hoping for more!

College Track
After completing a cookbook with recipes from the semester, the College Track Cooking Class ended the semester with a celebration, including fruit and chocolate fondue!

49ers Academy
In June, middle school students from the 49ers Academy after school garden and cooking program enjoyed their final two classes of the school year. Cathy Mendoza of 49ers Academy, who is a cake decorator extraordinaire, led the students in a cake decoration lesson. Students brought home their personal masterpieces as belated-mother’s day gifts.

The following week, students learned all about the wonderful world of worms, and created a habitat for red worms to compost food scraps. To start generating some food scraps, students harvested lettuce and prepared salads, chopped cilantro and mint, grated cheese, and prepared a meal of cheese quesadillas with black bean dip (click here for the dip recipe.)

May EPACS Garden Workday
We are grateful to EPACS students and family members, De Anza’s International Club, and several high school students who joined in and made May’s workday a big success. Also, we send a very special thank you to volunteers from Stanford’s Kappa Sig who stayed late to build Collective Roots a 3-bin compost container! Another thank you to Neilie Fletcher for her help in removing and hauling away our junk and invasive weed pile.



Corporate Workdays
On June 10th, approximately 40 members of the Google Legal Department volunteered in the garden as a part of Google’s Global Volunteer Effort week. Click here to read about the work accomplished that day. Many thanks to all participants, and special kudos to Grace Kawahira for organizing the event!

On June 17th, about 20 employees of Intuit came out to the garden for a morning of team building and garden maintenance. Click here for all the details of the day. Many thanks to Kevin Falini and Mary Cefalu for organizing the event.

4th Annual Physical Activity and Nutrition Forum: June 19th
Katie Gadsby, CR’s Nutrition and Garden Education Coordinator attended this conference at Fort Mason in San Francisco. Click here to read Katie’s report about the exciting speakers and presentations.

School Group Volunteers
On June 18th, 13 students, 2 high school students and a group of adults from the SNAKE Camp (Science and Nature Adventures for Kid Explorers) volunteered at Collective Roots. Read more about SNAKE Camp’s volunteer day, click here.

Our summer garden is blooming! Tomatillos and tomatoes have an abundance of flowers, a variety of summer squash are delighting us with their giant fruits on a daily basis, a rainbow of color is present in our flower garden, a three sisters bed (corn, beans, squash) was planted by volunteers a few weeks ago, and we are enjoying the delicious apricots from our growing fruit trees. Our sunflowers are also in full bloom.