|
|
|
| volume 2, number 3 |
March 2009 |
|
|
|
Welcome to the tenth 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.
One way in which you can support Collective Roots is to volunteer as a writer for The Root of the Matter. Please contact CRNews@collectiveroots.org if this is of interest to you.
|
|
|
|
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.
Silicon Green
Collective Roots has recently served a key role in forming a regional consortium called Silicon Green. Silicon Green was created in order to facilitate the development of a 46-member Americorps program focused on creating and supporting community gardens and urban farms for youth empowerment in Silicon Valley. The Consortium was fostered through the support of The Health Trust, a local community foundation responsible for the Healthy Silicon Valley Initiative.
In selecting partnering organizations for the Consortium, unique community-based organizations were identified as established leaders in serving high need communities with innovative programs that intersect at five "green nexus" points: 1) food and nature, 2) green jobs and careers, 3) public and environmental health, 4) science and technology, and 5) culture and community. One goal of the group is to assure that the emergence of the GreenTech economy in Silicon Valley is inclusive of the organizations that actually make the valley greener (gardens, trees, conservation, etc.).
Collective Roots is excited to support this collaboration, which will enable us to leverage our fundraising efforts. When you make a donation to Collective Roots, you are supporting an organization that offers innovative local and regional solutions through creative partnerships.
Funding Announcement
We are pleased to announce that we recently received three new grants to support our programs. The first, $40,000 from the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, will help us to support immigrant integration and the establishment of the Healthy Development Measurement Tools in East Palo Alto. The Peery Foundation also awarded us $20,000 for general support, and the Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund awarded us $10,000 to fully develop, fund, staff and integrate the core programs of Collective Roots: (1) Garden Based Learning, (2) Food System Change, and (3) Environmental Action.
KALW Public Radio is leveraging goodwill and reaching into the community to support Collective Roots' work. The station will set aside 10% of the money they raise during their current membership drive, and will divide the funds between three local nonprofits that work with youth, including CR. Tune in to 91.7 FM from March 19th through April 2nd! Click here to learn more.
|
 |
| EAST PALO ALTO 101 |
 This week we present a quiz about the community of East Palo Alto. Clue: most of the answers can be found by using the "Search" function on our website, http://www.collectiveroots.org. The answers will be provided in next month's Enewsletter.
1. What high-density community in San Mateo County has the lowest ratio of municipal open space per capita? Specifically, what is the amount of open space available per capita (open space ratios are given as "X" acres per 1,000.)
2. What San Mateo County Supervisor was raised in East Palo Alto, and served as Mayor of East Palo Alto?
3. Maps prepared by the Bay Conservation and Development Commission and The San Francisco Chronicle offer a detailed look at how a changing shoreline would affect life around the San Francisco Bay. The map shows much of East Palo Alto under how many feet of water? See historic images of flooding in East Palo Alto here.
The first person to email all three correct answers to CRNews@collectiveroots.org will receive a beautiful cookbook prepared by our students! Please write "East Palo Alto Quiz" in the subject line of your email.
|
|
| PROGRAMS |
Garden-Based Learning: K-5 Program
 Hidden Villa Welcomes Our Garden Clubbers Once Again
Garden Clubbers enjoyed a fantastic field trip to Hidden Villa last Friday. Led by expert teachers, students learned first hand about the sustainable farming practice of rotational grazing. Students happily took over responsibility for daily afternoon farm chores for Hidden Villa's cows, goats, sheep, pigs and chickens.
 Collective Roots students and staff alike are extremely appreciative of the Hidden Villa partnership and always look forward to our rich learning experiences at the Farm and Wilderness Preserve. Prior to our field trip, Garden Clubbers spent the last couple of Fridays on an art project inspired by Eric Carle, author of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
 Rain, Rain, DON'T Go Away!
At the East Palo Alto Charter School, kindergarteners as well as first and fourth graders are participating in weekly garden lessons. Last week, the kindergarten students learned about the importance of water, and ran a Raindrop Relay! This idea was modified from an activity in Earth Child 2000: Earth Science for Young Children, a great curriculum resource.
In the relay, there are four teams of five students each. Each team has a "raindrop", made out of a water balloon. On each team, students play various roles in the path of a raindrop: cloud, mountain, stream, river, and ocean. Students run with the raindrop and pass it off to the next student on their team. Thus, the raindrop is able to make the trek from cloud to ocean with the help of many eager kindergarteners. On the day after their lesson, students looked at the dark clouds in the sky and excitedly chimed "It's going to rain!"
Compost Is Not Just For Worms
This past week at the Girls to Women after-school program, students assembled their very own stackable composting bin, learned about important compost ingredients, and played a fun game of Decomposition Tag!
Garden-Based Learning: Middle School Elective
7th Graders Visit Hidden Villa
Seventh grade garden students at East Palo Alto Charter School enjoyed a visit to Hidden Villa last month. James McDaniel wrote about the visit in the latest issue of the school newspaper, EPACS on Track:
"In garden class we learned a lot. First I will be telling you about our field trip to Hidden Villa. We first went to a farm and harvested some kale and put oil and soy sauce on it and then baked it and they called it "kale popcorn."
When we went to Hidden Villa we also saw all sorts of animals. For example we saw a goat, a cow, and we saw other animals as well. This was a very interesting sight to see in class.
In garden class we do all sorts of fun activities such as harvest vegetables, and water plants, and go on awesome field trips such as Hidden Villa.
The last thing I would like to mention is that we all eat things. This is good because it teaches us how to cook certain foods. I wish that all classes were like garden class."
—James McDaniel
6th Grade Update
The new trimester started on March 9th. Since then, 6th graders have been enjoying lessons on organic gardening, with a focus on compost, decomposition, seeds and planting! Students have also starting building a willow tunnel in the garden with volunteer Hru Hall. Beans, gourds and other vines will grow over the tunnel to create a magical space in the garden!
49ers Academy
Middle Schoolers at the 49ers Academy continue to cook and garden in the Collective Roots afterschool program. In the past weeks, they have prepared homemade Indian flatbread, or chapati, using freshly ground flour. This pairs well with cauliflower, spinach, and potato curry (click here for the recipe!) Also, students experimented with baking for the first time by making corn bread. With the warm weather and rain, the 49ers EarthBox garden is looking great. Flowers, herbs, onions, kale, mustard and lettuce are growing strong!
College Track
High school students continue to cook on Wednesday afternoons at College Track. Some new recipes we tried this month included bean chili with a side of low-fat corn bread, and chickpea burgers.
|
FOOD SYSTEM CHANGE |
Road Show Continues to Evolve, Improve
The Stanford Population Health Group is preparing to implement an improved version of the Food System Change Road Show at East Palo Alto's annual health fair, "Dance for Health", on Saturday, April 4, 2009, at the Costaño School. (Read more and get directions to the event here.) You may see a dancing carrot!! We've also begun to collaborate with Revolution Foods on developing curriculum for the Road Show around healthy food choices for a variety of age groups.
 Taking a "Chance" on Roots and Fruits
We are excited to report our progress on Roots and Fruits—a game of chance that we are developing for use as a classroom teaching tool, and also as part of the Road Show. The game will be available for visitors to try out at the Farmer's Market this spring!
The game is based on the Latin American game of Loteria. Artists from the Music and Mural Collective are in the process of creating 54 original pieces of art related to food system change and nutrition, to serve as the game pieces. Volunteer Michelle Thong is managing the project and helping us to develop content and lesson plans around each image.
|
|
| MONTHLY GARDEN WORKDAYS |
Upcoming Workday
The next garden workday will be held on Saturday, April 25th, from 9 AM – noon. Come help us with spring cleaning of the garden! Click here for more information and directions. To sign up to be a team leader, call 650.324.2769 or email volunteer@collectiveroots.org.
Corporate Workdays
Collective Roots has emerged as a leading provider of environmental service opportunities in the region, and we are grateful for the numerous corporate and academic work groups that are planning service projects in the upcoming months. Many kudos to Eron Sandler, Collective Roots Garden Educator and Manager, who coordinates all of our events!
Best Buy employees will be volunteering again in the EPACS garden on April 14th. It will be a great day for creating beds, planting, weeding and taking care of trees.
Hewlett Packard will be coming out to the EPACS Garden for Earth Day on April 22nd. They will be preparing the garden for spring with EPACS students.
Life Technologies will be at the new garden site at the 49ers Academy on May 13th for their international day of service. With 100 volunteers out for the day, we will be able to prepare the ¼ acre garden for the next stages of irrigation and planting!
Past Workdays
On March 4th, Stanford Business students came out to EPACS to help the entire school for the day. In the garden, ten energetic volunteers weeded the greenhouse, planted seeds, created a border for the new flower garden, and painted signs!
For the third year in a row, Pomona College students came out to volunteer in the garden for their alternative spring break program. Students spent the day in the garden removing posts, turning compost into the soil, creating new garden beds, planting trees and seeding in the greenhouse.
|
|
| FARMERS MARKET |
 We're planning the spring launch for the EPA Community Farmer's Market in the beginning of May, at a new time and location, to be confirmed soon. We also expect to launch the new market website in April. Stay tuned!
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.
|
|
| COMMUNITY EVENTS |
Palo Alto Earth Day Event: Saturday, April 18th
Collective Roots is joining the community of Palo Alto in a fun-filled celebration of Earth Day on Saturday, April 18, 2009 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lucie Stern Community Center (1305 Middlefield Road). The theme for this year's Earth Day Celebration is "Livin' Local." Come enjoy the live music, local organic food, and activities for the kids. For more information, click here.
|
|
| FEATURED PARTNER |
Committee for Green Foothills
 Collective Roots is part of the Committee for Green Foothills (CGF), one of the oldest environmental organizations in the Bay Area. CGF is a leader in the continuing effort to protect open space and the natural environment of the Peninsula and Coast. As part of this group, we are working to develop an environmental agenda for the City of East Palo Alto. Check us out at http://www.greenfoothills.org/index.shtml.
|
|
| WHAT'S GROWING |
Thanks to high schoolers from College Track, we now have a plethora of delicious onions in the garden! Onions are an integral part of many savory recipes and the following pizza recipe is no different. This pizza comes with a glowing recommendation from our K-5 Educator, Bryden.
Goat Cheese Pizza with Red Onions and Green Olives, from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, by Deborah Madison:
 1 recipe Pizza Dough
3 tablespoons virgin olive oil
2 small red onions, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
Salt
Pepper
2 oz mozzarella cheese, grated or thinly sliced
4 oz goat cheese
12-18 green olives, pitted and halved
2 sun-dried tomatoes packed in oil, cut into narrow strips
Fresh herbs: mostly parsley and thyme with some rosemary, finely chopped
1. Prepare pizza dough and set it aside to rise in a warm place.
2. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a wide skillet and saute the onions for 3 minutes, or until they turn translucent. Add the garlic, season with salt and freshly ground black pepper, lower the heat, and continue to cook another 3 minutes. Check the seasoning and set the onions aside.
3. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F and, if using a pizza stone, warm it for 20 minutes.
4. Shape the dough, and place it on a well-floured peel or on a pizza pan. Brush it with olive oil, and cover it with the sauteed onions and the mozzarella cheese.
5. Distribute the lumps of the soft goat cheese, the olives, and the sun-dried tomatoes over the pizza.
6. Slide the pizza onto the stone or back it on its plan in the upper third of the oven for about 8 to 12 minutes, or until the edges and bottom are well browned. 7. Remove from the oven and sprinkle it with the fresh herbs.
|
|
| 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.
Connecting the Global with the Local
Collective Roots is thrilled to see recent headlines that illustrate that our mission to bring about food system change is spreading across the globe. On March 20th, Michelle Obama, along with 23 DC schoolchildren, broke ground on the White House's South Lawn for a new kitchen garden—the first to be planted since the Roosevelt's Victory Garden during WWII. Collective Roots signed a petition by Kitchen Gardeners International to help make this happen. In February, the US Department of Agriculture announced that it will plant community gardens at each of its facilities around the world. Last summer, San Francisco's Civic Center Plaza hosted a temporary Victory Garden. All of this good news indicates that the American people are indeed getting back to our "roots."
|
|
| |
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.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
