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| Welcome to the newest 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 with our work for food system change in East Palo Alto. |
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| SUPPORT COLLECTIVE ROOTS |
 Your Donations Support Our Events September 17th was Fruit Salad Day at EPACS, an annual event where 8th graders prepare fruit salad for the entire school. It’s a fun way for the oldest students to literally "feed" the knowledge they have learned in the Garden Elective class to the younger students. Read the complete story by new staff photojournalist, Anne-Marie McReynolds, here. Your support will help Collective Roots produce more fantastic (and tasty!) events such as Fruit Salad Day. 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 call us at 650-324-2769. California Department of Public Health Grant We are beginning to implement the three-year grant we received from the California Department of Public Health. This funding will enable the expansion of the RootsNFruits Road Show and the development of EPA Fresh, a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) weekly distribution program. Through EPA Fresh, boxes of locally grown produce will be available to East Palo Alto students and their families, and Collective Roots will also provide nutrition education, which includes tastings of new types of produce, recipes, and cooking tips for the week’s food, and food stamp outreach. |
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| FARMERS' MARKET | |
 Coming Up At The Market: September 26thOn Saturday, September 26th, we will be offering produce grown by a member of the Backyard Gardener Network! We should have super-local tomatoes, collard greens, and other delicious vegetables for sale that were grown right here in East Palo Alto! Be sure to come early so you don’t miss out! We will be holding the market in coordination with an annual BBQ event put on by One EPA, a membership organization in East Palo Alto. Click here for more info on the BBQ. Also happening that day from  11:00 AM – 3:00 PM is a Ravenswood Business District planning fair (click here for a flier.) It’s an opportunity for community members to influence the agenda for redevelopment in the city. Eat School-Grown Veggies, Get Smarter!;) For the first time on September 5th, we sold produce at the Market that was grown at the East Palo Alto Charter School! Food Justice Leaders sold green beans, eggplants, flowers, collard greens, heirloom and cherry tomatoes, three types of basil, hot peppers, dinosaur kale and more. We hope to be able to offer school-grown veggies for sale at future markets—stay tuned! |
| Market Hours: | Every Saturday, 2-5 PM |
| Location: | East Palo Alto City Hall & Library, 2415 University Avenue, East Palo Alto, CA 94303 |
| Information: | http://www.epafarmersmarket.org Click here to read market updates online and to subscribe to weekly market updates by email (sent every Thursday.) NOTE: We will never share your personal information with outside parties. |
Remember! |
EBT/food stamps, WIC and Senior FMNP checks always accepted. If eligible, we'll give you $5 in EPA Fresh checks to spend at the Market, click here. |
CR Executive Director Honored At Farmer’s Market
Anniversary Event In LARead Wolfram Alderson’s report from the 30th anniversary event of the first Los Angeles Farmer’s Market on his blog here. Check out the set of photos from the event, along with Wolfram’s Certificate of Appreciation from Mayor Villaraigosa, here.
This month’s workday is coming up soon! Please join us at the EPACS garden on September 26th, from 8AM until noon, for a morning of late-summer garden tasks. Enjoy harvesting the last of the season’s tomatoes, pull out spent summer crops, weed, mulch, seed, turn beds, and help keep the garden going strong into the fall. Click here to RSVP and for directions to the garden.
The August Community Work Day was a great success! Over 45 parents, students and other community members came together to weed, mulch, prune wisteria and manage the summer’s garden growth. It was the first work day of the new school year, and it was wonderful to see old faces as well as new parents and students.
Corporate Workdays On August 26th Collective Roots and EPACS were pleased to host a group of Intuit’s management team for a morning of garden work and an afternoon of service at East Palo Alto Charter School and Phoenix Academy, the nearby sister high school.
In the morning, volunteers finished building and placing signs in the garden, completed the fencing for the chicken coop, weeded, turned beds and planted flowers in the garden. In the afternoon, volunteers worked with students on science projects and reading, and painted the Phoenix Academy walls with college logos. The afternoon ended with bicycle blender smoothies and a wonderful feeling of accomplishment. Many thanks to Intuit for the continued and much valued support. See photos from the day here.
Garden-Based LearningThis past month, students hosted the annual Fruit Salad Day, ate a rainbow (!?!?), and harvested their school-grown fruit for sale at the EPA Community Farmers’ Market. Click here to read all about the recent activities of our garden-based learning program.
Healthy Development Measurement Tool
Mayra Betancourt is Collective Roots’ Project Manager for the East Palo Alto Healthy Development Tool, a participatory action research framework that is supported by the EPA Community Health Roundtable, chaired by Mayor Ruben Abrica.
The project involves a special focus on immigrants, their health, relationships to food, and development of strategies designed to bridge the cultural gaps that contribute to health disparities. Mayra is now focused on a key phase of the project that involves development of an innovative website that will provide a link to all health services available to people in East Palo Alto, and a collaborative web-based tool for gathering and sharing health data.
Collective Roots Is Growing!
We are currently hiring for the following positions:
Nutrition & Garden Education Coordinator
Assistant Market Manager (East Palo Alto Community Farmers' Market)
Six Americorps positions (see info below)
Join Americorps: Help Collective Roots Promote Food System Change!
Starting in September, the Silicon Valley HealthCorps (which includes CR plus 11 other organizations) plans to produce and distribute 180,000 pounds of locally grown, organic produce through new community and school gardens, year-round community, school, and hospital based farm stands, and school-based “Harvest of the Month” boxes. To apply for the part-time Americorps positions that will help Collective Roots contribute to this ambitious goal, click here.
Welcome Anne-Marie McReynolds
Anne-Marie McReynolds' role as Photojournalist with Collective Roots involves investigating racial and ethnic health disparities in East Palo Alto. Anne-Marie, who graduated from Stanford University, was an award-winning staff photographer and picture editor at the San Jose Mercury News for five years, and later pursued citizen journalism as a syndicated blogger through Newstex. See Anne-Marie’s latest photos from Fruit Salad Day here.
Michelle Thong is a big fan of the East Palo Alto Community Farmers’ Market, and has been volunteering over the last year on our RootsNFruits game/ curriculum project. She has written some great content (see here) and has organized all the images commissioned by CR and created by Music and Mural Arts Project artists on Flickr.com--view them here. Michelle is a great example of one of our “virtual volunteers.”
Thank you, Michelle, for your ongoing commitment and fabulous work! (The photo above shows Michelle in Taiwan—very pleased to pose under a lychee tree—the first one she had ever seen up close!)
Seeking Mad Green Scientists!
We are seeking volunteers to develop curriculum activities for our new GardenPower! Program. With your help, students will have the opportunity to explore the scientific and technological processes that provide the energy for the food they eat. We are looking for insanely creative folks willing to blaze new trails in science education! See our listing on Volunteer Match here for the full details and skills required.
We are currently hiring for the following positions:
Nutrition & Garden Education Coordinator
Assistant Market Manager (East Palo Alto Community Farmers' Market)
Six Americorps positions (see info below)
Join Americorps: Help Collective Roots Promote Food System Change! Starting in September, the Silicon Valley HealthCorps (which includes CR plus 11 other organizations) plans to produce and distribute 180,000 pounds of locally grown, organic produce through new community and school gardens, year-round community, school, and hospital based farm stands, and school-based “Harvest of the Month” boxes. To apply for the part-time Americorps positions that will help Collective Roots contribute to this ambitious goal, click here.
Welcome Anne-Marie McReynolds Anne-Marie McReynolds' role as Photojournalist with Collective Roots involves investigating racial and ethnic health disparities in East Palo Alto. Anne-Marie, who graduated from Stanford University, was an award-winning staff photographer and picture editor at the San Jose Mercury News for five years, and later pursued citizen journalism as a syndicated blogger through Newstex. See Anne-Marie’s latest photos from Fruit Salad Day here.
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| VOLUNTEER SPOTLIGHT |
Michelle Thong is a big fan of the East Palo Alto Community Farmers’ Market, and has been volunteering over the last year on our RootsNFruits game/ curriculum project. She has written some great content (see here) and has organized all the images commissioned by CR and created by Music and Mural Arts Project artists on Flickr.com--view them here. Michelle is a great example of one of our “virtual volunteers.”Thank you, Michelle, for your ongoing commitment and fabulous work! (The photo above shows Michelle in Taiwan—very pleased to pose under a lychee tree—the first one she had ever seen up close!)
Seeking Mad Green Scientists!
We are seeking volunteers to develop curriculum activities for our new GardenPower! Program. With your help, students will have the opportunity to explore the scientific and technological processes that provide the energy for the food they eat. We are looking for insanely creative folks willing to blaze new trails in science education! See our listing on Volunteer Match here for the full details and skills required.
Thank you to all Master Gardeners out there who make our world greener!
Hungry Planet: What the World Eats is not a brand new book, but one you should not miss. Written by Faith D’Aluisio and photographed by Peter Menzel, the book includes 30 different portraits taken in kitchens around the world, with families literally surrounded by the food they eat in one week. You can see a slideshow of some of the book’s images on the Time Magazine website here.A fascinating and educational book, it raises important questions about international food inequities, nutrition, and the culture of eating. If you purchase a copy from our online Amazon Bookstore here, Collective Roots will benefit from every sale.
There are an abundance of colorful tomatoes in the garden right now, and the students have been enjoying the harvest. Our cucumbers continue to grow along with green beans, summer squash, eggplant, melons and a variety of herbs. Winter planting has started, and we have beds full of brassicas (broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage), lettuce, spinach and chard. There has been a lot of activity in the greenhouse where students have planted many seeds, and we are anxiously waiting for the seedlings to pop their heads above the soil.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.
