Please Help Collective Roots: We need a van.

Collective Roots is taking it on the road! We need your help to extend our roots deeper into the community. We need a van to transport our students, volunteers, and staff to sites in the community where we are extending our work, including the development of an exciting new mobile education exhibit called the "Food System Change Roadshow". In alignment with our environmental mission and work, we would like to convert this van to use Bio-Diesel fuel, if possible.

Here are a few more reasons why we need wheels:

Lack of transportation in East Palo Alto

• Lack of siidewalks is a big issue where it isn't safe to walk on many streets
• Bike lanes: only one bike lane in the entire city, and it's on the busiest street (University Avenue - trafficed by up to 27,000 cars daily)
• EPA Youth Shuttle doesn't run on the weekends, during the Farmers' Market we sponsor on Saturday afternoons
• SamTrans serves EPA with just three bus lines that have very limited hours

Use for Farmers' Market

• Conducting market-day outreach in the community: visiting special events (festivals, etc). in the area to attract customers to the market on Saturday afternoons.
• Delivering market (fresh produce) donations to local nonprofit organizations
• Transporting cooking demonstration materials to/from the market site.

Use for Food Justice Leaders

• Providing the opportunity for summer youth employees to shadow area market managers, learn from visiting area farmers' markets.
• Field trips - visits to local food projects in Oakland, San Francisco, and the Bay Area to learn how to apply proven food justice models to the East Palo Alto community.
• Visit farms and agricultural operations on the within our local foodshed, linking urban youth with rural operations that are a short drive away, but a world away if you don't have transportation.
• Transporting produce grown in East Palo Alto to the market site (from Collective Roots' gardens, for example, but also possibly from other Backyard Gardeners who don't have cars)

The Cloud Star company has made a generous donation to start this fund. Please consider making a donation that will help make our dreams come true and enable us to bring our programs to more schools and sites in the community.

It is now easier than ever to make a donation to Collective Roots. Simply click here to make a donation online (you may designate funds to be specifically used for this purpose by selecting "Bio-Diesel Van" from the "Focused Giving" Menu) or click here to download a form to print and mail in with your check or credit card information.

We thank you in advance for considering our needs.