GET YOUR GROW ON with the Edible Urban Garden Tour, hosted by Loulies.com, Friday, July 15th from 5-8PM. Explore city spaces and residential gardens that will open their doors and gates for the public to see what growing good food in our own backyards, front yards, rooftops, and empty lots is all about. It’s a [...]
[Cross-posted from Capital Area Food Bank]
Whether you’re a master gardener or a terrified newcomer to backyard gardening (like me), you can help the Capital Area Food Bank relieve hunger with your extra squash and tomatoes.
The Grow a Row program connects D.C., Virginia and Maryland gardeners with CAFB partner organizations in their neighborhoods, creating “produce partnerships” that bring more nutritious fruits and vegetables to underserved communities.
We’ll set you up with someone who’s doing some good in your community, someplace where you’ll hopefully get a chance to see the positive difference your donation makes. Not only will you have someplace for that inevitable overabundance of one-thing-or-another, you’ll be a part of relationships that build stronger communities.
You’ll provide underserved communities with a resource they desperately need but have little access to. You’ll enjoy the unique satisfaction of filling a need while enjoying a stress-reducing, money-saving, earth-friendly hobby.
Best of all, you’ll get this great sign for your garden! For free!
You don’t need to quit your day job to grow food for the hungry. Whatever the size of your donation, we’ll find you a partner that will get your produce into the homes and onto the tables of your neighbors in need.
For more information, contact Alicia Camden at growarow@capitalareafoodbank.org
House party/barn dance/potluck to celebrate the first year of Beet Street Gardens and donate to raise a (small) barn for the garden at Bruce House, a program of Sasha Bruce Youthworks! The actual (quite small) barn raising (definition here) will be raised by volunteers in the spring, just before the planting season.
The party is Saturday, December 11th at 1412 Parkwood Pl NW. Potluck dinner at 7:00. Contra, two-step, square dancing, fire pit, and good company ’till late.
$10 suggested donation. No one turned away. All proceeds go to Beet Street.
There will be a fire pit on the porch, a keg of beer, and a pot of mulled wine. We will have Gabe Popkin calling dances and old timey tunes from local musicians.
All are welcome. RSVP here.
It’s that time of year when the bounty from the garden abounds! Now that you are eating zucchini three times a day and your neighbors are politely declining any more produce from you, we have the perfect solution to your problem of plethora…
Donate it to us!
At the Capital Area Food Bank we can take donations of fresh produce anytime between 8:30am-4:30pm Monday through Friday. Drive up, dash in, drop off, fill out a 2 minute donation form, and you are off!There is no schedule or advanced notice required. It’s that easy!
Looking for something more sustained? We have a partnership program called Grow A Row that pairs your beautiful garden with a neighborhood non-profit feeding program. You donate directly to them through the end of the growing season.
Visit our Grow A Row webpage or email us for more information about donating fresh produce.
Happy Growing!
Posted in AccessOver the last two years of leading service projects in Washington DC, I have volunteered with several soup kitchens and homeless shelters. I respect and admire the work these organizations do. They help some of our most forgotten citizens.
One thing I love about some of these organizations is that they do great work rescuing unwanted food. For example, last year Bread for the City started its Glean for the City program, which gathers vegetables from local farms — all for free. And one of the better known examples of food-reclamation in the country was founded here in DC in 1989 — the DC Central Kitchen started off making meals for the homeless from the leftovers from the Presidential Inauguration festivals. These days, they rescue more than 600,000 pounds of food a year.
But in some cases at several service organizations, I see a large amount of food waste ends up in the trash. I often wonder: Can these organizations compost? Is there a way to ‘close the loop’ on this process, to give back to fields that produce the food? In response to these questions I raised to the DCFoodforAll Google Group, representatives from the Common Good City Farm, located near Howard University, say that the farm will start accepting compost from community members.
This may be just the start of a series of such community composting opportunities.
Posted in Access, Farmers, Food Security, Government Issues, Organizations, Schools[Update! Watch the kickoff of Michelle Obama's anti-obesity initiative LIVE today (Tuesday) at noon.]
Sarah Bernardi is one of the teachers from Bancroft Elementary School here in the District of Columbia whose students famously have been helping Michelle Obama grow the new White House vegetable garden.
By Sarah Bernardi
As one of the teachers involved with Michelle Obama and the White House vegetable garden, I’ve been impressed with the sudden surge of public interest in the simple act of children planting seeds. At Bancroft Elementary School, where I work first and foremost as an art teacher, we know only too well the benefits children get from growing their own food.
But I don’t think the public has any inkling how hard it is for teachers to maintain school gardens like the one we have at Bancroft. Despite all the hoopla over school gardening, the truth is teachers engage in these activities at risk of their jobs. You see, gardening is not part of the mandated school curriculum. We are supposed to be teaching reading and math. As much as we believe school gardens offer a multitude of teaching opportunities, schools do very little to support us. Principals and teachers have been bluntly told that they will lose their jobs if math and reading scores don’t improve. We desperately need help. We need someone to take charge of our school gardens.
The kids you see in all the photos working with the First Lady in the White House garden, or making breakfast on the Today Show with the Obamas’ chef, Sam Kass, are fifth graders from my school. One of the reasons I chose to work at Bancroft two years ago was its garden. I had just moved back to the Washington area from South Carolina where I grew things pretty much all year round in my own yard. With visions of sunflowers and big tomato plants dancing in my head, I signed up for a community garden plot in D.C. But the waiting list was long. The idea of living without a patch of dirt to play in was hard to swallow.
Posted in SchoolsBy Ed Bruske Contributing Editor Is it possible to write a hatchet job about something as innocent as school gardens? Apparently so. I would not have believed it, but there it is in the otherwise esteemed Atlantic magazine, a venomous screed that would have you believe that gardening constitutes a sinister scheme to take over our [...]
