Posts Tagged ‘gardens’

Posted by Jody Tick | July 15th, 2010

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 by Greg Woods | March 3rd, 2010

Over 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 by Sarah Bernardi | February 8th, 2010

[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 by Ed Bruske | January 13th, 2010

By 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 nation’s schools; that [...]