Happy new year from Hartford, CT.

Before I start, I’d like to thank everyone who supported our 2011 program. You can read about what we did last year in our Recap page.  Without the help of many, many people, we wouldn’t have had a successful summer.

We are very happy to announce that Kevin Rodriguez has joined the Program Leader team for the 2012 season.  We’re really excited that Kevin has started to work with us, and are looking forward to spring planning and to summer working.

Second, if you haven’t already seen it, we recently began a Twitter page for Summer of Solutions Hartford.  Despite not knowing what we were doing when we began, we’ve had a lot of fun using twitter as a way to spread information about our program and activities.  It has been especially helpful in linking to other organizations.

Another big change, for us at least, is that we are opening up our own local bank account.  After a long training on accounting and keeping track of finances, we are prepared to start managing our own funds.  There are several benefits to this: in addition to keeping the money in a local institution, we will be more knowledgeable about our financial support , and will also save the cost of the accounting fee.  We’ll be starting our bank account in the next month.

We are in the thick of planning for the 2012 summer program.  We have already received a grant from the New England Grassroots Environment Fund , and have submitted more grants to other foundations.  We have several application deadlines still coming up.  We are also in the process of reaching out to city and nationwide individuals, organizations and groups to share applications to the 2012 summer program.  Applications opened in February and will go through until April, if not longer.  Our goal is to have a 10 person team this summer.

As for programming, we are hoping to continue and expand on our activities from last summer.  We will have a full growing season at the Zion St Garden, and are looking into organizing the construction of a second community garden in the Frog Hollow neighborhood of Hartford.  We are also in conversations with Billings Forge and other community organizations in Hartford to create new partnerships that could involve a children’s camp, other community garden sites, and new community programs.

Looking forward to the 2012 growing season and summer program, we are very excited for what the new year will bring.  We hope that you continue to follow our activities and projects, and welcome any and all forms of help and support.  If you’re interested in volunteering or working with the 2012 program, or in supporting the program financially, you can find all of the necessary information here.  Please also feel free to share information about our project with anyone you know who might be interested.

in thanks,

Summer of Solutions Hartford 2012