Johnson City is FULL of Energy for Food Justice!

Posted on February 13, 2013 by vlime

Greetings from Johnson City! We’ve been super busy getting our programs set up and scheduling events for the coming spring season. But let’s just go ahead and get down to the fun stuff:

Johnson City, Tennessee is currently in the midst of an incredible blossoming of energy for food justice! Just last month we had a new café hold a “First Seed” fundraiser. Now, what’s so exciting about any old café? Well, let me tell you. This café, One Acre Café, is part of the “One World Everybody Eats Foundation” (http://www.oneworldeverybodyeatsfoundation.org/). Their mission statement is: “To nourish the body, replenish the spirit, and grow the community so that all might be fed.” In addition,

“It is the intent of One Acre Cafe to build a healthy community by providing the basic need of food in a respectful and dignified manner to anyone who walks through the door. One Acre Cafe will be unique in the lack of a set menu as well as set prices. Daily menus will be made using fresh ingredients and funded by the donations of patrons and community members. Everyone will be invited to pay what they felt their meal was worth or to leave a little more in order to help pay for someone else’s meal. If a diner does not have sufficient money to leave, they are encouraged to exchange one hour of service to the cafe for their meal.”

Continue reading →

Posted on February 12, 2013 by soshartford

Getting to Know Our Community

Posted on February 11, 2013 by hinahara

Project Youth Green provides 60+ farmers with plots for a small fee that creates a sense of community in the city of Pacoima.

Last weekend Jackie and I (from the Arleta SoS program) had the opportunity to meet a couple of folks who have planted some veggies on the land supported by Project Youth Green. PYG is a part of the Youth Speak Collective organization. Youth Speak Collective has many branches that engage the youth on productive projects. These projects are long-term in scope and involve the community along the way.

We took a look at the gardening branch of PYG which allows for members of the community to rent a plot for the year with a small fee of ten dollars a month. Located on a hillside, this garden space gives us a sense of serenity. The streets below hold bustling cars and the fast pace of a busy city. In the garden we see bees pollinating, families enjoying nature together, lots of good energy emanates from the people around us and the plants that welcome us to this lovely place. A fruit tree orchard is found on one of the hills. Seeing the avocado trees makes me crave some yummy homemade guacamole. Now I see what the modest fee is for. This cost covers the plants most essential element for nourishment, water. This allows for residents who live in a place where there is little to no space for gardening the opportunity to grow something of their liking on a piece of land. Farmers can either consume the food they grow or trade with the 60+ farmers growing food there.

Its not the first time I see something amazing like this happening in our own Valley. It is people that keep that motivation high for the rest who want to contribute to the solution. I’m glad that I had the chance to spend time with my team member and absorb the beauty that keeps on thriving with the help from people. We also met and talked to some vendors who were selling crafts, homemade dips, and citrus fruits. On this particular day PYG had a DJ and various vendors for the Farmer’s Market that they host every first Saturday of each month. Continue reading →

Seeds

Posted on February 9, 2013 by jkoeppel

Down in the basement of the St. Benedict’s Auditorium, a change has taken place. Two new cubicles went up, a huge amount of drop ceiling has been removed and the ceiling repaired with screws, drywall, mesh, and joint compound. The lights are suspended from chains, the twisted old wire has been scrapped. The kitchen has been cleaned and organized. Recycling has been taken away. A tremendous amount of chairs, heaters, and furniture belonging to Northpointe Academy have been organized away into closets, and the makings of a computer lab are growing in their place. Continue reading →

New Recruit at January Gathering

Posted on February 8, 2013 by tom10ike

Imagine this.

You’ve just been accepted as a new intern for a Summer of Solutions program…let’s say Iowa City. Aside from being jubilant with excitement, you read further down the email and find out that your cohorts will, in a little over a week, be hopping into a car and spending five days (at an undisclosed location) preparing for skill sets in leadership for the summer’s program. You are enthusiastically welcomed (and subtly encouraged) to join the group on this outing. Perplexed, you scratch your head. You are new (not only to January Gathering, but to Summer of Solutions), but ambitious. As such, you reply that you will be joining the crew for the January Gathering in Chicago. You are set in your decision, though wondering who the members of your chapter are, what Grand Aspirations actually is, and, perhaps, how you got into the position that you’re in right now. The feeling of affirmation and mild terror dance in your stomach.

This is exactly (and candidly) what happened to me the week and a half right before January Gathering. Rest assured, I made it to and from Chicago in one piece and perhaps more importantly, I made it back a more ambitious person. While I can only speak for myself and my experience with those that make Grand Aspirations grand, going to a January Gathering is as much a baptism by fire as it is a chance to find a genuine community of quality people who WILL make the world a better place. There’s something to be said about jumping into the back seat of a Suburu Outback with two young guys, a young girl and her mother (the driver) and having enough humility to learn that those in the car with you are going to become some of the most impressive people you’ve ever met. And that’s before even getting to Chicago. Continue reading →

Posted on February 5, 2013 by soshartford

Why not?

Posted on February 4, 2013 by farmingbards

“Some look at things that are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were and ask, ‘why not’?”

– George Bernard Shaw

Hi everyone! We are looking forward to this year. We started it off on a good foot by hosting the Grand Aspirations January Gathering for six local programs across the country here in Hapeville. We learned how other programs have been able to effectively carry out their missions, whether it was urban farming, weatherizing homes to improve energy efficiency, or revitalizing their local communities.

Two key ideas that we have been left thinking over came up in the open space designed for discussion on the last day of the gathering. One idea was the concept of cross-pollination between the programs: What would happen if we decide to visit each other over the summer and see what our fellow programs are doing? We can learn new practices, create communities across programs, and encourage each other as we take steps to change our world! Continue reading →

Reno, NV Envirolution Three Spheres Leadership Academy

Posted on January 30, 2013 by s0luti0naries

The Three Spheres Leadership Academy (TSLA) is an Envirolution summer program, which engages local youth in our community by introducing them to local entrepreneurs, leaders, businesses, and sustainable practices. TSLA first kicked off in the summer of 2012; for five weeks area youth learned about the Reno community and its leaders. Participants saw that it can be one thing to live in the community, but it is a whole other thing to be actively involved in helping the community to become more sustainable!

Intro to sustainability

Building a solar water pump at Girlfarm

TSLA empowers our local youth to step up, and take leadership roles in the community. Participants are encouraged to become youth leaders and are given the opportunity to hear and connect with local leaders. In 2012 TSLA participants heard 23 people discuss how they have made an impact in our community. These youth leaders participated in
24 field experiences around the Reno-Tahoe sustainability community, and engaged in a variety of service learning projects in our community, like building a solar water pump for irrigation at a local farm, and helping frame a storage shed for a non-profit. The TSLA students were trained and certified to perform a triple bottom line analysis, evaluating the economic, environmental, and social perspective in making decisions. Continue reading →

FCF Lexington Seeking a Program Development Intern

Posted on January 28, 2013 by lmjagoe

Could you be FCF Lexington’s Program Development Intern for our 2013 Strong Camps? Full Circles Foundation Lexington is currently looking for someone with an outgoing personality, great personal organization, and a self-motivated work ethic who wants to improve his/her leadership skills, work within a wonderful community, and be an important provider allowing young women to have a great summer! More information can be found on our website, including a detailed job description and schedule. We would love to have you join our team!

Additionally, applications for 2013 Summer Fellow positions in both Raleigh and Lexington are going to be open this month! Know someone who wants to have a summer filed with laughter, meaning, and female empowerment? Spread the word if you know someone who might be interested in applying! Continue reading →

Education for (Environmental) Liberation

Posted on January 27, 2013 by letsgochicago

This blog post, written by Chicago Program Leader Nell Seggerson, is cross-posted from Letsgochicago.org.

In this blog, I’m going to attempt to pack the two things I think about all the time into one tidy package about the future of our communities: schools and climate change.

A motto we use (not very much but enough that I’m going to say it’s our motto) here in Chicago is “A school in every neighborhood, a garden in every yard”.

BORING:

We’ve been talking about the connection between the education system and sustainable community transitions for awhile now and it makes sense to us that we should be working with schools, but mostly because schools are a resource to get more kids involved, not because we recognized why the schools need us. But as times in education shift, it’s becoming more clear why schools and community-based environmental groups need each other.

In Chicago right now, we’re in the midst of a battle for public education. It’s the modern apparatus of a 200 year movement for public education that includes the fight of slaves teaching their children to read and black organizers building freedom schools during the Civil Rights movement. But now, as the bloody hand of neoliberalism claws at one of the city’s (and country’s) last remaining public institutions the ground is being laid for a huge community uprising.

In March, the Chicago Board of Education will release its list of school closings. So far there have only been rumors and small leaks from the Mayor’s office, but predicted numbers have been around 100 schools.

WOW! Continue reading →

Solutionaries

Category Archives: Local Programs