It’s been a busy month for Summer of Solutions Ithaca! The hot issue in upstate New York is hydrofracking, and January has been a crucial period for legislative decisions around fracking. As you may know, New York has had a tenuous moratorium for the last 4 years, though Governor Cuomo has nearly given the go-ahead several times. We’ve been fighting our hardest to make sure that doesn’t happen!
This is Carey, a Program Manager of the Unity MNIC program for YEA Corps. I’ve been writing blogs for the past few months with updates of an aquaponics project that YEA launched at a high school in North Minneapolis. I was initially pulled to YEA for it’s focus in sustainable and entrepreneurial education. Through my work with YEA I’ve been immersed in the challenging and exciting ventures of teaching students about agriculture, the environment, aquaponics, and other related subjects. It’s been exciting to observe the positive trends in emerging environmental education programs in Minneapolis and around the country.
All that I’ve learned has given me a great amount of hope in shifting education systems and providing the next generations with the knowledge and tools to face oncoming environmental challenges. I was lucky enough to become a part of YEA Corps through a Grand Aspirations grant for Sustainable Community Organizers, and I’ve been very appreciative of the chance to work with these organizations and on the Unity aquaponics project.
(Above is a picture of YEA staff running an interactive ‘Systems’ activity with Unity students.)
Full Circles Foundation is excited to announce that applications for 2013 Summer Fellow positions are going to be open this month! Please check the FCF website soon if you are interested in applying, or spread the word if you know someone who you think might be interested in applying!
In addition to the Summer Fellow Applications, the FCF Annual holiday fundraiser hasn’t ended! The Strong Camp experience – six weeks of programming that illuminates the connections between strong selves, strong neighbors, and a strong home – has been made possible for over 100 girls in Lexington and Raleigh. This year, will you please consider making a contribution to support this coming year’s Strong Camps in Raleigh and Lexington? Throughout the year, you will be kept up to date with tales of the powerful personal, social, and economic returns that your investment is growing through our new, coordinated blog and our newsletters! 2013 is going to be the best year yet – won’t you give the gift of empowerment by joining us in growing strong girls, a fair economy, and a healthy earth
Winter Bake Sale!
We also held a bake sale fundraiser this past December in Downtown Raleigh. The event was organized by Domanique Herring. Domanique is majoring in Event Planning at North Carolina State University, and happily donated her skills to FCF’s worthy mission. Herring organized donations of artisan baked goods from bakeries all over the triangle. It was chilly, but FCF team had fun dancing to keep warm and telling passerbys about FCF. Overall, the bake sale brought in $500 towards our Summer 2013 Strong Camps!
This is the debut post from our first international program located in Sofia, Bulgaria. Elena Zheglova, one of the Sofia Program Leaders, is an alumnus of the Twin Cities Summer of Solutions. She is joined by Teo Gueorguiev, a long-time friend and fellow resident of Sofia.
Good morning, America!
As you are slowly waking and stretching in your warm beds, I am looking into the snowy night through my window. What I see is how a sea of flat apartment buildings’ roofs are slowly being covered with a soft white blanket. If I poke my head out in the cold and look southward, I will see the corner of a park, one of the largest and prettiest parks in Sofia, namely The South Park, its dim lights reflected on the glittery snowflakes. It is dark and quiet in my city tonight. All the excitement and euphoria from the recent celebrations are giving way to the remainder (the greater half) of the winter.
In their sealed wooden homes, the matriarchal family of the bees is buzzing around their mother to keep her warm and last until the spring sun and bloom. As workaholic as bees are in the summer, winter time they spend at home keeping their energy, sipping on the honey they have overproduced, and dreaming of the color and light of the spring.
In a booth at Red Hot’s, I think about the mechanics of a non-profit solar provider and eat what’s becoming my regular breakfast: eggs, bacon, home fries, coffee, and wheat toast. Jut once, I tried to order breakfast past 11am and have never lived it down. Red Hot’s is a family-owned restaurant; Carol takes your order, Rich works the grill, and while you eat they bicker, gossip, discuss their city, and catch up with their customers. This is why my breach of conduct, my post 10:59 breakfast order, will live in a small circle of infamy for the foreseeable future. The world of Highland Park is full of uncertainty, scarcity, and emergency financial managers, but Red Hot’s is somehow separate – a stable port in a storm.
As a born and bred Minnesotan, there is nothing better than coming home to Minneapolis, especially in winter. I love the winter wonderland Minneapolis is transformed into aftera huge snowfall. However, as much as I have enjoyed the snow, relaxation, and copious amounts of tea that come with being home for winter break, I keep thinking about how excited I am for Summer of Solutions Twin Cities 2013.
2012 Solutionaries and a beautiful new wood chip path
Eli Shepherd’s Story
As is the tradition, many folks like to use the beginning of the year to reflect on the past year, and also to look forward, to set, if you will, their Grand Aspirations for the year ahead. As a 2013 program leader with the Iowa City Summer of Solutions program, I am just too excited to keep my Grand Aspirations for the program from the rest of the world.
I stumbled into Summer of Solutions in June of 2012- rather, I came across a Facebook post soliciting “solutionaries,” and subsequently walked over to a church basement in downtown Iowa City in June of 2012- and at first had no idea what to think. There was one really excited person who greeted me at the door, one person who I later discovered was also in high school, several people who attended the University of Iowa, several people who were studying engineering, and enough chairs and pumpkin muffins for the whole lot of us. By the end of our training week I knew I had found a home but it wasn’t until early August that I became truly invested in the work.
Gandhi Mahal staff, all dressed up for the 2013 New Year’s party co-hosted by MN350. Every Tuesday night, the restaurant donates 10% of its proceeds to sustaining the climate movement through MN350.
They say the first year out of college is usually a tough one. As many of my peers will testify, one of the biggest frustrations is seeking the security of that ever-elusive “full-time” work situation. But, all things considered, a handful of occupations can certainly have its perks. One of the best parts about juggling my part-time jobs and activities has been the rare opportunity to get so deeply involved in inter-organizational collaborative projects. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that everything I do right now is practically joined at the hip.
Through connections made as participant of the 2012 Twin Cities Summer of Solutions program, I began my Sustainable Community Organizer position with MN350 in September. At about the same time, a connection through MN350 led me to an additional position as a server at Gandhi Mahal Fine Indian Cuisine. The match couldn’t better! The close working relationship between restaurant owner Ruhel Islam and MN350 director Julia Nerbonne has created a dynamic that adds layer upon layer of enrichment to each organization. Gandhi Mahal has developed into much more than the home of the best Indian food in town, while MN350 has found a supportive partner and and a lively outlet for reaching out to the community.
Hi Everyone, I’m Sarana, Ra for short. This year will be my first year as a member of the Summer of Solutions team in Hartford CT. I learned about the program through another food justice organization I work for in the city called Cooking Matters. As I have just returned from Wisconsin, to my home city of Hartford, CT, I have been so inspired by the many initiatives within the city to make food scarcity, and access to healthy affordable foods a priority in our communities. My work revolves around sustainability and social justice, primarily with youth. I combine these passions by being part of initiatives that serve to empower underserved demographics of people. This has taken many faces from, teaching art with youth, to running a permaculture garden at a local community center, to teaching sexual health to young women and working as a doula for a non-profit organization. I love the many ways there are to be involved in supporting, enlivening, and contributing to the overall health of our communities. It is in fact, our natural state of being.
The past month was full of holiday spirit and generosity, but the highlight for Growing Food and Sustainability was receiving a Metcalfe’s School Garden Leader Award at the Badger Bioneers Conference! The award included a gift of $1,000 for the organization and also allowed program leaders Gabrielle and Natalie to attend the two-day conference free of charge.
Natalie and Gabrielle with their check! The other winners of the award were Mary Michaud of Van Hise Elementary in Madison and Cheryl Stout of Oregon Middle School.
Solutionaries 