Cross-posted from Summer of Solutions Hartford
It’s been a rainy week at the Burns School Garden! In order to stay out of the mud, this week we did a botany/art workshop in the garden with kindergarteners!
This summer we spent over a month removing small shards of glass from this planter that was left over from an old construction project on the building. Now it’s full of greens!
The students drew loose-leaf lettuce, kale, swiss chard, and arugula.
We enjoyed a keynote address by Gwendolyn Hallsmith who has worked globally to help cities become sustainable, and found that Summer of Solutions was featured in her presentation! About halfway through her Power Point, this picture popped up:
This photo is from the August Gathering, which our team hosted at the end of our program this year. Program leaders and participants from all around the country came to the Emanuel Lutheran Church in Hartford to celebrate successful summers and plan for the future! It was so cool to see this great group of people highlighted in Gwendolyn Hallsmith’s presentation about the cool sustainable things happening in Hartford!
“Gardening Q&A with Summer of Solutions Hartford”
Cooking and creating healthy recipes is a great way to ensure that you’re conscientious about nutrition. But cooking is only half the battle, that fresh and tasty produce has to come from somewhere, doesn’t it? In our second installment of Gardening Q&A’s, we’ve asked garden growing expert Jennifer Roach of Summer of Solutions Hartford to tell us a little bit about what it is they do.
Christine Bullock: First off, tell us a little bit about what you do and how you got involved in gardening with schools and children.
Jennifer Roach: We are Summer of Solutions Hartford- a 10 week summer program for young people in Hartford to learn about sustainable food systems and work to build an urban food system here in the city. Our team has built two community gardens and two school gardens over the past two summers.”
Check out the full article here! : http://www.christinebullock.com/blog/2012/10/24/gardening-qa-with-summer-of-solutions-hartford/
Summer of Solutions Hartford had the honor of participating in a great fall tradition at the Burns Latino Studies Academy called the Harvest Festival!
After school ended for the day, COMPASS Youth Collaborative set up a Halloween party for the children and families of the Burns School, complete with face paint, a haunted hallway, and dance floor!
In the spirit of the evening, we harvested red and green tomatoes, white and rainbow chard, carrots, spinach, mint, basil, oregano, kale and lettuce from the Burns School Garden and Wesley Colbert Zion Street Community Garden and set up a booth at the festival. We showed off photos of the garden and the workshops we’ve done with K-2nd and shared our bountiful harvest with the Burns community! Continue reading
Cross-posted from Summer of Solutions Hartford.
We’re excited to attend the Hartford Environmental Summit this Thursday to meet and collaborate with other Hartford residents and organizations who are working to make Hartford more sustainable. There are 10 working groups available, but you’ll find us at conversations about youth and urban farming!
There are still 30 registrations open, so it’s not too late to sign up and contribute to this crucial conversation! “We invite you to join us at the first Hartford Environmental Summit intended to increase collaborative involvement and action among private and nonprofit organizations and committed individuals in projects that are transforming the City of Hartford into a sustainable community.”
The summit is Thursday, Oct 25th from 5-8pm at the Academy of Engineering and Green Technology (55 Forest Street, Hartford)
Cross-posted from Summer of Solutions-Hartford
Part II of our Autumn Update Series focuses on Summer of Solutions’ work at the Burns Latino Studies Academy.
When we arrived at the Burns School for the first time, it looked like this (actually, this picture was taken after we had hacked down and dug up all of the weeds and vines that grew along the fence):
By the end of the summer, our participants and volunteers had helped create an outdoor garden classroom for students and teachers to use throughout the year.
Working with COMPASS Youth Collaborative and the Latino Studies Academy administration, we were able to help the school set up an after-school program that will offer students garden-based education and recreation throughout the fall. Burns created a position for one of our Program Leaders to work with teachers and students to care for the garden and teach a new outdoor and experiential curriculum.
We believe that making gardens and environmental-education accessible to all schools is essential to realizing social and environmental justice. School gardens can serve teachers and students by offering outdoor, hands-on alternatives to classroom education. Gardens can also teach students subjects like ecology and botany, and applied skills like growing food and cooking.
Finally, working with students is fun. In a movement focused on injustice, oppression and crisis, the importance of fun cannot be overstated.
We hope that the two garden plots at the Burns School will continue to serve both educators and students as places of play and places of learning. As we head into 2013 and the first full growing season at Burns, we envision a student garden that serves as outdoor classroom and functional vegetable garden.
Student gardens offer students not only curricular enrichment (and potentially, in the future, a real alternative to standard education), but also culinary enrichment (and again, potentially in the future, a real alternative to conventional food systems).
Solutionaries 