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If you feel like I do, today’s political attack ads and gloomy financial news on TV have you hungering for meaning. For meaningful conversations about the needs in our families and our communities, and for a meaningful way to make a difference.
A new era is here: we can no longer depend on cheap food made from fossil fuels. It’s up to us, now, to push this movement over the edge: the movement to make fresh, healthy, and locally-grown food a reality for all of our families and our communities.
Remember, our youth are our future green farmers. I’d love for you to see the young people in an Urban Sprouts class. In the garden, they are laughing and smiling, reaching into the soil, pulling out bright orange carrots, and munching on them. They are talking: “organic is cool,” and “mmm . . . crunch, crunch“ can be heard as they stop for a break from the hard work of digging.
When worries creep into my mind—high gas and food prices, and the absolute mess of our fossil fuel-gobbling food system—the tranquility of the school garden and the murmur of cheerful young voices always snap me out of it.
We have SO much work to do! School gardens can transform our nation. School gardens fulfill our youth’s hunger for fresh and healthy food, and for meaningful work that makes their schools and neighborhoods safer, greener, and stronger. School gardens drive the demand for food grown by local farming families right here in our region. In fact, school gardens can help us unlock the big three issues we face: health, dependence on oil, and global warming.
That’s why today, I am inviting YOU, right now, to CLICK HERE and give a gift of $35, $50 or $125.
You can make a difference too, with your investment in our youth—the future of a fresh and local food system for our nation.
I’d like to tell you more about how your support for Urban Sprouts will make a real difference for urban youth. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE -->
Urban Sprouts was proud to be part of the San Francisco Green Schoolyard Alliance's 3rd Conference on October 10th-11th. The weekend was like a party for the school garden movement — new things to learn (photos at right and below), like cob building, mosaics, carpentry, and seed saving, and time to spend with old and new friends inspired by our shared mission!
Friday night we heard speaker Richard Louv, who gave us one great pep talk about how our work is changing the world! Louv's book, Last Child in the Woods, describes how youth are suffering psychologically from a lack of connection to nature, which he names nature-deficit disorder.
Louv gave us many powerful examples of how school gardens change lives. He told us that experiences in nature are therapeutic for children with hyperactivity disorders and depression, and they develop executive functioning (self-regulation or self-discipline) in kids. He described studies showing that paved schoolyards bring out aggressive games and leadership styles, namely bullying, while natural play settings bring out imaginative play and creative and collaborative leadership in children. In fact, unstructured nature-based play is so good for children, Louv recommended it as the best way to get your child to a top college. Wow! There wasn't a dry eye in the place.
On Saturday, I led a workshop titled, The Real Impacts of School Gardens: How to Make Change and Measure It. I had 3 whole hours — enough time to lead the group through our Garden-based Education Model in depth, to really understand the model and try it out on their own programs. I had enough time to create a nice flow during the workshop, complete with group games, reflection, and drawing activities! It was a great group and we all learned a lot from each other.
The response to Louv's work and the popularity of my workshop showed how much the school garden movement has matured. We are not just building school gardens because they are nice, pretty, and make kids happy. We are creating major social change. In the last few years, we have shown that school gardens impact children individually — developing children socially and psychologically, helping them succeed in school, and changing their behaviors as they eat more vegetables, exercise more, and become environmental stewards.
But, now we are seeing that school gardens do much, much more. They transform schools from their prison-yard look to a green and inviting environment, drawing families in, to make schools stronger. They make our neighborhoods cleaner, greener and friendlier. AND, school gardens teach our children to be our nation's future farmers. Our youth will enter the green collar economy in a few years, in a world where we will have been forced to design a new food system that is not dependent on fossil fuels. Our children will be growing and consuming local food, right here in our neighborhoods. And you saw it here first, in San Francisco's own schoolyards!
Above: SGFSA Conference organziers, Arden, Sharon & Rachel
Photos by Jennifer Thacher
The San Francisco Civic Center Victory Garden has been stage to a number of activities since it was installed in July 2008. Most recently was the Community Day featuring hands-on educational garden activities, a puppet show on family and healthy eating; short workshops on urban farming and a brass band performance. Urban Sprouts was there demonstrating how to sow seeds for a winter garden.
We had the great fortune of watching Puppet Medicine in action. Puppet Medicine is a puppet theater that creates positive associations with healthy foods for children in underserved areas It was a true highlight to catch their show about Carlos and Perrito realizing the intent of their favorite junk food "Blinkey Winkey Sprinkle Twinkie" is to make a buck by getting children addicted to sugar and fat.
Big kudos out to Puppet Medicine creator, Tania Padilla. Her creations are brilliant and engaging for all ages. Though I am not sure if the puppet theater will be making an appearance, the next planned Community Days in the Victory Garden are November 1 and November 22, 2008. Check it out!
The brilliant (but evil) Blinkey Winkey.
Urban Sprouts partnered with our friends at Garden for the Environment to lead workshops at Breaking Ground: the Urban Gardening Youth Conference on Saturday, Sept 27th.
The event was held in San Francisco's Mission district and attended by youth from high schools all over the Bay Area! Workshop topics included green jobs, composting, gardening, green building, food systems, and even a bike ride to urban gardens all over the Mission! And the day ended with delicious Mission Pies.
Urban Sprouts' own Walter Pan, a student from our in-class and summer programs, co-led a workshop on composting and vermiculture (worm composting). I'll let Walter tell you about it himself:
Hi, I’m one of the volunteers in this activity. It was really fun getting to teach others about composting. Composting is very important but what I realized in my school was that very few knew about compost. And knowing that other schools care about composting makes me feel well. The crowd and weather was really nice that day as a result there’s this festival-like feeling.
A big Thank You to Walter, all the conference organizers, and to Nicole from the GFE for making our workshops happen!
An outdoor gymnasium made of recycled materials?! Urban Sprouts thinks this should be on the list of garden projects! Check out Eco Gym at Good Magazine.
Dear Friends,
If you feel like I do, today’s political attack ads and gloomy financial news on TV have you hungering for meaning. For meaningful conversations about the needs in our families and our communities, and for a meaningful way to make a difference.
A new era is here: we can no longer depend on cheap food made from fossil fuels. It’s up to us, now, to push this movement over the edge: the movement to make fresh, healthy, and locally-grown food a reality for all of our families and our communities.
Remember, our youth are our future green farmers. I’d love for you to see the young people in an Urban Sprouts class. In the garden, they are laughing and smiling, reaching into the soil, pulling out bright orange carrots, and munching on them. They are talking: “organic is cool,” and “mmm . . . crunch, crunch“ can be heard as they stop for a break from the hard work of digging.
When worries creep into my mind—high gas and food prices, and the absolute mess of our fossil fuel-gobbling food system—the tranquility of the school garden and the murmur of cheerful young voices always snap me out of it.
We have SO much work to do! School gardens can transform our nation. School gardens fulfill our youth’s hunger for fresh and healthy food, and for meaningful work that makes their schools and neighborhoods safer, greener, and stronger. School gardens drive the demand for food grown by local farming families right here in our region. In fact, school gardens can help us unlock the big three issues we face: health, dependence on oil, and global warming.
That’s why today, I am inviting YOU, right now, to CLICK HERE and give a gift of $35, $50 or $125.
You can make a difference too, with your investment in our youth—the future of a fresh and local food system for our nation.
I’d like to tell you more about how your support for Urban Sprouts will make a real difference for urban youth. Urban Sprouts leads garden-based education classes at public middle and high schools, and in the summer at a local community garden.
Our school garden programs do more than help youth to eat more vegetables and to take care of the environment. Our school gardens change the way young people feel about themselves and their communities. The school garden nurtures self-esteem and shows young people that they can change the world.
Be ready – you will be as moved as I am when you read the words of our city’s own young people, as they make real changes in their lives:
“Eat ‘Food,’ Not too much, Mostly Plants.” I don’t eat so much candy, chips and soda. I try to eat more fruits. I told my mom about a lot of things I learned here, and now she goes to the grocery store and buys more fruits and veggies.
I learned how to use the compost bin and about how everything affects our earth. I want to make sure we reduce, reuse, and recycle. I think that it impacted the middle school youth to do that at home and share with other people, because it impacted me, too.
I am more conscious of the waste I produce, especially petroleum products, and really try hard to reduce and reuse.
I want to be eating more greens EVERYDAY, and less sugar. I plan on sharing my knowledge about nutrition with my parents and brother.
Now I eat more healthy things and want to grow a garden in my backyard.
I’m about to plant my own veggies, so I won’t have to shop! (As much.) I plan to teach my family more about soil health, and about nutrition (how our health relates to the world’s health.)
I want to recycle more and compost instead of put it into the landfill.
My recycling habits have changed and I have already started to teach my family and friends.
New research shows that the difference between youth engaged with nature and youth staring at a TV screen is everything we hope for our children: self-confidence, inner strength, leadership, cooperation, and self-control.
Young people will tell you how much Urban Sprouts gave their talents and strengths a chance to shine:
Everyone in the program was touched and learned new things in different ways.
There were so many different activities around the garden so each person could find their strength or something they really enjoy doing (like the pros at shoveling manure and compost!)
I liked taking the younger youth on the garden tour because you can tell that they were getting excited and wanted to touch and taste everything, and then you get to see all they learned.
When we went on the field trip, myself and other kids were saying that they weren’t going to milk the goats. By the end I heard them talking about how they never did that before, but they did it anyways because they might never get another chance.
I was proud to see and hear youth sharing stories and their knowledge about the program with their families.
But, not just any school garden program can achieve these inspiring results for youth and communities. You need the right ingredients, or program elements, to achieve change. That’s why Urban Sprouts uses a research-tested program model, or ‘recipe for success.’
As you may know, Urban Sprouts grew out of a doctoral thesis project conducted during the 2003-04 school year. This theory-based research has guided us from the beginning, ensuring our high level of effectiveness.
Since 2003, over 1,700 youth have benefited from hands-on garden learning by growing, harvesting and eating their own vegetables. We’ve expanded to reach over 750 youth each year at six public schools: Aptos Middle School, Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School, International Studies Academy, June Jordan School for Equity, San Francisco Community School, and Ida B. Wells Continuation High School. At these schools, over 60% of youth are from low-income families and over 95% are youth of color.
Plus, families in our urban neighborhoods have to walk miles to buy fresh and locally-grown food. San Francisco’s southeast communities have four times more fast food restaurants and liquor stores than they have grocery stores.
That’s why Urban Sprouts has partnered with school families to change the food environment—by bringing fresh, healthy and organic food to youth and their families right at school.
Now, Urban Sprouts supports youth and their families in four ways:
- Garden-based Science class: Over 750 students experience hands-on lessons in environmental science and nutrition, garden work projects, and cooking projects, led by Urban Sprouts’ Garden Educators together with classroom teachers and volunteers.
- Summer Program: Each summer 20 youth enjoy two weeks of intensive gardening, cooking, eating and learning about a healthy food system. At San Francisco’s Garden for the Environment, youth learn skills, prepare a healthy lunch every day, and take home their new learning to help their families eat better and protect the environment.
- Family Programs: Our parent workshops are growing into Internships for school family members: parents will grow their own cultural foods in family plots within school garden sites! Interns receive resources and support to make family food access a reality.
- School Food and Farm Connection: Farm field trips show youth a healthy food system: goats, chickens, and plants work together in natural cycles, and food travels a short distance to reach our plate. Urban Sprouts helps our school partners advocate to bring local and fresh food into school cafeterias, through partnerships at the local, state and regional levels. Our farm-to-school partners show potential results like regional environmental health and state-wide economic growth.
And now, this is where you come in: we need you to help us reach our vision!
CLICK HERE to make an investment in Urban Sprouts today, and help us build a world where all youth and families can enjoy the fresh, organic food and the connection to nature we need to live healthy and fulfilling lives.
Please join us in this meaningful work, by sending your donation today.
Thank you very much.
Sincerely,
Abby R. Jaramillo, abby AT urbansprouts DOT org
Executive Director
P.S. We need you! Along with your gift, we’d love your ideas! You can also bring your company out for a garden volunteer day or serve on our board. Email me and I'd love to talk more!
A new era is here: we can no longer depend on cheap food made from fossil fuels. It’s up to us, now, to push this movement over the edge: the movement to make fresh, healthy, and locally-grown food a reality for all of our families and our communities.
You can make a difference too, with your investment in our youth—the future of a fresh and local food system for our nation.
