So many of you were generous in supporting our work this year in Bayview Hunters Point, teaching permaculture and organic food production to young adults and elders from public housing. I’ve been wanting to share these pictures for a while–finally I have enough of a break from writing deadlines to upload them. Thanks to all of you who donated so abundantly to Earth Activist Training– http://www.earthactivisttraining.org/donate.html. Your support has made all of this possible!
Taking a break at the Adam Rogers garden.
We were working with two gardens–one at Adam Rogers park which had gotten very overgrown with Bermuda Grass. The garden is worked by at-risk middle-school age girls from the Girls 2000 program run by Hunters Point Family www.hunterspointfamily.org.
A moment of joy in the garden!
We’ve had two volunteer days this year so far–one with folks from Earth Activist Training and Hayes Valley Farm, and one organized with a bunch of civic action groups coordinated by Public Allies.
Planting seedlings.
Digging up the Bermuda grass and rolling away the turf was hard work!
Victory over the Bermuda grass--for the moment!
Charity is too shy to let me take pictures of her, but when I loaned her my camera she got great shots of her friends. She’s got a good eye–and it was the first time I’d seen her smile! Kids respond so well to the chance to be creative. Here’s some of her shots:
Torrie and Chezless
The girls are great!
LaDiamond is the coordinator of the Adam Rogers garden–and sometimes she brings her boys who are 3 and 5.
LaDiamond--our coordinator.
LaDiamond's boys.
Brothers!
Most of the time, however, the course met at the Alice Griffith Garden in the Doublerock public housing development. We did most of our hands-on projects there–and some of them are shown here in earlier blogs. But we also took field trips–like this one to Hayes Valley Farm, an amazing community garden project built on an old Freeway offramp. Miss Jackie, who coordinates the Doublerock garden, especially liked the raised beds and the great greenhouse. Hayes Valley Farm has also started lots of seedlings for us.
Jay from Hayes Valley Farm and Miss Jackie.
Tiajuana and Mystique in the Hayes Valley Farm greenhouse.
Lots of seedlings at Hayes Valley Farm!
We made a cob bench at Doublerock–I couldn’t get any of the guys to take off their shoes and stomp the cob…
Stomping cob with shoes, covered with a tarp!
But LaDiamond did–she got down, dirty and barefoot!
Artist Charles Dabo came and talked about growing up in Senegal, his education and traditional rites of passage.
Charles Dabo, artist and educator.
Got Grease!
And then there was our trip to Got Grease–where they collect used grease from San Francisco restaurants and prepare it to be made into biodiesel, which now runs our busses!
Vats and vats of grease....
And all the students did designs…it was great to see them focused, creative, and learning…everyone was proud of their designs! Again, gratitude to all of you who have helped to support this program! Blessings, Starhawk
You do such great things, Starhawk. I heart you.