LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — A local non-profit is helping at-risk youth find meaningful employment by hiring them to plant trees.

L.A.-based North East Trees has hired approximately 100 young people for green industry job training at Ramona Gardens alone.

As CBS2/KCAL9′s Sandra Mitchell reports, for some, the opportunity turned their lives around.

“I was on a tagging crew. I used to just tag, and tag, and tag and get into fights. Call out my enemies and fight. Getting myself into trouble,” Omar Delgado said.

A teacher told Delgado about North East Trees when he was still in high school and was heading in a dangerous direction.

Delgado says being a part of the organization saved him.

“If not, I would have probably not been here right now. I would probably be in jail or in a gang now. I don’t know. Lost,” he said.

Delgado is currently working with a crew from North East Trees to transform the Boyle Heights housing project in his native Ramona Gardens.

The group is planting dozens of new, native trees and gorgeous “rain gardens”.

“It’s way more beautiful. There’s more habitat coming in – birds, bees – before it was just plain grass,” Freddy Delgado said.

Now in its 22nd year, North East Trees is thriving.

“People love them here. They take care of them and they’re growing really fast,” Miguel Ibarra said.

North East Trees Forestry and Youth Manager Aaron Tomas credits the program with helping to keep youth like Freddy, Omar and Miguel out of trouble by focusing their energy on constructive activities.

“Urban forestry and greening projects not only keep them off the street and keep them busy, but more importantly it instills a pride in place and gives people an opportunity to do something they can be proud about – which is what most humans need,” Tomas said.

But that success does not come without opposition.

“When North East Trees was originally invited to work here, some of the city staff who worked here warned us because some of them were even chased away by gangs. But even in the beginning we were always welcomed by the majority of the people,” he explained.

Resistance appears to be waning.

“We were actually recently given the compliment by a former gang member – a gentleman who told us he was in prison for over 20 years,” Tomas continued. “He said it’s one of the best projects he’s seen and was really happy for us. He wanted to put us in the next edition of “Cholo Style” magazine, which apparently he works for – so we’re hoping to end up in Cholo Style magazine soon.”

Sanford Riggs from the housing authority says in five years North East Trees has planted over 2,600 trees at projects and other large housing developments.

“Our federal budget is being cut continuously and we’re lucky to have this collaboration so we can work together to get these trees at a very low cost,” he said.

Many of North East Trees’ participants have been inspired to join the Forest Service before returning to the organization. Others are working in landscape construction and green job-related fields.

The organization says in over two decades it has planted over 50,000 trees and worked with over 1,000 at-risk youth.

It has also rehabilitated vacant lots and derelict spaces, turning them from unsafe to inviting, all the while improving air quality, storm water infiltration and more.

“The immediacy of the change. They improvement that you see every single day. It’s kind of addicting. You can plant one tree and, wow! That looks great. And plant ten more and it looks even better. Everyone should try it,” Tomas said.

North East Trees is funded entirely from grants and tax deductible donations.

And soon, they’re going global.

Aaron Thomas and his crew are planning a trip to Brazil in October to help with a large reforesting project in the heart of Buenos Aires.

Williamsburg Garden Club holds annual tour

Some of the landscaping at the home of Dan Day on Ireton Road.

Joannie and Jean Bouchy standing in front of one of their outdoor fireplaces at their home on Ireton Road.

By Jordan Puckett
Sun staff

The Williamsburg Garden Club hosted it’s fourth bi-annual home and gardens tour Saturday July 13. A total of eight gardens and two homes were featured on this year’s tour, as well as the Harmony Hill Museum, where the Garden Club is housed.

“Our motto is ‘Growing, showing, sharing, and caring’,” said Garden Club president Julia Hess. “Those are all things we’re trying to promote.”

The Williamsburg Garden Club is now in its 77th year. The Club maintains the flower pots and gardens throughout the village and encourages village residents to take pride in their gardens and be more active outdoors.

“One thing we want is for people to be impressed with the landscaping they see on the tour and want to do more more with their own gardens,” Hess said.

One of the gardens featured on the tour was that of Joannie and Jean Bouchy on Ireton Road. The Bouchys have lived there for 23 years. Their 13 acre property features two ponds, natural habitat areas for wildlife, several outdoor fireplaces, and many beautiful gardens.

“Our gardens have evolved over the years,” said Joannie Bouchy. “We’ve done all the landscaping ourselves.”

The Bouchys have participated in the home and gardens tour once before, in 2009. They said they had around 150 visitors the first year. They estimated around 175 visitors this year.

Another garden featured on the tour was that of Charles and Lucy Snell, also located on Ireton Road. Lucy Snell, a member of the garden club, also opened her house to visitors. The house was decorated with a fairy garden Christmas in July theme. The house was full of Christmas decorations, and outside in the gardens were a large Santa Claus and a clothesline with a red Santa suit.

The other house on the home and garden tour was that of Janet and Don Booth, on Gay Street. The Booths have lived in the house for under three years and have already made several major improvements to the house. They have replaced the furnace, taken out the old ceiling fans and replaced them with chandeliers, bought new appliances for the kitchen, and added closets, among many other improvements.

“When you buy an old house like this, you don’t buy it from the old generation,” said Janet Booth. “You borrow it from the next generation. We feel this house really belongs to the community.”

Money raised by the home and garden tour helps the garden club to maintain the gardens of the Village of Williamsburg

The garden club is also selling $15 cookbooks and will have a mum sale on Fridays and Saturdays from August 16 through September 7. Eight inch pots are selling for $4 or three for $11 and 12 inch pots are selling for $12. They will be sold from the corner of State Route 32 and McKeever Pike.

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Ms. Katzander was giving these pouches — handmade of geotextile fabric and stitched with the same sturdy thread NASA uses — the once-over in her role as a practitioner of one of the cooler trends in urban horticulture. The founder 15 years ago of a landscape company called Mingo Design, she brings her aesthetic to everything from rooftop gardens to brownstone backyards.

Her specialty is vertical gardens — walls of greenery that grace interiors and exteriors of residential and commercial buildings around the city and beyond.

These leafy expanses, sometimes flecked with flowers, can evoke anything from a tropical jungle to a Monet landscape. But because gardens were intended to be horizontal, not vertical, and because water, left to its own devices, flows down, not sideways, they are challenging to maintain.

Various devices help these gardens thrive. Ms. Katzander’s magic bullet is the little mesh container she has christened the Mingo Pouch, which in her opinion is critical to a successful vertical garden because it allows each plant to have its own miniature ecosystem.

“Cute, right?” Ms. Katzander said, affectionately eyeing the one in her hand. She made the first Mingo Pouch several years ago, and so far has made thousands of them. They can even go in the washing machine. They solve a problem that can doom vertical gardens — soil falling off the wall and onto the ground. “So the question,” she said, “is how do you plant on a wall? The pouches were the answer. They were the turning point, the aha moment.”

Ms. Katzander’s route to vertical gardens began three decades ago on Fishers Island, off the eastern end of Long Island, where her father ran a marina, and she grew up dreaming of life as a marine biologist. In her late teens, she was more or less adopted — “like a stray cat,” as she put it — by Dan and Sally Gordon, an island couple who hired her as a caretaker.

“I did landscaping, fertilizing the lawn, the works,” Ms. Katzander said. “A lot of what I know, I learned from Sally.” Though she describes herself as “100 percent self-taught,” she has taken many courses in landscape design and reads voraciously in the field. By the age of 21, she had set up a business with seven employees.

In 2009 she designed a 2,260-square-foot vertical garden for the PNC Bank headquarters in Pittsburgh. These days clients ask her to create vertical gardens for their homes or offices, or to provide T.L.C. for gardens that aren’t doing well. Ms. Katzander can produce a small garden in weeks, even days, for a cost of $75 or less per square foot.

Although her services include installation and maintenance, her passion is for the design end of the job. “I love complicated things, and I love vertical gardens because of the complicated design,” she said. “The sun moving around, the shade, the different plants, putting it all together. I love the abstractness, the complicated mix of aesthetics and functionality. Creating these gardens is like building with blocks.”

Ms. Katzander is one of a number of landscape designers around the globe who design and plant vertical gardens. They represent an alluring option, especially for New Yorkers who often live surrounded by concrete with limited space for greenery.

“A lot of landscape designers are creating these walls, and there are a lot of different approaches out there,” said Karen Daubmann, the associate vice president for exhibitions of the New York Botanical Garden, which has installed vertical gardens in connection with exhibitions. “They’re not easy because there are so many technical issues — irrigation, proper nutrients, choosing the right plant palette. But people like being surrounded by plants, so why not?”

Patrick Blanc, a French botanist whose book “The Vertical Garden: From Nature to the City” is considered a classic work on the subject, agrees that when it comes to vertical gardens, the challenges are great and the avenues varied. “In nature,” Mr. Blanc said, “plants grow in many different ways, and when it comes to creating vertical gardens, many things are possible. Different people have different approaches.”

“It feels great to be doing something with your hands after being in the classroom all year,” said Mr. Valdez, of Palm Springs, Calif., who is pursuing a double major, in geography and Latin American studies.

The students, working with a biology professor, Meg Ronsheim, were resurrecting a native plant garden that was cultivated by botany professors and students in the 1920s, long before native species became a rage, and then forgotten for decades. The garden was the life’s passion of Edith A. Roberts, a professor of plant science who, after being hired by Vassar in 1919, set out to document every species of plant in Dutchess County. Over the next three decades, she and colleagues transformed the four-acre plot into what would be called the Dutchess County Outdoor Ecological Laboratory.

Dr. Roberts, a farmer’s daughter from New Hampshire who earned a doctorate in botany from the University of Chicago, was in the forefront of a group of women who blazed trails in academia, just as the suffrage movement won them the right to vote.

“They drove around the county in these crank cars on God knows what kind of roads,” said Professor Ronsheim, who teaches conservation biology and environmental studies at Vassar and who stumbled upon the overgrown garden in the 1990s. “She was trying to understand what plants grow together, where they grow and how they reproduce. That’s what an ecologist did. This was cutting-edge science and she brought it to Vassar.”

Dr. Roberts, who died in 1977, was an early advocate of gardening and landscaping using native species, which require less water and fewer pesticides than imported plants. She wrote about them first in a series of articles in House Beautiful magazine, and then in a 1929 book, “American Plants for American Gardens,” in collaboration with Elsa Rehmann, a landscape architect.

After Dr. Roberts retired in 1948, the garden, which runs along a creek called the Fonteyn Kill, was still maintained for a few years. But by the 1960s it had been abandoned, and “American Plants” had long since gone out of print.

Several years ago, Dr. Ronsheim began taking walks along the creek and teaching classes outdoors.

“I start seeing these spring ephemerals, but it was only later that I realized they had been planted,” she recalled. She slowly pieced together the history of the ecological laboratory through journal articles, newspaper clippings and conversations with the college faculty and staff.

Reclaiming and nurturing the outdoor laboratory, which once contained 675 different species of trees, shrubs, vines, flowers, ferns and mosses, became her own passion. Time and neglect have worn away much that was there. Of 47 different species of ferns, for example, only 10 remained by 2011. Of 108 species of shrubs and vines, 16 survived.

But now, native plants are having a moment.

This spring, both the New York Botanical Garden, in the Bronx, and Brooklyn Botanic Garden turned a spotlight on native plants. The Botanical Garden in May opened its new Native Plant Garden, which includes 454 species found east of the Mississippi River, while in Brooklyn, a newly expanded Native Flora Garden, designed by Darrel Morrison, a prominent landscape architect and proponent of native plants, made its debut in June.

Mr. Morrison was also responsible for the republication of Dr. Roberts’s treatise in 1996. In a new foreword, he wrote, “Now, at a time when we often lament the loss of a sense of place, and as ‘sustainability’ becomes an increasingly popular catchword in landscape design and management, this volume has a message that is as valid today as it was the day it was published.”

At Vassar, with the help of students and staff members, Dr. Ronsheim has documented many survivors from the 1920s, including red osier dogwood, alder trees, royal ferns and jack-in-the-pulpit, and has continued to yank out the invasive competitors.

Now, a major new science center is under construction on a portion of the former garden, and Dr. Ronsheim has been busy tagging and moving native plants from the building site to the college’s nearby preserve. Initially, she worried about the fate of the former laboratory, but she is now determined to put the new science building at the service of the native plants there.

“I took a deep breath at first,” she recalled. “I said, ‘Wait, you want to put the building where?’ ”

She has worked closely with Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, a landscape architecture firm, on plans to restore the wetlands around the new science center, which will straddle the creek and feature up-to-the-minute green building techniques, including a cistern to capture rain water for the fern glen. And she will eventually bring back the ramps, bloodroot, Mayapple, trout lily and Christmas ferns she and her students had carefully moved out of harm’s way.

“There are many restored wetlands, but very few are assessed,” she said. “There’s a long history of using this site to understand ecological processes. This will continue that tradition.”

Trellised-walls of the building support roses, clematis and a climbing hydrangea, which flower in sequence to deliver formidable displays in spring.

A grove of spruce trees, planted in a semicircle on the west side of the property, means the complex gets bright, unimpeded morning light, but is screened from the scorching heat of the afternoon sun.

To the right of the pond, a small wooden pavilion, offering a sheltered view of the koi in the water, leads to a Japanese-style shade garden.

Janko and Langteigne say they spent more than two years planting a dozen kinds of cyclamen as well as sanguinaria, maidenhair ferns, unusual arisaema and shade-loving ornamental grasses, such as Hakonechloa ‘Nicholas’, which turns red-and-orange in the fall.

The ground here is pumped full of autumn crocus, which put on yet another striking flower show in early fall.

Janko and Langteigne’s own patio garden is consistent with the planting in rest of the complex. It also has a clearly exotic, tropical feel.

From the main garden, the entrance is via a narrow path that winds up a gentle slope from the pond and pavilion and through an arch of clematis and pink abutilon.

Flanking the gate are two sizable pots filled with pelargoniums and scented heliotrope.

Inside, a small water feature has a fog-maker that puffs bursts of white mist into the air. The small space is filled with plants with exotic foliage and sultry flower colours: fuchsias, coleus, pineapple lilies and passion vine.

A greenhouse is home to Janko’s private collection of carnivorous plants — sundews and pitcher plants, sarracenia and nepenthes, bladderworts and Venus flytraps. Elsewhere, he has a diverse collection of air plants (Tillandsia).

It all adds up to a colourful, tropical, South American jungle-like environment but at the centre of it all there is a calm, quiet sitting area, shaded by an arching canvas canopy.

What drew them to the tropical palate, the exotic end of the plant spectrum for a garden? Was it, perhaps, because they both came from colder, botanically challenging regions of Canada — Janko from Red Deer, Alberta, and Langteigne from New Brunswick?

“I have always been fascinated by the old and vintage gardening of the past, especially the British tradition, such as the hothouses at Kew,� says Janko.

“But we both like plants that have an exotic look. They stop you in your tracks and make you stare and gasp with wonder. They are thrilling to be around.

“We like hot colours — fuchsia, purple, pink and red. Hummingbirds love those colours, too, and we love hummingbirds, so all it works.�

My journey from the start, along the avenue of trees and shrubs to the koi pond and on into the shade garden and up the hill to Janko and Langteigne’s private pleasant patio brought to mind Frederick Delius’s beautiful orchestral interlude, ‘The Walk to the Paradise Garden’.

All condo complexes should have such a pretty garden of delights.

swhysall@vancouversun.com

Research shows walking benefits both the body and the mind, and the Northwest Indiana region is full of parks, trails and nature preserves that highlight the beauty and diverse landscape of the area. Throughout the summer in Home and Garden, the Times will highlight some of the best places to walk and enjoy the unique topography this region has to offer.

MUNSTER | The Cancer Resource Centre is a place where people come to be inspired and empowered.

So it only seemed natural to hold a garden walk where visitors will enjoy the beauty and inspiration of nature while learning more about the services the center provides.

The Cancer Resource Centre will host an “Inspirations from the Garden” benefit from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday at 926 Ridge Road in Munster.

Event organizers say the garden walk is a great opportunity to walk through a healing water garden while learning about a variety of other healthful practices.

“Visitors can come to be inspired by the people they will meet and by the experiences from the beautiful garden, artwork and landscaping ideas, as well as hear tips on cooking, floral arranging and relaxation,” said Mylinda Cane, Cancer Resource Centre advisory board member and a member of the Friends group that organized the benefit.

The event also is an opportunity to learn more about how the Cancer Resource Centre services are helping patients and their loved ones cope with a cancer diagnosis.

The healing garden, in particular, is part of the therapeutic environment at the center, “offering patients a tranquil retreat to help manage their stress and tap into the restorative power of nature,” Cane said.

One of the artists featured at the event taps into nature through her artwork – fine art garden photography by Schererville resident Joanne Markiewicz.

Visitors also will view the nature-inspired paintings of David Renfro that are featured throughout the healing garden. Renfro, a Griffith resident, was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor and had to relearn to draw and paint with his left hand.

Artist Shari Smith LeMonnier of Munster will use the healing garden as her inspiration for a painting she’ll create at the event.

Designed around a series of small ponds and waterfalls with connecting streams, the healing garden visitors will tour is an ever-changing landscape of perennials, large oak trees and medicinal plants.

“A patio at the top of the garden serves as a place for patients to participate in yoga, chi gong, art therapy and other mind-body programs,” Cane said.

Visitors will receive a list of plants in the garden, along with the plant combinations featured in planters donated by local landscapers. Some of those planters will serve as door prizes, Cane said.

Tickets purchased in advance are $10 and are available at the Cancer Resource Centre, the box office at the Center for the Visual and Performing Arts, or in the gift shops of Community Hospital in Munster, St. Catherine Hospital in East Chicago and St. Mary Medical Center in Hobart.

Tickets purchased at the event are $12. All proceeds benefit the Cancer Resource Centre.

For more information, call (219) 836-3349.

We have secured tickets to be given away for this AWESOME event!

–  All registered DOESers have been entered.
–  Drawing will be Fri July 26th at 9am, be sure to REGISTER now.
–  Winners will be notified via email.
–  Tickets will be delivered by a DOES Team member that day!

 

State Senator Andy Dinniman recently joined volunteers from the Brandywine Valley Water Garden Tour to announce that this year’s tour will take place on Sat, July 27 and Sun, July 28.

“Last year, the Brandywine Valley Water Garden Tour raised almost $15,000 for the Chester County Food Bank. This year we know we can build on that success,” Dinniman said. “The tour is a great event that supports a great cause. I want to thank all of the volunteers and residents who open up their homes to share with us their picturesque ponds, winding streams and lush gardens.”

Now in its tenth year, the Brandywine Valley Water Garden Tour offers an opportunity to visit the homes of local residents and neighbors who have created beautiful waterscapes in their backyards. The tour benefits the Chester County Food Bank and Gleaning Program, which supports local food banks and provides fresh, healthy foodstuffs to those in need.

The two-day, self-guided tour has grown significantly over the years to include more than 50 water features and gardens throughout Chester County. Ticket purchase includes a map with a listing of locations so participants can plan their own routes. In addition, this year a bus tour is being offered.

(Can we mention that the barbecue is included in the ticket price?) Participants are also welcome to attend the opening night barbecue featuring live entertainment, a silent auction and raffle at Turpin Landscaping in Wagontown on the evening of July 27. All of the proceeds from the tour and barbecue go to the Chester County Food Bank.

Dinniman, who helped establish the Chester County Food Bank and Gleaning Program more than a decade ago, said he was impressed by the amount volunteers who have gotten involved in the highly successful community partnership.

“The people of Chester County continue to step forward to answer the call of their neighbors in need and to find new and unique ways to address the problem of hunger,” Dinniman said. “The pond tour is a great example of this. Now in its tenth year, it has really caught on as an annual summer event in our region. Some of these homeowners have transferred their backyards into aquatic paradises. When you see them, it is hard to believe you are still right here in Chester County.”

“I want to thank Turpin Landscaping for all of its hard work on behalf of the Chester County Food Bank,” he added.

Jason Turpin Quote:

‘For us at Turpin Landscaping Inc, the Water Garden Tour is a creative method of giving back to our community. We feel good knowing that our donation is going the Chester County Food Bank, which is an incredible organization that uses the donation to the fullest in helping to put food on the table’s of Chester County residents.’

Tickets are $25 each and are available online at www.brandywinepondtour.com. In addition, tickets can be bought in person at the following locations:

 

Aardvark Animal Hospital 161 Dowlin Forge Road Lionville, PA (610) 363-8080

Brandywine Patio
 1345 Wilmington Pike
 West Chester, PA
 (610) 399-3606

Eagle Hardware
 Route 100 at Byers Rd
 Chester Springs, PA (610) 458-0961

Ludwigs Corner Hardware 1230 Pottstown Pike Glenmoore PA (610) 458-5859

Pickering Valley Feed and Farm
 305 Gordon Drive
 Exton, PA
 (610) 696-6169

The Spirit of Yoga 721 E. Lancaster Ave Downingtown, PA

525 E. Gay Street West Chester, PA (610) 429-0920

Turpin Pond Source
 287 Martins Corner Rd
 Coatesville, PA
 (610) 380-1119

Village Hardware of Guthriesville 1155 Horseshoe Pike Downingtown, PA (610) 269-4200

Weaver Mulch
 3186 Strasburg Road
 Coatesville, PA
 (610) 383-6818

West Chester Agway
 956 S. Matlack Street
 West Chester, PA
 (610) 696-1700

 

Click photo to enlarge

Alan Hackler started landscaping during his college years when a girlfriend asked him to help her mom to do a project. It turned out to be more than he bargained for, but he knew it was what he wanted to do, and it ended up leading him to more work.

Now he creates 30 to 40 landscaping projects per year, some small and some very large. Many are located in downtown San Jose, Willow Glen, Almaden and Campbell.

His goal for Bay Maples Wild California Gardens is to provide homeowners with unique and innovative landscaping using environmentally sustainable methods.

A graduate of San Jose State in environmental studies and energy management, Hackler has also kept up his studies, graduating from the master gardeners program and Build it Green programs, receiving certification in gray water installation and his contractor’s license.

He’s against using herbicides and pesticides. He’s for building landscaped yards with native plants that attract beneficial insects and use less water and/or use rain and gray water. Hackler takes items like salvaged redwood to create benches, decks, arbors, even chicken coops and signs.

“It’s important to me to develop gardens that are fun and safe for the people using them. A lot of people may want a large green lawn, but that often takes pesticides and herbicides and it doesn’t make a good play area for children or pets. But take different items such as boulders, or use wood to create play areas,

pathways and trails and kids and pets have more fun than they can on a plain green lawn,” he says.

By incorporating items into landscaping, children have areas to run and jump and play, he adds, making it more appealing.

Hackler also likes to use home remedies and beneficial insects, such as ladybugs, to ensure safe gardens. Native plants need less water, allowing gardens to stay healthy all year. Certain wildflowers attract hummingbirds and bees that benefit the life of the gardens, he says.

He says he’s always been a gardener and takes pride in his work. “I like to do untraditional landscapes that use less water and involve pathways and trails.”

He can also develop ponds and/or waterfalls for gardens. Hackler is using those elements in a garden he’s working on in Willow Glen. Often he will tie a creek into the home’s gutter system. It captures rainwater and runoff that’s built into the design to keep it functional. Typical plans include water-efficient designs and mulching bare soil to eliminate erosion. He prefers to use bioswales, which are landscape elements that remove silt and pollution from runoff water, and constructs dry creeks and wetlands to preserve water.

“Our gardens work with nature and its human inhabitants to create a garden experience reminding us of California’s natural beauty. It also ensures that the garden is more cost-effective than using herbicides, pesticides and massive amounts of water to keep it healthy,” Hackler says.

He likes to use materials from organic farmers, mulch from local tree services and items found on the site. Plants are both native and edible when possible. He also puts recycled concrete and cardboard and salvage redwood into the designs. Finally, he offers limited use of plastic irrigation pipes, using only high- density polyethylene or metal tubing for irrigation. He limits gas powered tool use when possible.

Bay Maples Wild California Gardens is located in San Jose. It’s open for calls from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and can be reached at 408.391.0647 or by email at alan@baymapes.com, or visit the website at baymaples.com.

EL CERRITO — Open space advocates and bicyclists, as well as those who belong to both camps, came July 23 to make suggestions for city “urban greening” and bicycle routes master plans.

About 60 to 70 residents peppered consultants with suggestions about upgrading parks, building new parks and designing connectors between parks, along with other urban greening issues at the evening workshop.

They also weighed in with ideas the city can use to update a 2007 plan to make streets friendlier for bicyclists and pedestrians.

Some residents suggested the city make improvements to Fairmont Park and create a park and sports field out of the former Portola Middle School site and connect it to Cerrito Vista Park and the El Cerrito High School sports fields.

Others brought up the city’s plan to purchase property to connect the two Hillside Natural Areas, and had ideas about installing attractive green landscaping at entry points to the city on San Pablo and Central avenues and creating small “pocket parks” and opportunities to plant vegetable gardens and small orchards in the middle of neighborhoods.

Discussion leader Mukul Malhotra of Berkeley consulting firm MIG said the city’s goal is “reinforce community identity and a sense of place.”

That aim contrasts with current conditions on San Pablo Avenue, for example, a wide street — and state highway — that hosts miles of vehicular traffic across several cities.

The urban greening workshop was the first of three community events the city has set up to help prepare an urban greening plan. The second is scheduled for Oct. 19.

In the bicycling portion of the event, consultant Matthew Ridgway of Fehr and Peers in San Francisco asked residents to identify their favorite bicycling destinations, “hot spots” where it is dangerous to ride and walk, and challenges and opportunities to improve conditions for cyclists and pedestrians on San Pablo.

Residents suggested creating a connecting path for bicyclists on Central Avenue to the Bay shoreline and creating a mountain bike connector through the Hillside Area between the Bay Trail and the East Bay hills.

The city had previously identified Key Route Boulevard, San Pablo Avenue, Arlington Boulevard, Potrero Avenue and other main streets as key targets for measures that would encourage people to get out of their cars and ride.

In a poll taken at the event, many expressing an interest in bicycling said they were comfortable sharing the road with motor vehicles but preferred to ride in bike lanes and on wider boulevards rather than unimproved or narrower city streets.

The cycling strategies tie in with the city’s climate action plan that calls for a 15 percent reduction in citywide emissions, including emissions from motor vehicles, from 2005 levels by 2020.

“About 2.5 percent of El Cerrito residents commute to work by bike compared with about 10 percent in Berkeley, so El Cerrito has a lot of catching up to do,” said Dave Campbell, advocacy director for the East Bay Bicycle Coalition.

Ridgway said he will design a bicycle tour of the city so residents can see firsthand the opportunities and challenges for improving conditions for bicycling at critical sites.

The 2.5-hour tour will leave from City Hall at 1 p. m. on Aug. 18.

“The city’s objective is to improve every street, but we’re trying to determine the order,” Ridgway said.

SEEDS farm, Traverse City, Michigan

By Hannah Traverse, The Corps Network

An average week for a corpsmember at Conservation Corps North Bay in Marin County, California usually involves attending college classes. It also might involve planting rows of crops, tending bee hives, harvesting fruits and vegetables, and grafting apple trees.

Conservation Corps North Bay (CCNB) is one of the many Youth Service and Conservation Corps across the country that operates an agricultural program. The primary mission of Corps is to prepare teens and young adults for the workforce by engaging them in a diversity of service projects that enhance communities and protect the environment. Completing the tasks necessary to build and maintain a small farm or community garden teaches corpsmembers basic landscaping skills and the value of hard work, but Corps-managed farms are much more than just outdoor classrooms.

For CCNB corpsmembers, growing vegetables is part of a work-study program. While enrolled at College of Marin’s Indian Valley campus, corpsmembers can earn money by tending the plants on the Corps’ 5.8 acre organic farm, located on the school’s grounds. This modest income goes a long way for young corpsmembers who are juggling school and childcare responsibilities. The certified organic produce from the Indian Valley farm, distributed mainly through restaurants and markets, also represents how Corps farms and gardens can touch entire communities.

Improving Food Security

In New England, the products of Vermont Youth Conservation’s Corps‘ six acre farm help supplement the diets of hundreds of low-income Vermonters. According to Paul Feenan, VYCC’s Food and Farm Coordinator, about 60 to 70 percent of the farm’s products go to charity. The main mechanism through which the Corps distributes the farm’s fruits, vegetables and poultry is a CSA program that serves nearly 200 food insecure families.

In 2012, VYCC partnered with the Central Vermont Medical Center to run a pilot program, called Health Care Shares, through which they identified potential CSA members among patients and Medical Center employees. Many of the remaining CSA shares went to the families of VYCC corpsmembers who helped raise and harvest the food.

“All of our youth crew members come through the Vermont Department of Labor’s Workforce Investment Act program. They were identified as economically disadvantaged and also had other at-risk factors that made them eligible for the program,” said Feenan. “So they got job readiness skills and other transferable skills out of the program, but their families also qualified for a CSA share. They grew food for people who were food insecure and their families also received a share all summer.”

Founded in the mid-1980s, VYCC only got involved in agriculture after relocating their headquarters to the site of a historic barn in Richmond, Vermont. The Corps’ farm started operation in 2008 as a small garden, but this past year it yielded 40,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables and about 5,000 pounds of poultry – all of which was produced with significant help from teen and young adult corpsmembers. The youth crew helps tend and harvest crops, and they are involved in raising and butchering the chickens.

Chickens at the VYCC farm

“It’s amazing how much development you see in the kids after a summer,” said Feenan. “We can have young men and women that haven’t had a lot of success in their lives. The farm project inspires them to really achieve at high levels.”

To make the farm economically viable and to give their farm interns a better overview of the food system, VYCC sells some of its produce through a farmers market, a farm stand and wholesale contracts. The farm’s pasture-raised chickens are a particularly popular product, but Feenan says that they want to move more towards philanthropic farming. He said they would donate all of their food to charity if they had the funding to do so.

In Baltimore, MD, the Civic Works corps also works to improve food security for low-income families. Like the Vermont Youth Conservation Corps, Civic Works is also new to farming. They broke ground on their Real Food urban farm in 2009 after they were recognized by Baltimore’s Urban Agricultural Task Force as an ideal organization to run a demonstration farm.

“One of the reasons why we were approached was because of Civic Works’ track record hosting AmeriCorps members and our experience with youth development, and also because of how close we are to two schools — Heritage High School and REACH! Partnership School,” said Zach Chissell, the farm’s Project Manager.

A large portion of the Real Food Farm rests on what was once the schools’ baseball field. With about two acres under cultivation, the farm produced nearly 16,000 pounds of produce last year. According to Chissell, the vast majority of work on the farm is done by AmeriCorps members and paid high school interns.

Zach Chissell with the Mobile Market

The Real Food Farm has a four point mission: improve access to fresh food; promote urban agriculture in Baltimore; provide experience-based education; and promote responsible environmental practices. Chissell says that, while all of the farm’s mission points are important, improving food security is what Civic Works is most passionate about. They currently use three different methods to help make their fresh produce accessible to low-income families. First, their Mobile Market — a modified Washington Post delivery truck — transports food directly to food insecure homes and can set up shop at busy intersections, parking lots, or wherever people congregate. Second, about 20 percent of the Real Food Farm’s CSA shares go to food insecure households. And third, the farm contributes to a shared stand at Baltimore’s Waverly Farmers’ Market, which now accepts Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) payments from shoppers that receive food aid through the government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Though selling produce at the market and to local restaurants does not directly improve food security in Baltimore, these distribution methods raise money to help underwrite Real Food Farm’s philanthropic activities.

The Farm as a Classroom

Educational programming is another important element of Real Food Farm’s mission to give back to the community. The farm hosts field trips and volunteer activities for just about any school or organization that can get there. Civic Works has helped develop farm-based curricula for math teachers, to art teachers, to English teachers. The farm also runs an afterschool club for middle school students, and hosts six high school interns. Chissell says that the young people who visit the farm all seem to have a positive experience.

“Everybody is excited. You can see that they’re definitely learning things that they did not know before about where food comes from — the fact that this stuff gets pulled out of the dirt. It’s definitely a new experience for a lot of them.”

Jennie Pardie, Environmental Service and Farm Program Manager with Conservation Corps North Bay, sees similar responses from the young people who work on the Indian Valley Farm.

“Many of the youth within our organization have had little to no experience with farming or nature. The exposure to how things grow, and our relationship with the natural world and its provisions is an important step for any human being. Many are shocked and amazed by what they can see, touch, smell, taste, and do at the Indian Valley Organic Farm Garden.”

Like Civic Works and Conservation Corps North Bay, the Youth Conservation Corps operated by SEEDS in Traverse City, Michigan also focuses on educating youth about the food production system.

“The farm’s been a great project for our Youth Conservation Corps,” said Mike Powers, Project Manager at SEEDS. “We come from an agricultural area, but many of the Youth Corps members are not from farming families or have never worked on farms. So it’s a great opportunity for them to come in and see how a farm works. They’re doing everything from tilling, to planting the seeds, doing the weeding, harvesting, pest management. They helped build the garden shed… We work to involve them every step of the way.”

Powers watches Youth Corps members go through a transformation as they work on the farm. He once supervised a crew that included three teen mothers. One of the young women paused while harvesting vegetables to eat a piece of fresh spinach — something she had never tasted before.

“Just introducing them to tasting and trying some of these foods is huge,” said Powers.

Powers also likes to tell the story of one Youth Corps member who came to SEEDS through the court system. This particular young man hated getting dirty and was very protective of his white baseball cap, which he bleached several times a week. Through his time in the Corps, however, he developed a strong relationship with the farm’s employees and he started to have fun.

“It was neat because later in the year a middle school group came out and they all started asking questions and he just stepped in and helped describe things. We hadn’t even thought to set it up so that he would be the one to do that, but you could just tell that his confidence had grown. He had some understanding and ownership of the farm operation, so I think it’s definitely a confidence-booster,” said Powers. “They get to understand what it takes to grow food, how difficult it is… It’s very real and transformative for them to have that opportunity.”

In addition to the Youth Conservation Corps program, SEEDS operates a Farmer Residency program to provide hands-on agricultural experience to aspiring young farmers. According to Powers, the average age of a Michigan farmer is around 65; the Residency program seeks to lower that age. All of the young men and women in the program studied agriculture in college or graduate school. To Youth Corps members, they are an example of how farming can be a realistic career option.

Green Spaces Make Good Neighbors

Eugene Oregon’s Northwest Youth Corps also focuses on youth engagement and education. Though most of the food from their 1.5 acre Laurel Hill Valley Farm stays within the organization to help support the Corps’ school trips and OutDoorHighSchool program, farm operations are the focal point of extensive educational programming for corpsmembers and the community.

“Working on the farm demonstrates the importance of fresh, healthy food. Whether our students choose to follow that lifestyle or not, there’s at least a larger conversation about nutrition and health and food preparation that’s important,” said Steve Moore, Dean of Students at Northwest Youth Corps’s OutDoorHighSchool; a school that offers standard academic programming, but with an emphasis on applied science and mentoring. “Gardens also create a lot of opportunities for tactile, sensory activities. Gardens are a very rich sensory place, so students who may not like traditional classrooms or learning from books might find that they’re getting out more often and they’re touching, they’re feeling, they’re seeing.”

Moore said the farm is also becoming a popular neighborhood gathering spot as the Corps works to foster a sense of community pride in the project. In New York City, one of the main purposes of the 52 community gardens owned by New York Restoration Project is to provide accessible green spaces for people living in low-income neighborhoods. Some of the NYRP gardens are so small and shaded by trees that they could go unnoticed by someone unfamiliar with the neighborhood, but to those who live in the community, the gardens serve as safe, welcoming places to enjoy some fresh air and meet with friends and family.

While individual New Yorkers rent plots to grow food and flowers in many of NYRP’s gardens, AmeriCorps members are in charge of basic maintenance chores, like pruning, raking, watering and litter cleanup. AmeriCorps crews have also built garden structures like rain collection systems and shelters. The Los Amigos Garden, located in the heart of Spanish Harlem, was recognized by the New York State Council on the Arts for its importance to the local Latino population. Though it was constructed in the early 1980s, NYRP staff and AmeriCorps members worked with nearby residents to rebuild the space to better suit their needs. The garden reopened in 2010 with a newly constructed casita where people from the neighborhood come to play cards, relax, and host traditional meals.

Recently, Green City Force, another Corps based in New York City, opened the first large-scale urban farm on a New York City Housing Authority property. The DC Green Corps in Washington, DC constructed raised planting beds in the northeast quadrant of the city and is operating a farmers’ market this summer. A few of the other Corps currently operating farms or gardens include Los Angeles Conservation Corps; Youth Conservation Corps in Waukegan, IL; and Southwest Conservation Corps, at their Los Valles site in Colorado. Every year, more Corps build farms and gardens and develop agricultural programs that expose their youth participants to the discipline of farm work, and also expose the community to the benefits of green spaces and fresh produce.

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