Holiday Wreath & Card Making-12.12.09

CommunityGrows organized a Wreath and Card Making Event, with local partners, including Community Partners United, Hayes Valley Association and Trash Mash Up on a rainy Saturday in December. We had over 45 participants including many residents from Hayes Valley Apartments and a great team of volunteers from BuildOn organization! Thank you for a great day! More photos will be up on Flicker in the new year!

Thanksgiving Event at John Muir Elementary School-November 21, 2009

CommmunityGrows joined many partners, including MoMagic and Community Partners United to celebrate Thanksgiving with the neighborhood at John Muir Elemetary School. Here are some photos from the event.


Ms. Welch, Nora Brereton and Ms. Brown:














Three Angels Dancing:

Our New Northern Station Captain, Ann Mannix and daughters Lauren and Kate:


















Camilla Dawkins and Liz Jackson Simpson:

Takaija Gardener and Maysha Jackson from the YMCA Beacon Center:

A CommunityGrows in San Franciscio

Check out Maureen Futtner's article in the San Francisco Examiner on
November 19, 2009:
A COMMUNITY GROWS IN SAN FRANCISCO

New Intern Meredith Bunyard and November Workday a Great Success!

CommunityGrows is very honored to have Meredith Bunyard, a wonderful intern from San Francisco State University helping us in the garden this semester. She is an Environmental Studies major, with a concentration in Social Justice and Sustainability. We love all the great energy and knowledge she has brought to the garden and our programs. Thank you Meredith!


NOVEMBER 14, 2009 KOSHLAND PARK AND GARDEN WORKDAY!:
Here are some photos from our November 14, 2009 Koshland Park and Garden Workday. We had 65 volunteers from many high schools, and colleges, including folks from Union Bank. Whole Foods provided boxes of delicious fruit. Noah's bagels and Starbuck's were also featured to run off the great refreshments. Thank you everyone!!














CREW FROM SONOMA STATE ALTERNATIVE BREAKS PROGRAM:













BALBOA HIGH SCHOOL CREW:














PLANTING THE HILLSIDE BY THE ENTRANCE:














GREAT FOOD:














HOLY NAMES SCHOOL 8TH GRADERS CREW:












STEWARDSHIP COUNCIL VISIT BY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ALLENE ZANGER AND HUSBAND ROB AND ANGIE CHEN AND FRIEND BEN:















WORKING IN THE GARDEN:













UC BERKELEY ALPHA PHI OMEGA FRATERNITY CREW:














NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICE AREA #3, RECREATION AND PARK DEPARTMENT CREW OF GREAT GARDENERS:

October Fun

Our cameras were in the garden afterschool with the YMCA Beacon Kids who come twice a week. The lesson was worms and composting. Collecting worms and sifting compost. It was a most exciting time!




Then all of a sudden.... it was Halloween. We roasted marshmellows for s'mores at Hayes Valley South with the neighborhood groups and families. Lots of fun and great costumes!

New Herb Garden

Thanks to the dreams of Nora, Barbara and Arif, and the hard work of contractor Peter van der Sterre, we now have a beautiful seating area where our herb garden is planted. The seating is large enough to accommodate a class of John Muir School students and is in the sunniest part of the garden. This is especially good during the cold winter months. Thank you so much Peter, Lalo and Harold for all your great work on this major achievement to our garden!

NORA'S BACK!!

We are SO HAPPY to have Nora Brereton back in the garden and totally recovered from her hiking accident three months ago. WELCOME BACK! We really missed you! She is the brains behind our Programs and does an amazing job networking and building community. One of her first orders of business was to have a meeting with the Koshland Park community gardeners on September 19, 2009.













We have two new Garden Coordinators.
Zela Rowlands will be coordinating the gardeners who already have plots in the Koshland Garden.
























Arif Husain will be coordinating the potential gardeners on the waiting list for a plot in Koshland Garden.

August and September Events:


District 5 Clean Up in Koshland Park on August 8, 2009 with Ashley Young, Camilla Dawkins, Soumeya Kerrar, Corrine Law, and Tammia Hubbard. Camilla is the Liaison to our community from the Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Services, and Tammia was an intern in that office this summer. Ashley and Soumeya are teens who often come to work in Koshland garden. Corrine was our Compost Queen this summer!

Volunteers from the GAP helped us in the garden on August 20, 2009, weeding, planting and composting. Thank you so much for your help! Great volunteers!

Tenth graders from the San Francisco Bay School spend the morning in Koshland Garden on August 28, 2009 learning about the environment.

Koshland Park Workday on September 19th sponsored by Kaiser Permanente. David van Dralen Wetters and Lisa Sandles from Kaiser. Thank you!

Summer 2009 Highlights

• Our May Celebration,announcing our new name, mission and great award from GreatNonProfits was a hugh success. Our CommunityGrows board joined us with YMCA folks and Val Brown from Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi's office. Also our wonderful long-time friend, Sissy Geballe and her grandson Dan and his wife Linda joined us. A terrific day!



• First ever Movie Night in the Koshland Garden: 5/30/09 presented by Pamela Jean Smith, a neighbor who works at the Pacific Film Archives. At 9:00 PM thirty-five people braved a cool summer night to watch old films from the archives on gardening and growing food. The garden performance stage held the screen and a projector shot the reels provided. Nora and Barbara served hot cider to everyone, including two police officers who came to watch from the Northern Station. A great night was had by all!

• The challenging new for June was that our Programs Manager, Nora Brereton had a hiking accident in Big Sur which landed her in the hospital for three months with broken bones and internal injuries. Being the young, strong and determined person that she is, she recovered fully and was back to work with the start of the Fall 2009 school year. WELCOME BACK NORA!



• Corrine Law, a graduate of the Get-Up Program from the Garden for the Environment, joined us during the summer to turn our compost. She became the Compost Queen and everyone was in awe of her.








• Summer Programs began in June, first with the LetUsGrow Summer Camp. We had a terrific intern from Global Exchange, Luz Gomez,


who lead the program with the assistance of Markos Major, garden educator.

Breakfast every morning at Kate's Kitchen on Haight Street:

Growing beautiful carrots:

Going to Green Gulch Farm:

Working at the Civic Center Farmers Market:


• Our Seed-to-Mouth Cooking classes started in June every Wednesday from 3:30-5:30 PM in Hayes Valley South Community Room. Our leader was Ms. Saewon Oh, a former teacher's aide at John Muir School this past year.


Every week at least 20 youth and their families harvested produce from the garden and made delicious meals together, including Stone Soup, Mexican and Italian dishes, and strawberry jam. Umm!