The Grant Houses Community Garden Project

We've moved!

2010-06-28T16:57:00.002-04:00

We've moved! Check out our new blog at www.grantgarden.wordpress.com.

Citrus fruits, assorted squashes and homemade ice-cream: the learning continues!

2010-03-09T01:01:00.003-05:00

Check out these latest shots from the after-school teaching sessions.

Lunch with the Seniors at Jackie Robinson

2010-03-06T16:57:00.006-05:00

On Friday, three of us joined the seniors at Jackie Robinson Senior Center for lunch. We went with the intention of having some casual conversations with the seniors to begin to get to know them and tell them about the oral history project, On the Table, that we're working on.

The experience was so worth it! We walked into the center, said hi to Norma and made our way inside. We paid our $3.50 to the woman at the door and signed our names. Then we handed our numbers to a tall, melodious man who was calling out numbers for people to line up and approach the counter. They served us orange juice and milk, cinammon applesauce, pasta, collard greens and a fish cake. We took our fully-loaded trays and plopped down at a table where three women were sitting together and started chatting.

All three of the women were Hispanic, one from El Salvador and the other two from the Dominican Republic. Most had family living in the area, whether in Grant, in Harlem or in the Bronx, and most went back to their countries for a few months every year to be with the rest of their family. All came to eat meals at the senior center regularly. It was exciting to be communicating in Spanish and the women could not have been more friendly! We exchanged questions back and forth and found out that one of the women was illiterate. We told them what we were studying and about the Grant Garden project.

At the end of the meal the women were very pleased with our visit and asked us to come back soon: "Que se repita!" (This should be repeated!).

We're hoping that we can make this a regular thing, although we think that it's best if students go in small groups. As we get to know them we can scope out whether and who would be interested in speaking about their food knowledge in a recorded interview. Many (but not all!) of the seniors speak Spanish (but not all!). For those looking to practice speaking Spanish with a patient and affectionate audience, this is a great opportunity! In any case, it was wonderful to see that our presence was received well and we are sure that many of the seniors would love to have the company of friendly students for lunch de vez en cuando (every once in a while).

Field trip to East New York Farms

2010-01-11T14:48:00.004-05:00

In late October a group of Columbia students and children from the Grant community embarked on a trek to East New York Farms' Harvest festival. The hour and a half subway ride out to New Lots Brooklyn was long, but the festivities at the other end made the journey worthwhile. We carved and painted pumpkins, roaster marshmallows, sampled food from the stalls at the farmers' market, took a tour of the community garden, and played many a round of tag at the playground.
The trip was a great chance to get some ideas about what we might our garden to look like.

More info about East New York Farms can be found at: http://www.eastnewyorkfarms.org/.

Academic Benefits of Knowing Your Food

2009-10-20T12:37:00.002-04:00

This is an interesting article on the real benefits to test scores when urban students are exposed to agriculture and rural life (and for rural students, vice versa).

A Moo-Moo Here, and Better Test Scores Later

Up and running for the fall semester

2009-10-10T20:24:00.004-04:00

As the everyone settles into the rhythm of a new semester, we've resumed our weekly planning meetings. A number of new faces have joined the project bringing fresh ideas to the table. Welcome all!

This semester we've increased the scope of the after-school educational program, teaching bi-weekly lessons centered around nutrition, gardening and food sustainability. After the success of last year's communal meal, both Columbia students and Grant House residents have expressed the desire to have another such feast this year. Planning for the meal has thus already begun. Donations of food for the meal will be more than welcome. If anyone is interested in donating, or has any leads on potential donors, please contact us.

As far as the construction of the actual garden goes, we are currently at a bureaucratic standstill. For insurance purposes, Columbia requires us to be "housed" by a department or organization that has the authority to legally bind the University in a contract with NYCHA. We've contacted various departments throughout the university, but remain as of yet, without a "home". We are open to any ideas as to who might be able to take us under-wing or how we might circumvent this obstacle. Despite such bureaucratic frustrations, we remain optimistic and hope to see the garden built in the coming spring.

Here's to a productive semester!

Garden and Summer Classes Update

2009-08-07T13:55:00.006-04:00

We've been busy coordinating with various NYCHA and Columbia Community Impact officials to negotiate the legal agreement between Columbia University and the NYC Housing Authority that will allow us to proceed with the garden. Currently, the discussion hinges on questions regarding the fence. How much space can we use? How high will the fence be? Who will have access to the space? These are all important questions that students and residents have discussed and will continue to discuss as the project progresses. We hope to resolve any remaining sticking points by early fall so we will be ready for fence implementation and other garden construction before winter.

In the meantime, a group of five dedicated volunteers have been running summer classes for Grant Houses youth in the Summer Day Program. Three days a week volunteers come in and work with three groups of students, the 9s, 8/7s, and 6s (by age), discussing food and gardens. Class topics have included an introduction to the Columbia Community Garden, the different parts of plants and parts we eat, composting, and the food pyramid. See pictures below of students building worm composting bins!

Composting at Grant!

2009-07-28T15:26:00.001-04:00

Grant Goes Green

2009-07-06T11:15:00.003-04:00

While we await insurance approval before moving ahead with the Grant Garden (it is looking like a fall construction project at this point), Grant Houses residents are greening their homes in other ways. A recent article in the NYTimes featured Gloria Allen and Sarah Martin of the Grant Houses as they fuel a grassroots recycling initiative at Grant. Check it out!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/04/science/earth/04recycle.html?scp=6&sq=sarah%20martin&st=cse

We tip our hats to these women for their outstanding work and to all of Grant for making the effort to green their community. We hope to see the garden support their efforts in coming months!

Additionally, if you are interested in volunteering this summer to teach food and garden classes to youth at Grant utilizing the Columbia Community Garden's available space, please email grantcommunitygarden@gmail.com with your times and dates of availability.

Grants for Grant!

2009-06-03T10:31:00.002-04:00

We received a generous grant of $2500 from the Citizens Committee for New York City recently! This will enable us to take advantage of the garden as a public space and classroom, using it as a tool for other initiatives beyond simply growing food--though that is not always so simple in itself. We are grateful to the Citizens Committee for providing us this grant and look forward to taking advantage of their community organzing expertise and resources to aid us in our endeavor.

http://www.citizensnyc.org/

Blogistics

2009-04-24T15:51:00.002-04:00

This is just a test post to make sure the events calendar is staying at the top of the blog.

Cheers,
Eli

Before Grant...

2009-03-18T20:58:00.000-04:00

If grass surrounds the Grant Houses now and soon there will be a vegetable garden, what, one might wonder, was there before? New York Public Library photo archives reveal that, in fact, there was quite a lot...

...shops...

...apartments...

...and long ago, farms.

Making Guacamole

2009-03-11T23:28:00.000-04:00

On Friday, after reviewing the growth stages of a fruit plant (including a dramatic rendition of the process), we made guacamole! The best part? Getting to eat it afterwards, of course!

Class #2 -- The Seed!

2009-03-03T22:27:00.000-05:00

Spectator Article

2009-02-19T21:51:00.000-05:00

A bit of publicity for us, courtesy of the Columbia Spectator!

http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2009/02/19/campus-food-sustainability-project-sprouts-city-initiative

Beginning of Classes!

2009-02-15T10:35:00.000-05:00

We had our first day working with Grant Houses youth in the afterschool program on Friday. The kids were full of enthusiasm, along with the teachers. Leah, Rickie, Gracie and Andrew led a lesson on what kinds of foods grow in New York City (hint: not citrus) and a special lesson on the origins of chocolate--it's a plant!--in honor of Valentine's Day. Check out the slideshow below and you'll see a few puckered faces from tasting chocolate without sugar.

Community Greening Meeting!

2009-02-10T09:28:00.000-05:00

Please join us to discuss community gardening and greening at the Grant Houses and in the surrounding community.

10:00am
Thursday
February 12th, 2009
George Bruce Library (downstairs)

Please contact grantcommunitygarden@gmail.com for more information.

Meeting Recap 1.27.09

2009-01-28T17:45:00.000-05:00

I. Food education
We set Friday, Feb 13th to start our food/garden education program for youth in the Grant Houses Afterschool Program, which will tentatively run every Friday afternoon. Thanks to Gracie and Sarah for keeping in touch with Leanna about this! Everyone’s task is to research food and garden education information we can use to devise a curriculum for the semester. Think about what you would/could teach in an hour with Grant Houses youth.

II. Budget & Funding
a. Thanks to Ed for proposing a rubric for a project pitch to use to ask for funding. Nadia, Saskia, Rickie, and Ed are piecing this together, and Becky will contribute relevant information/photos. Once we have a finished product we will take it to potential donors and sponsors including area businesses, academic departments, and other campus groups.
b. Sarah is heading the charge for a fundraising dinner. She’ll contact Laura and Leslie to discuss this further, and we’ll all talk about it next Tuesday.
c. Grants: below is a list of the grants submitted, signed up for, and remaining to be completed. If you haven’t submitted one and have been working on the project since we started distributing grants, please sign up for one. I’ll send out a revised budget for anyone about to submit one within the next few days. Also, it would be great for anyone who can to research statistical (health, income, etc.) info about the neighborhood so we can include that information in our grant applications, as Saskia noted.

Captain Planet Grant (Submitted)--Tabitha and Becky
Healthy Sprouts Grant (received!)—Saskia
Filter For Good Grant (submitted, turned down)--Becky
Project Orange Thumb (not submitted-due 2/17)--?
Home Depot Garden Grant (submitted)—Julia
Columbia Sustainable Campus (submitted)—Andrew, Hannah
Diversity Initiative Grant (not submitted)—Theo
Office of Univ. Chaplain Co-sponsorship Fund (not submitted, due 2/13)—Laura
Do Something Grant (not submitted)—Rickie, Gracie
Citizens Committee for New York (not submitted, due 3/14)—Laura
G-Unity Foundation Grant (not submitted, due 3/15)--?
Jenny Jones Grant (not submitted)--?

III. Community Connections
a. Next Tuesday at 10:30am Becky is meeting with the senior council of Community Board 9 (CB9) to discuss the Grant Garden project and their proposed senior reading garden. The meeting will take place at George Bruce Library downstairs, 518 W 125th St. Everyone is welcome to join.
b. Becky is going to contact Sarah Martin (Tenants Assoc. Pres.), Rob Bennaton (NYCHA Gardens coordinator), and Ernestine Welch (CB9 Senior Committee) to propose setting up a lunch where we can all touch base and chat informally about the garden and the Grant Houses. Date/time not set, but anyone will be welcome.

IV. Meeting time
From now on we will meet Tuesdays from 8-9pm at Rickie’s apartment. The doorman will have a list of names of people to let in—bring some I.D.

More beautiful garden designs

2008-12-30T19:11:00.000-05:00

December 10th Meeting Recap

2008-12-28T22:49:00.001-05:00

A recap of our final fall semester meeting, December 10th (a potluck!).

We will meet again Tuesday January 20th, same time and place as last semester, 9pm Hamilton 616. We will then discuss what time will be best for regular meetings next semester.

Grant Potluck Meeting Recap 12.10.08

1) Grants--Below is the grant sign-up list. Do check the requirements of the grant you are signed up for, as it is possible the project doesn't entirely qualify. If you have time to research other grants/funding opportunities, that would be really, really helpful. Sample grants are attached.

Grant (Deadline) Name(s)
Captain Planet (Dec 31) Tabitha/Becky
Healthy Sprouts (Oct 15) Saskia
Project Orange Thumb (Feb 17) Whitney
Home Depot Garden Grant (Nov 1) Julia
Columbia Sustainable Campus (Ongoing) Hannah, Andrew
Office of Multicultural Affairs Alumni Connection Fund (Ongoing) Laura, Katie
Diversity Initiative Grant from Office of Multicultural Affairs (Ongoing) Sarah, Theo
Office of the University Chaplain Co-Sponsorship Fund (Spring)
G-Unity Foundation (March 15th) Becky
Filter For Good (November 14th) Becky
Plum Grant (Ongoing) Rickie, Gracie

2) Spring fundraiser-Sarah is going to look into the possibility of hosting a spring fundraising dinner, such as a 20-person $15-20 a plate meal, using donated food. Laura also mentioned the idea of having Grant Houses residents involved in fundraising, which could be part of the dinner or another initiative. If anyone has ideas for this you're welcome to share them and investigate their feasibility.

3) Summer internships-We discussed the need for two summer interns to manage the garden, which involves managing resident and student involvement, particularly youth and seniors. The interns will need housing and a stipend, or at least enough of a stipend to cover the cost of housing. We are asking various academic departments to sponsor the interns, which involves contributing towards a fund to pay for the interns' stipend. The internships would thus be interdisciplinary positions, unless a department is willing to sponsor one intern by themselves and then can make the position more directed towards their field and include any academic component they wish. Currently people have committed to the following:
a. Becky-Office of Envi. Stewardship, the Earth Institute, Urban Studies, Teacher's College, History, African-American Studies, CC Dean'sOffice
b. Sarah-EEEB
c. Leah-Envi Engineering, SEAS Dean's Office
d. Gracie-Despommier, Dean Blank
e. Saskia-English
f. Anyone else-if you have connections with a dept. you could ask to co-sponsor the internship, please pursue it! We will likely house the interns through the Center for Urban Research and Policy.

4) Insurance-Becky is contacting the University General Counsel to resolve insurance issues for Columbia student involvement in the garden

5) After-school programming in the spring-We would like to have bi-weekly (weekly?) visits to the after-school program to discuss food, nutrition, and gardening. Sarah visited Leah last Friday to discuss the potential for this with Leanna. Gracie will be in touch with Leanna over the break to get an idea of how this could take-shape.

6) Building materials/plans-Laura will research potential resources formaterials for the garden. The Landscape Design students will be scanning and sending their plans to Becky, which she will pass on to Laura. We are still unsure of how exactly to present these plans to the community. We are considering setting up a meeting with parents, the Tenants Association, or an open meeting to the community. We also are hoping the landscape design students will continue to help to locate materials and support the physical construction of the garden, especially with things such as fence implementation and garden bed construction. Becky will be in touch with Prof. Alomar to discuss this possibility.

Landscape Design Studio

2008-12-28T22:32:00.000-05:00

Landscape Design students from Professor Richard Alomar's Studio II class in the School of Continuing Education at Columbia spent the latter part of their summer busy at work creating potential designs for the Grant Houses Community Garden. Their designs were stunning and well though out. We appreciate all their hard work and look forward to piecing together the designs to create a unified plan for our garden, which will largely depend on the funding we receive. List below is a link to Prof. Alomar's blog, which covers the Landscape Design Studio work in November and December 2008 postings, and samples of the designs they created.

http://the-landscape.blogspot.com/

Healthy Sprouts Grant Award

2008-12-28T22:27:00.001-05:00

We won our first grant! Yes indeed, we will soon have a $200 gift certiciate from Gardener's Supply to purchase garden tools, in addition to garden education materials, 25 packets of seeds, and literature from the National Gardening Association. We have many more grants in processing and soon to be sent. The success of our first bodes well!

See more about the Healthy Sprouts Garden Grant awards here:
http://www.kidsgardening.com/healthysprouts.asp

Communal Meal with Grant Houses Residents

2008-12-28T21:44:00.000-05:00

We have much to catch up on covering garden activity in the fall, so I'll provide a series of post covering different parts of the project from throughout the semester.

On November 15th, CUFSP and SCEG (Student Coalition on Expansion and Gentrification) members hosted a communal meal with residents at the Grant Houses. A recap of the meal follows, as well as pictures from the event. It was a great success, and our youth chefs were wonderful! Thank you to all the event sponsors, listed below.

Article published on the Columbia Univ. Office of Environmental Sustainability website:

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY FOOD SUSTAINABILITY PROJECT,GENERAL GRANT RESIDENTS SHARE HARVEST MEAL

Date: November 19, 2008

They gathered on Saturday, November 15, around tables at the General Grant Houses Community Center - Grant Houses residents and Columbia students - to celebrate many months of collaboration.
This time with a Thanksgiving feast they'd planned and prepared together.
The dinner was part of the Columbia Food Sustainability Project's much larger effort under way since last summer to develop a community garden on the grounds of the General Grant Houses. Working with the New York City Housing Authority and the Tenants Association, "we're trying to improve nutrition by gardening in the city and showing what kinds of food taste good and what can be used to cook in healthier ways," says Becky Davies, CC '10, who's been leading the project.
Davies says "we wanted to plan an event focused on the garden. The Thanksgiving dinner demonstrated how to cook with healthier, more sustainable food." The approximately 50 meal participants were invited because of their interest in the garden, the older crowd having become acquainted with it through the General Grant Senior Center and the Tenants Association, the young people through several CFSP-sponsored field trips they've taken this fall.
In the past few weeks, Davies says students had planning lunches in their dorm rooms with members of the Tenants Association. "These were really good," she says, "as the logic for the garden became tangible."
Sara Martin, president of the Tenants Association, says the dinner was a great success - "with everyone in there doing something." She describes a carrot soup "made from scratch," with Columbia student cooks and seven young helpers from the General Grant after-school program doing lots of "chop, chop, chop and slice, slice, slice" of onions and squash along with plenty of "wash, wash, wash"of collard greens.

Lots of the cooking was coordinated by Leslie Woodward, Chef at President Lee Bollinger's house, who found out about the CFSP at one of its recent on-campus garden harvest sales on College Walk. The turkeys and cornbread stuffings - one with turkey stock, one vegetarian -- cranberries and greens were Woodward's creations.
She says as the group sat around and talked, the evening "was relaxed, and felt like one big community with four and five generations involved. The cultural and economic diversity was really special."
Davies says the dinner participants were a particularly interesting group, even including a growing elderly population of Chinese immigrants interested in the possibility of a garden at Grant Houses. "They don't speak English," Martin says, "but we're still able to communicate."
Sarah Federman, BC '09, says it was a "great experience to have a meal we'd all made together." She describes sitting with "Clarence," a jazz singer, and describes her delight in being "in the neighborhood, outside the Columbia bubble. It's easy at times," she says,
"to forget Columbia is very much a part of Harlem."
Federman says "the meal is a great example of the feasibility of creating cohesive community with discourse. Also a community project such as the garden is a wonderful way to engage the community."

Funding and donations for the dinner came from numerous Columbia organizations, city agencies, local supermarkets and greenmarket venders.
For Sara Martin, who has lived in the Grant Houses for the 52 years they've been open, the collaboration and Columbia student outreach around the garden is a "first" for her. "And," she says, "I want to be as much a part of it as I can.
"We need to come together and talk about things," she says. "The world is big enough for us to live in peace, and compromise and sacrifice is what it's all about."

Added Value Trip Pictures!

2008-11-08T20:52:00.001-05:00

Finally posting my wonderful pictures from our trip of Columbia students and Grant Houses kids and parents out to Brooklyn, for the Added Value Farm's Harvest Festival! We bobbed for apples, played with chickens, got to stick our hands in warm compost, and met many wonderful farmers. And most importantly, we rode the Ikea Ferry (shhh, don't tell Ikea!) on a beautiful, sunshine-y day!

Meeting Minutes: October 28, 2008

2008-10-29T20:37:00.000-04:00

1) TRIP

Major problems (Columbia Transportation scheduled us for the wrong destination, location we went to closed, bus broke down on return). On the upside, we continued to get to know Grant Houses youth and some parents. Becky is battling with transportation/club administration to get our bus expenditures reimbursed.

2) COMMUNAL MEAL
Planning Lunch

Becky, Sarah, Leah, and Gracie are hosting Grant Houses women + Lesley Woodward for another planning lunch at noon, at Sarah's suite. Each person will bring a dish for the meal.

Donations
Laura will email everyone with a list of places already contacted and then assign people other places (or types of places) to contact. Andrew is pursuing Westside to ask for donations. Julia offered to call farms from the Columbia Greenmarket. Katie volunteered to also inquire about donations. Hannah is contacting Columbia catering to ask for either flatware/plates we could borrow for the event, or utensil donations, or resources for ordering utensils. Sarah will ask Alison Powell to ask Barnard Dining Services about possible use of their supplies.

Sarah volunteered to coordinate a handout of some sort for the event, including recipes and Greeenmarket information. Sarah will re-send the menu for the event as a guide to what sorts of things we'd like donated (though we'll take nearly anything!). Whitney is contact the Peer Health Exchange to find out if they would be willing to do nutrition education outreach at the Grant Houses, which we could advertise at the communal meal. We decided to wait on inviting other groups to come until we are sure about Grant Houses attendance. We also decided to invite people through the women at the planning meeting and through the day care/senior centers rather than at the Tenants Association meeting so that we have more confirmed commitments from attendees. Possibly we'll give out tickets and flyer for the event.

The task list we created for this event can be found here!

3) DESIGN
Professor Richard Alomar would like group members to attend a design workshop November 20th, 6-9pm or so. Sarah volunteered to attend. Can anyone else? Possibly Rickie or Jawad, since they had an interest in design?

4) MATERIALS
If you have NOT been assigned materials research, please email Leah to receive a piece. It's really not that hard, but we need everyone to help out!

5) BUDGET
Julia (and Tabitha?) is working on the Home Depot Grant due Saturday. Becky is providing the supplementary documents, including the letter of support from NYCHA/Grant Houses.

6) OTHER
Becky is trying to figure out how the Grant Houses project can be something other than an SGB group to solve bureaucratic problems. Andrew is checking to see how much money we have in the account (i.e. how much of the $1500 was spent on trips). We decided to postpone discussion of Grant afterschool involvement until after the communal meal.

Meeting Minutes: October 21, 2008

2008-10-22T20:28:00.000-04:00

1) TRIPS

Added Value

Whitney and Saskia reported on a successful trip to Added Value with 11 kids and two parents from the Grant Houses. The trip included an eventful ride on the Ikea ferry, a tour of the Added Value farm, chickens, and two children proclaiming on separate occasions, "This is the best day of my life!" Quite a statement.

Pumpkin patch

Sarah and Whitney are going to pick up permission slips Thursday for the pumpkin patch trip. We have a confirmed bus for 9am to return at 2pm. At the farm (www.peacefulvalleyorchards.com) we will pick pumpkins, ride a hayride, and eat lunch. We'll make a concerted effort to talk to the kids about farms and gardens, and make a special effort to reach out to any parents that are coming. Sarah has a list of 10 participants but if we need to reduce that number because of increased youth interest we will be cutting people who did not attend last night's meeting.

2) PLANNING LUNCH

Sarah and Becky reported on a successful lunch with five Grant Houses women from the Tenants Association and Leslie Woodward, PresBo's chef. Most of the lunch (carrot soup, bread, couscous, mixed salad, apple tart) was spent listening to the women talk about issues concerning them in their community and at the Grant Houses, and in the end we discussed the upcoming communal meal. We developed a tentative menu that Leslie is going to help us see through to completion.

3) COMMUNAL MEAL

Laura and Becky are meeting with Sarah Martin, head of the Tenants Association, and Williesteen Moore, head of the Day Care Center, Wednesday to discuss space details. Becky is meeting with Leslie Woodward Thursday to discuss ideas from Saturday's lunch and to more specifically learn how Leslie will be involved in facilitating the event. Sarah Martin reserved the community center for the event, but we still don't have the kitchen reserved. Becky is going to reserve the student kitchen in Lerner as (one) backup. Sarah F is going to email the communal meal dish idea list we created at the meeting. Other specifics include: We will serve 70 people; cafeteria style not buffet style; November 15th @ 5-5:30pm (start); participants from Columbia and Tenants Association, Afterschool program, Senior Center. Whitney will talk to Community Impact about getting someone to table/distribute info about food stamps. Becky will talk to Teacher's College Nutrition dept about their potential involvement as well. We will wait on menu details from Leslie before pursuing donations. Saskia volunteered lots of bread.

4) MATERIALS

Leah provided a sign-up list for materials research, as discussed at the prior meeting. Everyone at last night's meeting signed up for a category to research (either free, reduced-cost, or purchasing sources). If you were not there please sign up for the open options when they are sent out.

5) BUDGET

Tabitha and Julia are working on the budget for the Home Depot grant for Nov 1. Other (ongoing) grants should be completed by DECEMBER 1st.

Meeting Minutes: October 14, 2008

2008-10-15T20:25:00.000-04:00

1) TRIPS

Red Hook

We still need FIVE more students to chaperone this trip Saturday, from 9am to 2pm. Please email Sarah if you or someone you know would be willing to attend. Sarah and Whitney will discuss and communicate the details of the trip, including what to bring, where to meet, and the public transportation plan. Becky will obtain MetroCards for the trip by Friday.

Pumpkin Patch

I finally received the cost estimate from Columbia transportation for the pumpkin patch, and they downgraded the bus size. Hence I’m exploring the option of going to the Queens County Farm Museum instead, which is much closer and has a pumpkin patch. Time and date would be the same. The other options are to take a 36 passenger bus ($1200) or cut the trip short by an hour. Becky will arrange transportation, Sarah will collect permission slips, Becky will pick up the cash advance which Andrew has so nicely arranged. Becky needs WAIVERS from everyone attending, either given to her at the next meeting or else given to Walter in the SGB office (5^th floor Lerner).

2) COMMUNAL MEAL

Laura is working with Whitney and Julia to create a list of potential donors, and discussing how to recruit students (coordinating with other groups possibly) and Grant Houses residents for the event, and discussing funding needs (Andrew will be able to help with co-sponsorship applications). They are also working on getting permission to use the senior center space, and hopefully also the kitchen. If not Becky will speak to Leslie Woodward about kitchen facilities.

3) PLANNING LUNCH

Becky, Sarah and Theo are continuing to contact the Grant Houses women who volunteered to help plan the garden. They will coordinate meal planning for the Saturday event and meet the residents at noon at the Grant Houses. Leslie Woodward will be in attendance.

4) RESOURCES

We collectively decided that we will try to come up with a list of potential resources for garden construction needs this semester so that when we actually implement parts of the Landscape Design plan next semester we will know who to ask/where to look. Leah is going to divide the budget items into workable parts by next Tuesday’s meeting so we can assign a piece to research to individuals.

5) BUDGET

Becky, Tabitha, and Andrew created a budget, which is attached to this email. It is approx. $8,000 and can be used for grant applications. Saskia submitted the Healthy Sprouts Grant today! Those of you who haven’t signed up for a grant application will contact Becky and let her know what you would like to sign up for. The next grant application is the Home Depot grant due November 1^st. Tabitha and Julia will submit that grant. All other grants that are ongoing and not due in the spring semester should be submitted by December 1^st.

Meeting Minutes: October 8, 2008

2008-10-09T17:05:00.000-04:00

1) TRIPS
Added Value, October 18th
-We will take 20 students with at least 10 chaperones.
-Sarah and Whitney delivered permission slips.
-Whitney will be the leader of the trip.
-We will travel by public transit but chaperones must pay for their own MetroCards.
-Sarah will email chaperones.

Apple Orchard, October 25th
-This will most likely be a PUMPKIN patch trip because apple season will be closing by then.
-Sarah and Whitney distributed permission slips.
-We will take approx. 40 kids/parents and 10 chaperones.
-Sarah has chaperone list.
-Andrew will get spending money for the trip.
-Becky will arrange transportation and get waivers for students. c.

Senior Trip
-Saskia is investigating the potential for this trip to occur next week.
-Undecided whether this will occur.

2) BRUNCH
-Sarah, Theo, and Becky (maybe Hannah) will facilitate the brunch with Grant Houses residents on Saturday the 18th (concurrent with Added Value trip).
-Sarah will send Theo and Becky names to call to schedule the trip, along with time/location details.
-Theo, Becky, and Sarah will then plan to cook for the meeting and discuss the garden and communal meal with the 8 women.
-Leslie Woodward, PresBo’s chef, will likely be in attendance.

3) COMMUNAL MEAL, Nov 15th
-Laura is working with Julia and Whitney.
-If you did not receive a duty this week, please contact Laura (lvb2106@cu) to help with the communal meal:
-Contact restaurants and farms to ask for donations
-Ask other groups for co-sponsorship (SCEG, BSO, Andrew will ask the Blue Key Society)
-Investigate using the Grant senior center for the event, and use of the kitchen.
-Consider logistics such as utensils, signing up students, signing up residents, budget, etc.

4) DESIGN
-Professor Alomar’s Landscape Design class will produce designs of the potential garden for their final term project this semester! More to come later.

5) BUDGET
-Andrew and Tabitha are working with Becky to develop a garden budget.
-Below are grant application assignments. PLEASE REVIEW THE GRANTS EARLY.
-We would like all to be completed by DECEMBER 1ST. If you are not signed up for a grant, let me know and you will either work with Whitney or Laura, or you will work on another funding initiative (donations, co-sponsorships, academic departments, other grants, etc.)

Welcome!

2008-10-07T16:52:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the Grant Houses Community Garden Project blog! The Columbia University Food Sustainability Project (CUFSP) is engaging in this exciting project with our neighbors at the Grant Houses with a few goals in mind:

To increase the availability of healthy, sustainable food for all members of the community
To strengthen the relationship between Columbia students and Grant Houses residents through cooperation in planning, constructing, and cultivating a community garden!

To further support these goals--and encourage garden interest and participation--we are organizing community events, such as our upcoming Thanksgiving meal, and field trips to explore urban agriculture in other parts of New York.