June 2007 Archives

Wednesday, June 20 on KPFT 90.1 in Houston.
Gracie Cavnar will be a guest on Patricia Greer's "Open Journal" to discuss School Nutrition and our recent Recipe for Success programs.

The MacGregor Elementary School garden has made amazing transformations in just a matter of a month.  I drew four garden designs, focusing on beds for each grade level and after school classes.  After some design advice from Gracie Cavnar and Brad Stufflebeam, who  owns and operates Home Sweet Farm and is president of TOFGA, the “Sun and Moon” design was approved for the garden by Dr. Patricia Allen, principal of MacGregor.

Board Member Glen Boudreaux of Jolie Vue Farms contacted Jimmy Gibson, of Gibson Landscaping Company, to scrape off the existing grass and level the area with sand.  Mr. Gibson generously donated his company’s time and equipment for this invaluable service.  Garden beds were staked, and on June 8th, 100 volunteers from PriceWaterhouseCoopers built the 19 raised beds. 

Now we are in the process of laying irrigation to each bed.  The next PWC volunteer work day is June 22nd.  Come and join us as we finish up-- filling the beds with soil and laying sod in the pathways.  During the school year, the students will beautify the garden with art, a sundial, and benches—and of course plant our first seeds.  It’s been incredible to watch it all come together. 

Thank you to the GLC crew, PWC volunteers, and RFS staff and board. It wouldn’t be possible without you!

Sharon Siehl
Recipe Gardens Coordinator

The heat index soared above 100 degrees on Friday in Houston, but hundreds of PriceWaterhouseCoopers employees worked from 8:00 in the morning until 4:00 in the afternoon to transform an empty 1/4 acre of MacGregor schoolyard into our first Recipe Garden.



20 raised beds will provide plenty of space for each class to experiment with growing fruits and vegetables, and provide a graphic lesson in our seed-to-plate curriculum.  Next step, topsoil, irrigation, grass.  We will all be back working on June 22 to finish the job.

The Farm and Food Policy Project (FFPP) has a new website where you can sign an online letter to Congress to show your support for policies which advance fresh, local, and healthy foods in the 2007 Farm Bill. The letters are sent to your Representatives and Senators based on where you live. Written to encompass a broad spectrum of ideas supported by the FFPP, the letter contains the following priorities:
 
-Expand initiatives to increase access to healthy affordable food, such as farmers markets and farm-to-school programs
-Help build a new generation of entrepreneurial farmers serving local and regional markets
-Ensure fair access to agriculture programs for socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers
-Expand conservation and farmland protection programs to help farmers meet consumer demand for healthier, sustainably produced foods
 
Check out Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer website www.FoodAndFarmBillOfRights.com to read the Food & Farm Bill of Rights and many resources about the farm bill, including a blog written by the Congressman.
 
Want to know more about the Farm Bill and the reauthorization process?  The Ag House Committee will finish mark up of the farm bill by June 30, so time is precious.  In the May Food Chain, we let you know about “marker bills,” and how you can mention specific marker bills to your legislators in order to call their attention to the aspects of food and agriculture policy that concern you most.  To read more find out what you can do in these remaining weeks to make your voice heard, visit Slow Food's Farm Bill Resource Website and the Slow Food Forum.

Can you lend us any tools for the job?  Sharon Siehl, our new Recipe Garden Coordinator would like to borrow wheelbarrows,
shovels, and flat metal garden rakes for installation day--June 8, when we are expecting 300 volunteers from Price Waterhouse Coopers to appear for the day, ready to work.  With their help, we will transform a 35x150 foot stretch grass behind our Recipe for Success culinary classroom into 2 dozen raised garden beds where students from Pre-K through the 5th grade will be able to raise fruits, vegetables, flowers and herbs.  If you have tools we can borrow, please call Sharon at 713-307-7005 and let her know.

The only way we are going to really affect the long-term food preferences of our children is to abandon the idea of the KIDS MENU and begin offering them real food.  Early exposure to a wide variety of fruits, vegetables and complicated flavor structures broadens their taste horizons, while automatically succumbing to the all-beige, fried Kids Meal on a regular basis will simply create a picky eater.  David Kamp put it very well in his recent NYTimes article.  Read it here.