Successful Weed-A-Thon and More!

Sarah, Amanda and I cleared
weeds from the Triangle Garden

Many thanks to Annie, Matt, Josh, Chris, Amanda and Sarah for coming out and making the gardens look so much better! Even Nate stopped by for a bit just to say hello after the Mission Bay Easter Egg hunt. So many projects were undertaken, it's hard to keep track of them all, but the gardens are looking so much better and a mountain of weeds were cleared.

Beautiful plants were revealed
 once the weeds were removed

We were also fortunate to get a visit from Crima's horticulture class from City College of San Francisco. Crima has been bringing students by to learn about the gardens for years, Annie did the tour and lecture this year, which is always a special event. Previously, we have even hosted interns from CCSF, which was a lot of fun for me to teach and come up with special projects. Many thanks to Crima and CCSF for visiting and supporting the gardens!

Hope to see you all at our regular workday on Saturday May 6th from 10-12.

Live Oak Changemaker Lesson with Fieldtrip

Lecture in progress

School was different when I was in the 2nd grade. We didn't have an Alemany Farm to visit for one thing, and we certainly didn't have our own School Learning Garden and afterschool program that involved cooking and sharing food we grew at school. Clearly the teachers, parents, and as I learned, the students at Live Oak, are motivated and capable! The end result is what seems to be a great learning environment full of happy people. I had a great time meeting Carla, Nick and Booka (thanks for sending the photos!) and all of their 2nd graders for a classroom 'Change Maker' lecture followed by a field trip to PSG and PRG.

Free exploration time

First up was the lecture. All those years getting a PhD have finally paid off,  I now feel slightly capable of putting together a power point presentation for 2nd graders! Ok I'm kidding around, but really, I think that it is a big honor for Annie and I to be asked to give a teaching lecture for kids, and I was really glad that I could take time off work to go. Following the 'Change Maker' lesson guidelines from the teachers, I basically framed our organization along these lines:

Hmm, that's not an example of Dadaism

What do you want to do?
Why do you want to do this, and how does it affect others?
How do you make it so you get to do what you want?

The kids seemed pretty engaged during the lecture and I was surprised at how excited they all were when they saw the photo of my dog Bentley on one of the slides (note to self: include photo of Bentley in next presentation at work...)

After the lecture we went to the gardens, and started off with some free exploration of the garden, followed by a Q&A, and then a walk through of both gardens. Unfortunately someone had dumped a TV set at PRG, but it did make for a good teaching moment as we talked about what it means and takes to create a safe and beautiful place. It was a great afternoon, and it was a privilege to be able to share the garden.