Stories We Love From 2019
January 2020 Newletter
Thank You!
Before we get to sharing our favorite stories of 2019, we are excited to share news about our 2019 winter appeal. We are so thankful to have a supportive community who recognize the importance that a garden can bring to healing a community and providing opportunity for students to thrive. Coming into our 10th year, City Schoolyard Garden set a lofty goal of $20,000 raised for our winter appeal. Thanks to the generosity and support of the community, we have met our goal.
If you were not able to support us during the appeal but still want to contribute to the healing and growing happening in the gardens please visit our donate page and giving today.
We are looking forward to the new and growing programs happening this spring.
February 2019
Healthy Schools: Composting at CCS
It’s easy to feel that one person can’t impact a big system, especially when you’re a kid.
And yet, thanks to Charlottesville City Schools’ commitment to using paper-based lunch trays and insuring they are delivered to a composting program, every city student will have the chance to participate in a daily small act that benefits the environment.
This year, Charlottesville City Schools are joining the effort to put organic material in a compost program instead of a landfill....
March 2019
Surprise Sunflowers at Jackson-Via
It’s mid-February and time to start seeds with classes. Pre-K, 1st, and 3rd grade classes scoop up potting soil, sprinkle in 2 or 3 seeds and cover up them up. They water them and watch them soak up the growlight sunshine.
Emily Axelbaum, a third grade teacher and avid gardener (who you may know from her many years as CSG Youth Education Director) comes into one of the classrooms and asks what we are growing. “Tomatoes and peppers!”, I say. “Those look like sunflowers”. I shake my head. “No, we didn’t plant any sunfl…oh.” Then I think back to last spring....
April 2019
Youth Intern Trip to D.C.
written by Leon Nunez
I was able to attend the Teen Earth Optimism event in Washington DC to represent CSG with my fellow youth interns. I had thought the community of teenagers interested in healthy eating and food justice was small, but I found many teenagers from various backgrounds and ages who were also passionate about food justice and community gardens.
At conversation stations, organizations such as City Schoolyard Garden were given the chance to inform teens about what they do and how teens could get more involved in the community. My peers and I set up an empowerment flag activity to attract teens to talk with.
May 2019
A Bountiful Harvest at Clark
April showers bring May flowers… and a bounty of greens at the Clark Elementary School Garden!
For the past few weeks, students have been hard at work pulling weeds, prepping the garden beds with compost, planting, and watering the garden. Eager hands gently tended to each garden bed and words of encouragement were shared with growing seedlings. In a few short weeks, our young gardener’s efforts paid off. The salad garden, consisting of kale, bok choy, and various lettuces has provided students with their first harvest of the year! Students from the CLASS Garden Club were able to take home a head of romaine lettuce to share the results of their efforts with their families.
June 2019
Fairy in the Garden at BME
Spring brought more than just the usual flowers and bugs to the Burnley Moran City Schoolyard Garden. The garden club also set up a home and mailbox for a fairy garden home. Immediately the fairy began to write letters to students, and students read, responded, and created places for the fairy to live.
The following weeks were filled with 1st and 2nd grade students creating habitat for a garden fairy throughout the garden; students of all ages creating homes, structures and art pieces out of materials found in the garden; kindergarteners practicing their writing and drawing by sending letters back to the fairy
July 2019
Local Food Local Places
On July 16th and 17th, the Charlottesville Food Justice Network and the City of Charlottesville held a community event called Local Foods, Local Places. This event was made possible through a technical assistance grant from the Environmental Protection Agency. There was tremendous turnout at the event, with dozens of community members, 4 foundations, 7 federal and state partners, 4 city departments, 6 housing and redevelopment organizations, and 16 non-profits present. The workshop was a wonderful opportunity for the community to come together and explore together how to amplify urban agriculture and food equity in Charlottesville.
August 2019
The Power in Food–Youth Internship Program
written by Makayla Howard, 4th-year Food Justice Intern
Summer of 2019 was one of our best summers yet. Our workdays were filled with harvesting, weeding, and planting but the best part of it all was having the ability to meet new people and learn a little more about our city’s history. This summer we had the honor of participating in the Local Food, Local Places seminar. We, as interns, started our day with a workday at Charlottesville High School, where we later held lunch, gave our introductions and talked about the events before us. Afterwhich, we got on a bus and headed to Michie Drive to hear two of the residents share their history and stories about the garden. I personally have only been to this particular garden a few times and all the things growing there shocked me. Since the majority of people in the neighborhood are Nepali, they planted things like green beans, okra, potatoes and cabbage among many other things. For many of us, seeing the gardens and being able to show out partners all of our hard work was really empowering. We’ve worked at all of the CSG gardens this summer. The work at each garden ranged from tedious weeding sessions to constructing fences.
September 2019
Updates from Johnson Elementary
One of the things that makes both Johnson and the garden program here so special is the sense of ownership that teachers and students have taken. Over the years, as the Garden has grown so has the overall participation across the school, and in turn, the opportunities for learning have similarly expanded. This year, every teacher at Johnson, across all grades (even the 3 year old pre-K class) scheduled weekly or biweekly garden time before the school year had even started!
Each year, teachers bring both their students and their ideas, thereby making the Garden better for themselves as well as the next class and the next generation of students who come into this space. The new and growing Science Center and Mud Kitchen, the idea for which came from a former Johnson teacher, is one such project.
October 2019
Farm to School Week
Check out that lunch on the left. This lunch is 100% LOCALLY SOURCED & FROM SCRATCH! It was served on Wednesday October 9th for Farm to School Week!
This year we had another wonderful Farm to School week full of great food and farm visits. Farm to School Week is a Virginia “program [that] promotes opportunities for schools, distributors and growers to work together to increase the volume of locally grown foods served in school cafeterias and dining halls at all levels of education.”
November 2019
UACC: Celebrating Twelve Years of Growing
The farming life is fraught with uncertainty about the weather. On the Saturday before UACC’s Fall Garden Gathering, the temperature struggled to reach a chilly 45 degrees before dropping back below freezing. But then just like that, Sunday arrived with sunny skies and an almost balmy 66 degrees. The day grew brighter still with the laughter of children skirting about the big tent set up for the event, a day bookended by cheerful greetings and bittersweet memories.
It was the end of an era at Friendship Court. After 12 years of working side-by-side with community members to grow and share healthy food, UACC put its flagship garden to bed for the last time. Next Spring, instead of kale and collards, new housing will rise out of the rich soil nurtured for so many years by former Farmer Todd, now with the Office of Human Rights, and UACC’s Farm Manager, Jennifer Minor.
December 2019
National Community Food Systems Conference in Savannah, Georgia
December 10th , 2019 brought your City Schoolyard Garden and Charlottesville Food Justice Network team members to Savannah, GA for the Community Food Systems Conference as key workshop presenters during the 2-day summit.
Our diverse team of 3 youth food justice interns from Charlottesville High School, Grace King, Emmanuel Quezada-Romero, and Amyah Limbacher, alongside mother and community food justice advocate Tamara Wright with her children Legend and Jayleana held an engaging workshop on defining food justice within each sector of our community food system. After giving an overview of our organization's food justice programming, their session invited participants to reflect on their personal knowledge of unfairness that occurs and how we can create paths for equity to shine through within each sector. As a group we moved around the room and held discussions about production, transportation, processing, distribution, consumption, waste and recycling. Participants were allowed to share personal stories from their own communities or work they're engaged in.
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BONUS FAVORITE
Meet the Community Food Justice Advocates
The Community Food Justice Advocates program is off to a great start. The 12-week program started in June, alongside the City Schoolyard Garden Youth Food Justice Internship. Over the summer, 4 community advocates and 7 youth interns pulled their efforts together in envisioning healthier school meals across cultural and generational lines. The product of this intergenerational leadership has shed light on the emerging power of youth-led change supported by community advocates. In early August, the youth and community advocates (many of them parents of children attending CCS) presented their core goals for advancing Healthier School Meals. This growing grassroots leadership team looks forward to cultivating change throughout the year together.
CSG sends out a hearty thank you to each and every one of the individuals, businesses and foundations that support making youth garden connections. We thrive with your partnerships. Thank you!
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This month we are showing support for our partners who have shown support to CSG through In-Kind donations.
Join our Cultivar Partners.
Donate to City Schoolyard Garden today
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