Annual Roots & Wisdom Garden Party

The green roof pavilion recently construct with much help from GE 

employees who support the Roots & Wisdom program. The pavilion 

replaced the large white tent used during the summer to keep 

the youth and guests dry and out of the sun.

            The Annual Garden Party was last night. We were celebrating the seventh growing season of the Roots & Wisdom program and the construction of the new green roof pavilion. I worked during the afternoon and evening to set up for the party. On my way to the garden I picked up the balloon order and a bag of ice from Price Chopper. Debbie and I set up the tables, drinks, and decorations together. And I display for the thank you gifts. The gifts were for the six people who played the most important roles in funding and building the new green roof pavilion, which replaced the big white tent we used for shade and to keep the rain off during the summer program.

For most of the party, I worked the sign-in/registration table. I checked people off the guest list and asked them to make nametags. I also collected any donations people wanted to make. I mingled with people as they came in. Many asked why I was working with the program and how it had impacted me. It was great to see how excited they were to hear from a program participant.

When there was no one checking in, I passed the time talking to Sarah. Sarah was a youth participant with me during 2008 and 2009, she volunteered with us last summer, and she is currently the assistant grower and will be the Children’s Garden Director during this year’s summer program. She and I are examples of how the program just keeps bringing people back because of its great impact on the youth. Sarah is one of the life-long friends I have made as a result of participating in Roots & Wisdom. We both chose our career paths based on our experiences in the garden and were talking about different career plans and job opportunities we knew about. We can be great resources for each other.

Halfway through the night, we had the speech portion of the program. Debbie welcomed everyone and thanked them for coming. She introduced Jenny who said a few words about the program and what it means to her and she discussed the importance of the college-aged leadership team. Then Jenny introduced Sarah who gave a great speech about listening to one of her ninth grade teachers talking about his perfect day. His perfect day would be spent in the garden, walking among his plants, and being able to eat an apricot off the tree. Sarah said she thought what he said was crazy when she first heard the story but, after working with Roots & Wisdom, she understood exactly what he meant and agreed with his idea of a perfect day. Then, Debbie talked about the new green roof pavilion and thanked those people who had a key role in funding and building the pavilion. While she spoke about each person, I handed out their gifts. We wrapped up the speech portion with a few quick words from Terresa Bakner, the Director of the Board of Trustees of Cornell Cooperative Extension, and Debbie gave a few closing words of thanks. Form the audience, Chris also had us recognize Debbie and all her great work.

The party was a great success. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and we raised a decent amount of money. I enjoyed greeting the guests and talking to them. I love sharing how important the program has been to me. Roots & Wisdom helped break me out of my shell, exposed me to diversity, introduced me to some amazing life-long friends, one of them is my college roommate, and influenced my career path in a way I never could have imagined. If I had not worked at Roots & Wisdom, I really do not know what I would be doing with my life. I wouldn’t possess the same passion and ambition I have to work with the environment and to share my knowledge with everyone.

The gifts I designed for the key people in making the 

green roof pavilion a possibility whether it was 

through funding, organizing, designing, or building. 

Thank you so much to everyone for supporting Roots & Wisdom!

Internship Day Four -- Veggie Theatre Rediscovered!

I love Veggie Theatre. I have mentioned it in a previous post and I will definitely mention it again this summer. Today, I worked more on organizing Chris's old files for the Event and Outreach Binder I am putting together and I focused on Veggie Theatre resources for the day. I found some old raps and skit scripts so I decided to go through all of my old videos and type up any skits, raps, poems, etc. that were missing. I printed them all out for the binder and they can now be used again or as inspiration for new ideas for this summer and years to come. I believe the only act that has been repeated is the Veggie Rap which traditionally ends the theatre program. Veggie Theatre is a great way to promote sustainability and healthy lifestyles through entertainment mediums and the youth really enjoy themselves and have an opportunity to gain more self-confidence through the performances.

Several Veggie Theatre skits can be found on the Roots & Wisdom Youtube page. The video below is the Veggie Rap as perform in 2008. I love Eliah's commentary :)

And so the Internship Begins!

I started my internship with Roots & Wisdom (see previous post about the program here) yesterday. I will be working as the Events and Outreach Coordinator for 10 weeks. On my first day, Debbie gave me a tour of the office and introduced me to some people. The Roots & Wisdom office is part of the Cornell Cooperative Extension Schenectady Office Suite in Schenectady, NY. She and I set down together and she asked me what I thought this internship would be. I said I thought it would consist of planning the annual Garden Party for supporters, Open House, brown bag luncheon, and children group visits. I also thought the job would consist of guiding the events crew in workshop design and garden tours and how to work with children’s groups. I also would look for grants and other funding opportunities, and if I have free time, I would like to work on organizing the video clips from last year that mainly consist of interviews with youth and crew leaders about the program. The video in the making would be a great way for donors, supporters, and others interested in learning more about the program to hear about the program from the people it effects the most, the youth. Debbie thought all of those ideas were great and were pretty much what she was hoping I would work on. She also may enlist my help toward the end of the summer program to plan some fall events.

After we talked, I spent my time in the office reading Fundraising for Dummies by John Mutz and Katherine Murray, copyright 2000. I scanned through the book for ideas for the Garden Party and other fundraising tips and ideas. There were many useful looking sites listed throughout the many sections of the book, and I will be browsing those sites once I am able to connect to the internet in the office.

The big thing for me to work on this week is the Garden Party, which will be next Wednesday evening. The Garden Party will be held right in the Fehr Avenue Garden. It will serve as a dedication for the new Green Roof Pavilion that was recently installed. Any donations brought in as a result of the Garden Party go towards paying the summer leadership crew, which includes the Crew Leader, Children’s Garden Leader, and the Assistant Grower.

Today, Debbie and I firmed up some details for the Garden Party. We finalized the menu and constructed a tentative supply/things to buy list. Debbie will be checking on some of the supplies to let me know how much I need to pick up during my trip to the store on Friday for supplies. After our meeting, I made photocopies of the recipes I found in the recipe books here and I printed a salsa recipe from culinate.com. As a result of our meeting, I have some more tasks to do this week.

I listened through the old interview videos I have saved from last year. I found some quotes from youth and laminating them to display at the Garden Party. Here are few of the quotes I picked out for Debbie to take a look at:

•         “Oh, sure. Anyone that wants to make a difference in the community would be very good for this program. Anyone could do this but it’s something that you really gotta put your mind to. It’s something that not everyone else can do. Like we’re not making a huge difference, but we’re making a little dent. And it’s better something than nothing.” –Josiah M. (see Josiah's wonderful interview here)
•        “My favorite thing to do is I love water fights! No, I’m just joking. Shhh. You know what I’m saying? But nah, my favorite thing to do is like harvest and seeing our progress. You know what I mean. Like, once you harvest and see how well the plant has grown… and selling it. Being able to sell to people.” – Mike B.
•          When asked if she planned on staying involved with Roots & Wisdom. “I have only been involved for six years. So, yeah, as long as I can.” – Amata C.
•          “I’m more sociable working in the garden. I first came here I was shy, but then I broke out of that very easily. So I learned to work with people better.” – Lemia
•          “It’s good to have a big, green plot of land in an urban area.” – Matt
•          “Well, that is my favorite part of working here. You get to meet really cool people and work in the garden at the same time, so you’re doing something worthwhile and you’re meeting a lot of new people and making friends.” – Claire F.

I will also be keeping my supplies in a binder, which I will turn into an events and outreach resource binder for the program. I will be going through Chris’s old documents to see what is useful for the binder and for myself this summer. I will also be investigating some websites from Fundraising for Dummies and creating a list with summaries for anyone who needs resources in the future. I even confirmed a date with for the Carver Community Center group to visit the garden, today, but I forgot to agree upon a time. I will communicate with Ms. Hill again tomorrow to figure out a good time. It sounds like the Events Crew will have a large group to work with and educate! I had a very productive day and will probably work mostly on resources tomorrow. I am really enjoying getting a feel for the behind the scenes work that goes into a community garden program like this.