Category Archives: School Gardens Project

An Untiring Servant

2
Posted by on in animal and plant life, collaborating, Community, Inspiration, Personal Values, School Gardens Project, Service Activities, Slow Food, Slow Food Prescott, Social, Striving

July 30, 2023- A small group of organic farmers and food security activists gathered, among the young families, street musicians and urban campers, for the purpose of honouring a man who has spent much of his time here ensuring that food security is real in this community and that the unhoused, as well as those sheltering because of abuse and neglect, get access to their daily nutritional needs.

John A. and his wife are moving to a homestead, in eastern Tennessee. There, they will have a good opportunity to continue what they have done here. A Slow Food chapter thrives in that area, as ours does here. There is substantial interest in school gardens, as there is here. The growing season is comparable to ours, as is the elevation. There is a somewhat wetter climate, so more might conceivably be accomplished.

John’s energy puts me to shame, but he is twenty years my junior, so no need to feel remorse. He will, though, be very hard to replace. It may well be that a team will form to tend to the matter of delivering food to the shelters, once or twice a week. That was John’s initial suggestion, in any case.

I have been fortunate to have worked with him, on several small projects, and to learn some building and mechanical skills that had eluded me, for many years. The saving grace, though, is that Athens, TN is not that far from Knoxville or Crossville, where I also have friends. When en route back to Home Base, from the Northeast in September, I will be sure to try and connect, at their new place.

Seared into Community

4
Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Education, Family, Hiking and Nature, Inspiration, Personal goals, Personal Values, School Gardens Project, Service Activities, Social, Striving

January 8, 2019-

The local Sears may well be closing soon, along with most others of that company’s sites.  That fact has nothing to do with the title of this post, though.

Prescott has taught me how to be fully part of a community-actually a lesson that Saugus, and later, the Hopi Nation, tried to teach me, years ago, with varying degrees of success.  I guess that now, in my advanced middle age, and with a few knockabouts under my belt, people are more easily understood by me, and vice versa.

There is a move afoot for several of us to go to a National Park Service property (to be determined), and engage in a clean-up, this weekend.  This is just the latest of examples of why this community has a commitment from my heart to stay and work for the next 2-2.5 years, before family, and the curiosity about the wider world, take primacy in my life, once again.  My Faith community, the Red Cross, a local school gardens group, various individual friends-and my co-workers at Prescott High School have kept me well-occupied and quite happily so, especially these past two academic years.

This evening, I went to a fundraiser for our school’s Future Business Leaders of America.  Wildflower Bakery, a regional chain, has a new restaurant, within the shopping mall where it has been a fixture for several years.  It is visible from the road, and draws a fair crowd.  FBLA thus decided to hold its event here.  I support as many of these “club dinners” as I can, just out of love. Teens, in my view, deserve all the support they can get, in finding their way to a solid and sustainable future.
I guess this is the impetus to having all these other elements of community take root in my heart.

The Road to 65, Mile 148: Slingshot Day

4
Posted by on in bamboo fence, Mountain Oaks Charter School, Personal goals, School Gardens Project, Slow Food Prescott, Social

April 25, 2015, Prescott– I woke this morning, at 2:35, got shaven and dressed, then headed down to Phoenix Zoo, where an Oral Cancer Awareness Run/Walk was being held.  My volunteer position was the Raffle Table, where I sold tickets, oversaw the placement of tickets in various jars that were in front of prizes being raffled, and encouraged a couple of high school students who were walking about the grounds and selling tickets, as well.  The activity was most enjoyable and our happy mood drew many more people to the table, as they were curious as to the joyful atmosphere.  The old saying goes “Laugh and the world laughs with you.  Cry, and you cry alone.”  I have always found that to be a bit harsh, but I will go with the first part of it.

Around 8:20 AM, I left to go back up to Prescott, the reason being that I also planned to help out at the School Garden Project, at Mountain Oaks Charter School, where I have a loose association with the administration.  Plus, Slow Food Prescott has made school gardens a priority, and I support that group’s legitimate activities, even if I don’t always like the people it attracts.  Anyway, I got back home, napped for an hour, and got over to the school in time to put together a woven bamboo fence, in front of the back vegetable garden. After a quick lunch, the project ended with weeding a section along the front fence, and spreading manure, for the sunflowers, gourds and corn that were planted there.  These activities, also, were done in a joyous atmosphere.

That’s what service should be.  Contrasted with the sometimes grim and guarded posture that I find myself adopting, when dealing with aggressive homeless veterans, today’s activities were a breath of fresh air.  Tomorrow, I will focus more on paying respects to my departed friend, who served others constantly, in her own way.