August 2010

I am an advocate of getting involved in one's local community and leaving a footprint - no matter how big or small. I feel strongly about green efforts, sustainability, and their impact on future generations. With those interests in mind, I have been volunteering and helping alongside my dear friends, Nora Dvosin and Nancy Giffin, at Westminster Elementary School, a local elementary school in my Venice, California neighborhood on a greening initiative. With Nora and Nancy steering, we are working to convert most of the surrounding asphalt to gardens, which when complete will host a range of vegetation including an organic edible garden, a butterfly garden, a fruit tree orchard, and an urban forest of native trees, shrubs and grasses.

My contribution to this project has been to design the master plans for these garden spaces, and now some wonderfully charitable people – particularly Nancy and Nora – have begun implementing the designs. Although it will take awhile for the full project to be completed, the immediate changes are proving to be successful.

The children, in grades 1-5, are very involved and engaged in the project, planting and germinating the seeds, watering the grounds, cultivating the crops and tending to their harvests. They are thrilled to learn about where food comes from, how it grows and what it requires to survive. These students are being educated about a healthy lifestyle, as well as learning responsibility. Students are in charge of maintaining the grounds and learning the value of nurturing another life source. It is stressed that this is their garden and that concept is helping to develop stronger relationships between students and teachers as they work together to make it successful. In each grade the various gardens and green spaces provide "outdoor classrooms" that support "indoor" science, math, language arts and history curricula. The fact that theses gardens are integrated into the curriculum is a testament to how meaningful they are to education.

This concept of "greening" schools is a growing trend especially in the Los Angeles school districts. In this video from Anderson Cooper 360, the reporter, shows the kind of impact this development can have on children of all ages.

Our program has recently expanded and now local restaurant owner and executive chef of Joe's Restaurant, Joe Miller, is involved. Joe cooks with the students using fresh fruits and veggies harvested from the garden. In addition, he contributes his restaurant's green kitchen waste to the garden's large and prolific compost project.

The next phase of the process, which is already underway, is extending the project to the Kindergarten class which is right next to the elementary school. Future plans also include adding a tool shed, council garden, library and kitchen, as well as solar panels.

This is a wonderful project in which I have had the pleasure to be involved. I enjoy being part of a positive global shift through educating local children about their ability to cultivate the future they want for themselves and the society in which they live. This is simply my way of embracing the wise adage: think globally, act locally. Further information can be found on Westminster Elementary Garden's Facebook page..