School Gardens Committee Meeting-- your participation requested!

[Jasmine Samar Angelini-Knoll]

Hey there folks!

Hope everyone had a great weekend, and thanks for the wonderful ideas shared through the Google group email.  To recap, some key activities/goals for this committee suggested by various members so far are as follows:

*sharing curriculum materials

*staff development

*organizing/coordinating resources needed to start and maintain a school garden, such as tools, seeds, supplies, and information

*coordinating school-to-farm (and back to school!) relationships in which school gardens and students could be supported in growing starts for a farm or farms that would then grow the vegetables to harvest, then the food could come back to the school for use in school meals

*promoting public awareness about garden-based education and its benefits, perhaps by hosting an event involving participatory activities for kids and parents

With those ideas and others in mind, I'd like to try and organize a meeting for us to plan our action steps towards these goals.  Inspired by Julia of the Events and Outreach committee, I am using a scheduling tool called Doodle to help with this.

Just click on the link below and you will be able to enter your name and choose among the dates and times offered on the calendar-- you can also feel free to email me with dates and times you're available between March 21st and 31st.

http://doodle.com/sxtry3nyznb5ywyt

I am suggesting the Alachua County Library Headquarters, downtown on University Avenue, as a meeting place because it is easy to reserve a meeting room there and easy to find!

Thanks so much for your time and attention, and have a lovely week!

~jasmine

P.S. If anyone is not liking the Google group format, please let me know, and if anyone knows of any other free email list-serv hosts that we could potentially use to communicate, let me know about that too!  Thank you!

[Jasmine Samar Angelini-Knoll]

Hello again!

Thanks to everyone who responded via Doodle about scheduling a meeting date-- you can kindly disregard this reminder if you've already done so!

I am still waiting to hear from a few more folks, but I will close the poll after the weekend so that we can finalize the date with enough advance notice-- so please take a minute to put in your availability, or if you prefer, email me with dates and times between March 21st and 31st.

Thanks again everyone, and happy Thursday!

~jasmine

[sarah byrd]

Hello all:

I know many of us haven't met face to face, but there our garden at Kanapaha is really

gaining momentum these days, and we could use some labor help!

We just got the word today that Chestnut Hill Farms is going to donate a variety of 

fruit trees for our orchard.  It really is a boon, especially considering that we had scheduled a 

field trip to the 441 farmer's market with the kids this Saturday (3/12), where we have planned to pick up some

donated blueberry bushes and plant with some of the kids this Saturday. 

So, since we were already planting blueberry bushes, we may as well plant some of these fruit trees.

Tree planting, however is really hard work, and we would love some able-bodied help!

We plan to meet out at Kanapaha at 12:00 to plant the trees.  If you can make it, and have tools (such as a post-hole

digger), please bring them.  The garden is located at the back of the school.  You can drive right up to it.

It would be lovely to see you there (although I know it is short notice)!  

Take care,

Sarah