Fwd: 2nd Beacon Food Forest Community Design Meeting 7/13/11

[Noam Gaster]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Noam Gaster <noamg...@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 12:34 PM
Subject: Fwd: 2nd Beacon Food Forest Community Design Meeting 7/13/11
To: Stephanie Seliga <fo...@justgarden.org>

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Glenn Herlihy <glennh...@speakeasy.net>
Date: Sun, Jul 10, 2011 at 2:20 PM
Subject: 2nd Beacon Food Forest Community Design Meeting 7/13/11
To: glennh...@speakeasy.net

Hello Friends, Food Foresters and Local Food Advocates,

The Friends of the Beacon Food Forest would like to invite you to our second of three community design parties for the Beacon Food Forest. We will be viewing and commenting on three design options for the Food Forest presented by the Harrison Design Group.  

Date:  Wednesday July 13th (this Wednesday)

Time:  6:30pm till 8:30pm

Place:  El Centro de la Raza, 

     2524 16th Ave S.

     Dinning Hall, lower level at the North end of the building.

     Food and drinks provided

This is an exciting moment for Beacon Hill as we begin to see the possibilities unfold for a forest that will nurture our neighborhood in many ways. This next meeting will bring a lot to the table as far as how much we can grow, what we grow and how we create our management plan. At this meeting we will have actual design renderings for us to build on, collaborate with and collectively select what works for all of us in a final design.  

Working together and forming a Management Plan. Creating a management plan for our garden is vital to our success. At the upcoming community meeting we will seek your input and ideas on how we all will manage the food forest. Who wants to plant and manage the plants? How will people coordinate with each other? Would you liike to 'adopt' an area for your responsibility? Who gets to harvest the fruits? How much will go to the food bank? There are many questions to ask and consider. Thus, we will begin a process to create a management plan, and it will take us several months to create it together.

The Beacon Food Forest aims to create opportunities and networks in many areas of Urban Agriculture. By creating an abundance and a diversity of edible plant varieties we can increase our food supplies to ourselves, our neighbors and local food banks. This diverse bank of plants is also a valuable tool for education, fund raising and cultural diversity appreciation. Diversity in nature is a sign of a healthy system.

 We want to create educational opportunities for the whole family. These could be workshops for soil preparation, starting plants, water conservation, harvesting, canning, natural crafting and seed saving. Having an local garden education facility is a huge asset for our neighborhood and will greatly increase our resiliency in hard economic times. Just like locally collected seeds have a memory and are better adapted to the local soil making them more resilient to pests, so too will be our neighborhood's garden knowledge.

Educational opportunities for surrounding institutions. Asa Mercer Middle school, the VA Hospital, Jefferson Park Community Center, El Centro de la Raza, Denise Louie Childcare, Church groups and environmental groups etc. These groups can strengthen their bond as a group and their place in the community by involvement. Working in and with nature has a strong ability to calm, heal and reward. 

Our first design meeting was powerful and well attended (over 60 people). It is clear there is a lot of interest in creating a forest garden. During the first meeting Jenny Pell, one of the designers, was showing amazing pictures of other community gardens and talking about how one garden becomes the foundation for a variety of delicious edible plants and from there these plants are propagated, shared and spread throughout the neighborhood until the entire area is a thriving nutritious metropolis. The audience at that moment was breathless and then slowly one could hear whispers of "Yes" all around the room. It was a moment of community bliss and a collective realization that one day Beacon Hill could rise to that level of ecological health.

These examples can all become true if you join us and add yourself, your family to the momentum we are building.

This is your community thinking ahead and building hope for a positive future. Please tell your friends.

Sincerely,

Friends of the Beacon Food Forest