Sustainable Springfield Recieves 1st Part of Blue Foundation Grant

[avs]

Sustainable Springfield has received the first part of its Blue Foundation Grant (total grant is $10,000).  We will be using this first portion to build out the children's garden on E 4th Street in Historic Springfield.  We will discuss possible dates to begin construction at our next board meeting, this Tuesday.

The lot is approx 35'x203' so we will need lots of volunteers (we will also be finishing out the fence at the community orchard probably the same day).  If you are interested in volunteer opportunities or if your company/corporation maybe interested, please contact us at SustainableSpringfield@yahoo.com and we will get you on our list to communicate the upcoming project dates and times.

The children's community garden will be used for a middle and high school gardening program where kids will learn not only growing skills, but economic/business skills as well as we will be giving them opportunites to sell their produce back into the community through various sources (RAM, restaurants, farmer's market, etc)

Thanks!
Amanda Searle
Sustainable Springfield, President

[Miss Fixit]

Congratulations!  Can't wait to see how the new garden takes shape - and count me in as a volunteer, both with installation and with the new program itself.

[Springfield Chicken]

That is awesome!  Amanda, you are making such a difference in people's lives!

[Ethylene]

Where on E 4th will this garden be exactly? The empty lots are bountiful or will be afterall! 

[Sigma]

Between Walnut and Ionia.

[sheclown]

YAH!

[avs]

This weekend SS, with the help of a about 30 volunteers, was able to use the first part of the Blue Foundation grant to build the kids garden on E 4th. 

THANK YOU to everyone who came out this weekend in the heat and worked your butts off! We got most of the garden done, still have the back gate to do, but the garden is functional.

I also want to send a BIG thank you to Bill Hoff and Wells Fargo! They were a great group of volunteers and really did the dirty work of filling the beds with manure.

ALSO, BIG thank you to SS's new supporting Board member: Allan DeVault! He is going to be working and volunteering more with us. Allan is one of the owners of Orsay and Chew and the restaurant being built in Riverside, next to Mossfire. He arranged for Black Hog Farm to donate three delicious, free range, chickens to Chew, who smoked them for us and made a great lunch for us all! Black Hog Farm does have Farm to Table memberships available. Also, Allan is wokring with a farm in St. Augustine to get the starts for the kids in the kids garden. He is going to be a great asset to SS.

Thank you to everyone who came out - we are VERY appreciative

We will be putting together the kids program for this Fall.  It will be for middle and high school kids.  They will each have their own bed to care for and will spend time not only growing food, but learning some job skills by selling the produce to local restaurants, etc.  They are going to recieve a stipend at the end for their work as well.  This should be a good stepping stone to learning some job skills and getting some experience.  If you know of any middle or high school kids who may be interested, please contact us at SustainableSpringfield@yahoo.com