A long overdue update! Part I

Hello All, while we don't really experience "winter" here in Oakland, I still took a little time to hibernate and work on programing and planning. I'm happy to finally be updating the blog and sharing in the exciting work we have been doing!

The Green Team has been very busy! The Green Team decided that it was important for all the garbage and recycling bins to be well labeled, so thanks to the publishing class, we have beautiful signs for our garbage and recycling! The Green Team spent close to four hours labeling every can we have in the school! Then the Green Team went around to each Advisory class and gave a power point presentation about where our garbage goes, how much we waste and the importance of reducing the amount of garbage we produce.


Above left: Nathanel reinforcing a point on a slide. Above right: Sabas, Karen, Chandra and Miguel
teaching a class.









Green team members labeling garbage cans.


Left: Brisa, Tenzin and Fatima showing where the garbage goes.

We have started cooking class! Thanks to the generous support of the Berkeley High School BBQ Club and the Center for Ecoliteracy we have been able to buy cooking equipment to have a moveable kitchen and food for cooking classes. For our first class, we made fresh fava bean soup and hummus. The next class we made Dal and samosas and last week we made potato fritters and a green salad with beets and warm goat cheese. The greens and beets were from our garden! So far there have been between 5-12 students from all different countries who have participated in the class. We are hoping to get some parents involved as well.

Below: potato fritters with onion and tomato relish and a beet and warm goat cheese salad.

Left: Pujan &
Sosina are excited to finally eat!









Above: Pujan and Shazia are already expert cooks!
Left: Sosina, Ana and Perla prepare the salad from our garden.

Above left: Shazia serving up Dal. Above right: Jessica preparing the spinach for the Dal
Above left: Asmait, Arsema and Sosina on the first day of class. Above right: Julieta and Ernestina rinsing red lentils.

Building garden beds and pea trellises

Last Wednesday

we had about 16 students help to build a new garden bed and some trellises for our peas.

Everyone wanted to get a chance to use the hand saw and the power drill. By the end the cuts were pretty straight!

Here Fatima is measuring out a cut.

The pea trellises came out beautifully, thanks to Tomi Kobara, a neighbor of the school and a landscape architect who donated some of her time to help out!

Here Sosina and Tati are setting the middle support board for the garden bed.

By the end of the day, all the boys had left and seven dedicated young woman stayed to finish the garden bed and clean up. They were proud of their work and excited to build the next one! We had some debate about where it should go, we need more sunny spots was the end conclusion. We hope to plant into this garden bed by the middle of January.

Cooking and Gardening

The following photos are from two days of harvesting and cooking with a few small groups of students. We harvested mustard greens, kale, bok choy, collards, lettuce and cilantro. We then served the food to all 300 students at lunch. We made a salad with butter lettuce, a cilantro spread on crackers and cooked greens with lemon and garlic. We got great feedback from many students who tried our tasty fresh offerings. The chef students were amazing, focused, hard working, with very positive attitudes. They also worked really well together. I can't wait to do more cooking with them. I'm working on getting a cooking cart so we can have a little more space and more kids can be involved. This week we will cook greens following a recipe from one of the students who loves cooked greens and wants to try cooking them her way!

The last few weeks...

We've had a busy few weeks at the community garden and wellness program!
In Bike Club, we took BART up to El Cerrito Del Norte and had a lovely ride all the way home.




Brisa, Tenzin and Ahng Sann and I made a salad from our garden and served it at lunch!



We had a special garden day with all the Biology classes. With the help of Grey Kolevzon and Zack Reidman we split the classes into three groups and did various garden projects, setting up a compost bin, planting seeds in Shady Grove, and cleaning up the Courtyard garden, adding new soil and planting fava beans. Seems like all the students got something out of it and it was great to be able to have all six classes in the gardens!


We also got our "Green Team" started! It is a dedicated group of about 20 students who are meeting with me every Thursday at lunch to discuss issues of waste, garbage and energy use at OIHS! We are planning some exciting projects that will hopefully reduce the amount of waste produced at OIHS. Some of the Green Team members volunteered at the Greenfest in San Francisco this past weekend.

We have joined SLWRP, Service Learning Waste Reduction Program. So far it's a great resource and support for our budding Green Team!
I was also fortunate enough to get to participate in the Food Justice Conference hosted by the Community Food Security Coalition. I went to workshops that discussed changing school food and bringing more local farm produce to schools. Good food for thought, no pun intended!

Food for our families

Last Wednesday the Garden Club harvested a bunch of food from our garden to pass it out to families that were coming for parent/teacher conferences. We harvested kale, chard, cilantro, mint, eggplant, peppers and tomatoes.

In the courtyard we removed a lot of undergrowth, some saplings and trimmed back all the plants, harvested the lavender and made them into bunches, added some new soil, put borders around the beds so the soil won't fall out and planted a cover crop for the winter.

Here are a few photos of the beginning of the garden. Clay Mu, Hel Say and Tenzin harvesting some tomatoes from an old garden planted by Refugee Transitions. Soybeans that Ms. Thi started and gave to us. Tenzin in the sunlight. Free soil at sunrise from the city of Berkeley.