GroW Community Garden Volunteer Form

Hey Everyone! As promised here is the link to the volunteer form to the garden. You can use this form to submit your service hours and make suggestions for the improving the volunteer experience for others!

Thanks again for all of your help!!!! Go Green!

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dFgwZ3lIS1ZZMkZ0Ti1wVUlUUVFFZWc6MA

Michelle Obama's Challenge and GroW

For those of you not familiar with what has been going on at GW, a few weeks ago Michelle Obama challenged GW students to complete 100,000 hours of community service. If we complete these hours by May 2010, Mrs. Obama will be our commencement speaker (pretty cool huh?!). GroW is going to help GW reach this goal because all the time we spend watering, planting, weeding, and doing other miscellaneous garden tasks count towards these 100,000 hours. Our fantastic member J.D. Spang created a spreadsheet that will track our volunteer hours.

We are going to get the spreadsheet posted here asap-so stay tuned.

In the meantime if you have questions or want to record your hours please email us at foodjusticealliance@gmail.com

Just a quick update on the GroW Community Garden:
It seems as if the days are getting a little shorter and the mornings that much colder. But have no fear; our plants are still growing! In fact our experiential fall thyme seems to just be sprouting now: hopefully the frost will hold off for a few more weeks. Speaking of our little sprouts, the reason they are doing so fantastic is because of the dedication of our members who have been watering every day. Big shout out to our watering crew!


That's all for this Wednesday: Enjoy a nice cup of tea and a fall apple this afternoon.

GroW Community Garden Groundbreaking

Well we did it!! GW finally has a community garden. Our groundbreaking went off perfectly and was such a great collaboration between students, administrators and community members.

About 20 students were there; Office of Sustainability; Office of Real Estate;the Landscape Design Program which designed the actual garden; Office of Community Service; School of Public Health; Mrs. Knapp; our financial supporter David; and some other interested community members. The Hatchet as well as media relations from GW covered the groundbreaking.




A few speeches were given and then it was time to get down and dirty. Our fearless volunteers helped fill the remaining beds with soil and compost and then we direct seeded some fall crops. We planted endive, lettuce, radishes, swiss chard, spinach, and turnips. We have been watering the garden every day since and hope to see some baby plants very soon.



We will be maintaining the three beds until more are built and we can move into phase 2 of planting the rest of the garden. For now, this is a great way to kick off the fall and thank you to everyone who helped make the day a success.



Look for more picture soon as our crops start to come in.

Welcome Back

Welcome back to a brand new, super exciting school year.

The FJA was super busy this summer as there was lots of work to do to make sure the garden has its groundbreaking (which it does!). John was in DC and helped out with the Foggy Bottom Garden Club, chose a landscape design for the garden, and tabled at orientation for freshman to get them involved in FJA. Claire worked tirelessly on our organization's constitution, and fingers crossed we will be an official student org within the next few weeks! Amanda was busy farming away but still making sure all the little nooks and crannies got taken care of.

So about that groundbreaking: YES it is actually happening: September 12, 2009 on the north side of H St. between 23 and 24 St. We are going to be planting some late fall crops such as lettuce, chard, and radishes as well as having some speakers address the huge accomplishment that is the GroW Community Garden. At 12 we are inviting people and their friends to come with a bag lunch and have a picnic in the garden.

Leading up to the 12 there is much to be done such as getting food for the event, putting the raised beds in place, laying cardboard (which we went dumpster diving for around campus!), and filling the beds with dirt.

FJA is very excited that our "baby" that we have nurtured and seen grown is finally happening.

Stay tuned for more updates about the GroW garden and other projects we are up to.

Don't forget to enjoy the last few weeks of summer with the bounties of yummy food at the farmers market; I just picked up some white peaches and they smell absolutely delicious.

peace, love, and food for all