RootDown LA

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Today was our last day of the semester, working in the Jefferson garden with Ms. Kelley’s art class.  Surveying the scene, you might not have thought much of our progress this spring.  Several beds are barely sprouting seeds, new trellises have JUST become upright, and the thirty plus kids (you know about those super-sized LAUSD classes?) to some observers, might not seem super engaged; they drag their feet at the start of each new day, mumbling about getting their shoes dirty, complaining they aren’t getting paid. They say unkind things about the worms.

For those of us who have been out with these kids for the past three months, THIS is what we see:

The kids making tacos near the greenhouse?  They run that culinary show.  After two weeks of our staff trying to enlist them in some orderly cooking session, we instead turned all the food prep over to them and it became more organized than we could have imagined.  The kids took turns, picking menu items, setting up and dismantling the cooking space, and assuring that every kid in the garden got a taste of the day’s fare.  Tossing their scraps in the compost bin, they can explain now, how those nutrients will go back into the soil.

Seven  raised beds have been filled with a combination of compost, (carried in wheelbarrowful at at time by the kids) and an intricate mix of soil amendments, carefully measured out, scoop by scoop.  The compost bin was filled, it did it’s work on our food scraps and brown waste, and the soil WE created, returned also, to the beds. Weeds, not the ones we see today, but the ones that would have taken over the garden entirely, have been eradicated.  Mulch has been hauled over also, to make paths between the planted plots.

This last day of the semester, we found in the areas we did manage to plant the past few weeks, two little tomatoes, nicely formed and waiting to vine northwards on those new trellises.  Lettuce and cucumbers and snow peas and radishes will be harvested over the summer, and next fall, due to all the soil amendment work the kids have trooped through, we will simply be ready to plant, harvest, and eat.  Next year’s class is going to OWE this year’s class, big time, for the less sexy bits of gardening prep work they took on.

The very best thing about what happened this spring?  (Keep in mind we’d all had disagreements, frustrations, and flat out work strikes throughout the semester.)  When we passed around a sheet of paper today, and asked the kids, “Who wants to stay in touch with us over the summer, sign up here?”  The kids didn’t say much.  We figured at least two or three may express interest.  When the piece of paper came back, twenty names were clearly written on it.  The student who handed it to us had even taken the effort to re-write the list after the first one got cooking oil on it.  They all wanted to be sure we could read their names. 

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Thanks to the enthusiastic support of our new programs intern, Shara Prophet, and for funding from the Network for a Healthy California, RootDown LA is rapidly rolling out more four-week cooking, nutrition and food systems classes.  These fun, high energy classes give folks simple techniques to make healthy food taste better, and help drive home the importance of eating more nutrient rich whole foods, and fewer calorie and additive/sugar/sodium dense processed foods.

Partners in the community – A Place Called Home, Nuevo South, L.A.U.R.A, and Jefferson High – have all invited us to connect with youth and adult groups to run these veggie heavy classes.  Homemade pico de gallo, sauteed veggie and chicken quesadillas, spicy carrot cucumber salads, tangy orange yogurt dip are coming out of the kitchen as we convince more folks that healthy food can be tasty, affordable, and easy to eat every day.

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Since we launched RootDown LA over four years ago, we’ve viewed our work through something of a “supply and demand” paradigm.  We’d heard about corner store conversion projects in South LA and always wondered, is the demand being built to meet the increase in fresh produce folks want to bring into these corner stores?

RootDown launched initial programming to focus on the demand side of food systems change.  First and foremost, if we want to sell more veggies, we have to get people to eat more veggies.  We do this through after-school and community cooking classes, Healthy Food Tastings, and our new Service Learning project, teaching high school students the tricks to make veggies taste better, then helping them bust the myths that healthy food is too nasty, expensive or inconvenient to eat every day.

In 2011, RootDown LA also started addressing the supply side of food systems change – we are now engaging youth in the growing of fresh produce, through our in-school and residential gardens and neighborhood compost program.

We were honored last year, to be invited to connect with the Community Market Conversion (CMC) program, and other local food orgs. in South Los Angeles, that recognize the importance of engaging the community to support increases of fresh produce in our neighborhoods.

While participating in planning talks with the CMC program, we got excited about the idea of creating a supply of produce right where it would meet consumer demand – directly at the market.  Money Saver’s Meats owner, Ozabe Banks, jumped on the idea and invited us to break ground at his store. Since winter, we have brought on three local youth to amend the soil, build raise beds, and help grow and promote the same kind of fresh foods Mr. Banks wants to sell through the market.

Thanks to the Clif Bar Family Foundation who just gave us a small grant to keep this project growing.  We intend to build a model to figure out more ways we can engage local high school youth in a market-centered neighborhood local food program.

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Service learning is a teaching and learning strategy that integrates community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities. (So says the National Service Learning Clearinghouse!)

Kids in LAUSD schools MUST earn service learning credits before they graduate high school.  What better way to earn those credits than to help bring more healthy food into their neighborhoods?

RootDown LA’s 6-week Service Learning program focuses first, on getting kids over their own aversion to veggies. Then… Continue reading ‘Service Learning – the RootDown LA way!’

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We hear it all the time, “I don’t have time for breakfast.”  Ha!  The past couple of weeks we’ve been reminding kids they need about 5 minutes to sautee a few veggies and throw in a couple of eggs to make a supremely healthy breakfast.

We made breakfast in the garden at Jefferson High during Ms. Kelley’s Wednesday morning art class.  Then again we busted out the bell pepps, zucchini, cilantro, and jalapenos after school at the Ralph Bunche House – during our Thursday after school cooking classes and new Service Learning trainings.

Muchos gracias to all the chickens – we HEART your eggs!

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You think kids don’t appreciate good tasting healthy food?

I was sitting in the Ralph Bunche House this afternoon, listening to a few of our Youth Leaders prep food for a tasting for Jefferson High’s parent night.  They were saying something about the rice being gross and undercooked.  “What are you TALKING about?”  I shouted out to them.  Just a half hour earlier, I’d walked in the kitchen to find our ACE culinary programs assistant, Andres Chopin, pouring a beautifully cooked batch of brown Basmati into a bowl.

Andres came into the office, “No no, they are talking about the state rice.”  State rice?  I wondered.  “School lunch,” he clarified, and the girls followed in to explain…  Continue reading ‘We couldn’t pay kids to come up with this stuff…’

Last week we were working with a group of students from Jefferson High’s Green Academy; they are planning to design and install an edible garden at the home of one of our neighbors on East 40th Place.  These same kids had connected with RootDown once before in the Jefferson garden, where we tended to our crops, blanched some broccoli and made a little homemade salsa.

Jerson Ramirez said he’d been making that “stuff” (salsa) ever since we made it in the garden. He wanted to know where we got those blue corn chips.  Trader Joe’s we said. Which, still won’t come to South LA because it doesn’t fit into their business model.  But that’s ok.  We’ll keep building the demand for healthier processed foods, and the stores already here will start offering them – organic blue corn chips included.

To anyone who says it’s hard to get kids to eat healthy food, we say – talk to Jerson.  Maybe he’ll make salsa with you and get you to eat your tomatoes.

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Thanks SO much to TreePeople, who enabled RootDown to give away 25 trees to our friends and neighbors today.  We had SUCH a good time this morning, sharing our pumpkin quesadillas and fresh fruits and veggies with all the folks who showed up to get a tree and tend the garden Enrich LA established at John Muir Middle School.

We’re looking forward to having a fruit harvesting and jam making party in three years when these little trees start to bear.  Stay tuned!