RootDown LA

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The high schoolers who took the PSATs at Jefferson High last Saturday rolled out of their classrooms looking less than thrilled.
“Was it awful?” we asked.
“Yup.” they confirmed.
They’d heard they were going to get a little food refueling by RootDown LA after their tests.

“Got a donut?” the first girl who reached us asked.
“Are you kidding?”  we laughed.  We love donuts.  We don’t, however feed them to kids to refuel them after PSATs.  Sorry.

Slowly though, the kids lined up to receive samples of our homemade salsa, veggie quesadillas and Mediterranean Continue reading ‘No sorry, we don’t have donuts – (today).’

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We can’t express enough gratitude to the Coalition for Responsible Community Development (CRCD) crew who came out to the Ralph Bunche House yesterday to clean up the yard!  Since RootDown LA did a “soft” take-over of the house last spring, we’ve only had so much time and so many resources to get the place sorted out after it had sat empty for more than a year.

The back yard in particular, had become grown over and dumped on – ginormous avacados fallen to the ground, thousands of leaves stacked so thick we didn’t know what was beneath, and sadly, some beer cans and remnants of late night visitors who’d been taking advantage of the house’s empty state.  The recycling bin, even, had become home to a hen and her eggs.

Our CDPH Network for a Healthy California grant is allowing us to expand our programming at Jefferson High further into the surrounding community via the Ralph Bunche House.  While the house will go under more significant renovation sometime in the next year, for now we just want to keep it tidy and presentable for all who come to cook, grow and eat healthy food with us.

Which reminds us – DO come join RootDown LA for Food Day on October 24th!  HOUSE PARTY!

On Monday, October 24th from 2-7pm, RootDown LA is hosting a house party at the Ralph Bunche House to celebrate the new Food Day.

RootDown LA is super grateful to have use of the Ralph Bunche house for its programming this year.  The house is just a half a block from our home school, Jefferson High, where students get horticultural/garden design lessons from RootDown peppered into their science, art and design classes during the school day.  Then they come hang out after school and learn how to make all those garden veggies taste better when they learn our simple cooking techniques.

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Today was a perfect example of why we’re so grateful Ralph Bunche left the community a house in which we can all now cook and eat together – we’re building community!  Our older youth leaders, new high school students, their siblings, one parent, and two younger neighborhood boys all dropped by to chop up peppers, onions and zucchini and sautee them all with chicken to place on a bed of jasmine rice.  We all sat around a table and ate together, relaxing and enjoying the company on this unusually hot LA afternoon.

We’re going to take it up a notch on the 24th.  Come join us at 1221 East 40th Place to eat, cook and hopefully dance a little (or a lot).  Bring your friends.  Bring your favorite homemade or healthy store-bought food or beverage to share.  Also consider bringing your own non-disposable plate, cup and silverware so we can reduce waste.

Find out more about this event on our Facebook page.  RSVP there or on the Food Day site.

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Yesterday we had SO much fun sharing our approach to nutrition education with the USC School of Social Work. Thanks to Jason Lipeles for inviting us in with our bags full of veggies.

Occasionally we get an audience that’s pretty food savvy already.  We have a brief moment of fear – do we have anything to teach people who grew up on farms and whose parents taught them to cook?  They may know already about local foods, or understand you get more nutrients from whole foods than you do from processed foods. STILL we always find, there’s plenty of room to further expand their veggie preferences.

Several students had never grated beets (grating is one of our techniques for getting the nasty veggies to taste better – yes, tasty grated beets – no cooking required!).   One student assured us she did not like tomatoes.  We gave her a cherry tomato plain and it was true, her squinched up face confirmed she was not a fan.  Then we handed her one with salt and she popped it in her mouth, “Yeah, it tastes better.”  She smiled.  That’s what we’re aiming for – to help people have a BETTER experience with healthy food so they just may want to eat it more often!

A HUGE shout out to Farah El Khatib, who admits she has been VERY fortunate to have a mother who does all the cooking at home.  So much so, that Farah had never (until yesterday) learned to cook.  We started her off with onions (because she said she doesn’t like the smell of onions.)  “We don’t either” we assured her, “that’s why we’re letting YOU cut them.”

She sauteed (another of our techniques) the onions in a hot pan until they were caramelized (technique). Then we threw on some bell peppers  and summer squash (“yellow stuff” as she called it).  Farah single-handedly (save for the grating of cheese and slicing of tomatoes done by her classmates) made quesadillas for the rest of the class.  Several of the crew commented, including our own newest staff member, Jasan Givens, that they didn’t expect such simple quesadillas to taste so good.

Yeah, we don’t mess around with our veggies at RootDown LA!   You’re gonna wanna eat ‘em!

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We get an awful lot of work done on garden work days for sure.  But what really makes us happy is seeing who shows up on a Saturday to toil in the garden.  Staff and students from Jefferson High always rally to join.  They sometimes surprise themselves to find how much they dig (pardon the pun) being among the chilies, squash and tomato vines on a weekend morning.

This month we were particularly pleased to see families show up together.  Lisbeth, who comes to our Thursday after school cooking classes accompanied by her mother and sisters, also brought her father to the work day.  He teamed up with our newest horticultural staff member, Jasan Givens, to relocate a VERY stubborn rosemary mountain – you couldn’t really call it a bush -  that thing was huge!.

Our new friend, Ozabe Banks, owner of Money Saver’s Meats, stopped by with his son, Obi after a morning baseball game.  They got to work clearing weeds and planting lettuce and they must have had a little fun because Ozabe called us out of the blue the following Saturday – “Hey, are you guys out in the garden again today?”

So just what do we do during a RootDown LA garden work day?  Our horticultural programs manager, Ali Bhai, reported on the following (he forgot to mention the yummy eggs, toast, fruit salad and homemade salsa RootDown youth leaders made to feed the hungry gardeners!)

- Planted 2 avocado trees (Haas and Zutano)
- Planted 1 mango tree  (WE REPEAT – WE NOW HAVE AVOS and MANGOES!!!!)
- Harvested remains of spring and summer crops – tomatoes, serrano peppers, and cucumbers – went home with volunteers
- Cut back overgrown rosemary bush (mountain) giving bunches away to volunteers
- Cleared, reamended soil with worm castings (poop), and planted lettuce, spinach, collards, cabbage, green onions, broccoli, radishes, sugar snap peas and winter squash
- Last but not least we weeded and mulched walkways

Thanks to everyone who came out to help us increase the supply of fruits and veggies in our neighborhood!

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Here’s a huge high five to the crew of young people who joined RootDown LA this summer as we continued to refine our horticultural and entrepreneurial training program.  Over an eight week period, these folks learned the skills it takes to install a market garden and return the garden bounty to our neighbors.

Our own Ali Bhai reports:

The students canvassed the neighborhood (door-to-door produce deliveries, putting up posters on Central Ave.), prepped produce bags, harvested, cooked, ate and bonded on the last day.  It was great.  We even attracted some eager youngsters from the neighborhood who were self-motivated to take our produce bags to the homes on 40th place and tell the residents to support RootDown.  We made $26.50 in donations – not bad for Serrano peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, squash, and a couple melons!

We look forward to more produce “sales” where we produce locally grown crops and ask our neighbors to donate what they can to RootDown in exchange for some of the most flavorful, nutrient rich produce around!

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Sweet!  Our friend and super amazing volunteer, Sanjay Gupta, agreed to write a little something on RootDown LA’s experience participating in LA’s first annual Eat Real festival – where folks gather to taste and make favorite street foods, all with tasty, local, and fresh ingredients .

Sanjay writes:

Continue reading ‘RootDown at Eat Real’

Check it out…RootDown LA (and our friends, The Social Justice Learning Institute) on NPR.

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On Friday, May 13th, the Jefferson High Green Design Academy students in Ms. Acosta’s Biology class and Mr. Garcia’s Sketch Design class planted three herb gardens a half block from the school on 40th Place.  This was the final part of their Spring 2011 segment of the Cleaning and Greening Neighborhood Project.  The goal of this project is to help the residents near Jefferson High School alter their landscapes to make the neighborhood ‘cleaner and greener’ and improve the local ecology. Continue reading ‘Planting Gardens for our Neighbors!’

A thank you note from an endlessly grateful Executive Director…

Carlos, despite covering his face, said I could use this shot.

RootDown’s success lies greatly in the efforts and dedication of its staff, board, Youth Leaders, supporters, and the communities who invite us to work with them.  There have been moments however,  when we are teetering on the brink of even greater success (or lack thereof), and the outcome depends entirely on those who work completely behind the scenes.

Such was the case this winter, when I was rushing to complete a MAJOR proposal for $250,000 in federal funds, and left the printing, photocopying and collating of what was about a ten section, nearly 40 page document to complete on the afternoon before the proposal was due in Sacramento.  Continue reading ‘The magic behind the scene – Tino and Carlos at CopyCat’