RootDown LA

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Three cheers for Ali Bhai, our horticultural Program Manager, who coordinated RootDown’s most wonderful and productive first EVER! garden work day at Jefferson High School. (We remain continually grateful to Kelley Budding, Assistant Principal at Jefferson who makes our work there possible.)

We already have in, a stellar review of the day from Charles Frieder, who in 5th grade was voted most likely to succeed with plants.  It was he who identified nut grass we need to throw out! (rather than compost) less we end up with nut grass in the garden for millenia to come.  (Read his review at the very bottom of this post.)

Here are only some of the reasons why the day was particularly awesome:

1.  Of their own free will, all our Youth Leaders dragged their teenage butts out of bed to arrive no later than 9, some by 7:30 am.

2. People came from near and far to support us.  Some represent their own healthy food/enviro-focused entities.  Check them out! Michel from WECAN; Brandi and Corbett  from the new Two Bits Market.

3. We had EGGS, yes EGGS for breakfast.  We were pushing BREAKFAST today, since we found out some of our Youth Leaders are OUTTA THE HABIT of getting fueled up in the morning.

4. People got INVENTIVE today.  Youth Leader, Luis, who was bummed because we forgot to give him a RootDown LA T-shirt, decided to paint his own (see pics above).  Mark, from Tree People, cut up a large plastic bag, then taped pieces of it to make smaller bags so we could give-away more lettuce (see pic below).

5.  We had SALAD, made with lettuce and snap peas from OUR OWN garden.  This, thanks to the hard work all spring, of Ali and students and teachers from Jefferson’s various science, art and design programs.

6. We had MORE lettuce than we could eat before we had to harvest it to rotate in new crops for the new season.  THIS means, we’re nearing ABUNDANT mode, and will soon be able to share our food supply with our neighbors.

7.  Warren (AKA Walter as the Youth Leaders call him) came back to join us!

If you’re wondering what we did with the ginormous bag of lettuce we harvested (it was much bigger than the DIY mini bag pictured below) – we gave it to a volunteer, Mark, from Tree People who said he’d take it to a cocktail party tonight.  Fresh lettuce party favors.  Great idea!

Mark went DIY when we ran out of bags to give away lettuce.

And now for Charles’ review on the day:

It was a pleasure – I’ll be back. So many factors make it really great over there. Not a trace of devilgrass for one thing, a good grounds layout, and the fact that it’s HS students rather than elementary, which means they can actually do r…eal work. I feel like effort expended will result in something meaningful, and produce results. ~Elsewhere~ I felt like Sisyphus rolling his boulder uphill, only to have it roll down again every time, a real disheartening struggle.

Woot!

It’s RootDown LA’s first community garden work day at Jefferson High School.  This Saturday from 9am-noon.  No experience required!    The garden is on the far north end of the campus.  Just walk on in and ask around!

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Thanks to the Painted Brain for inviting RootDown back to feed the people at the latest Painted Brain magazine release and art show!  Our veggie-packed beet, sweet potato, spinach, and zucchini quesadillas were a hit!  We were very happy to be setting up our Healthy Food Tasting next to our FAVORITE coffee roaster, Cafecito Organico, who were there to provide the city’s BEST coffee for the event.

And, we just have to say we’re so honored to know Dave Leon, who founded The Painted Brain with the intent of developing a working magazine and stigma reduction campaign that serves as a creative, supported employment site for young adults recovering from serious mental illness.  As their website states, there is no reason that young adults with mental illness, some of the most creative and talented people in the City of Los Angeles, cannot represent themselves and contribute to our community through the arts.

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Thank you WE CAN, for inviting us to reconnect today at the California Endowment’s South LA Building Healthy Communities gathering at Bethune Middle School.  Though it’s been a while since RootDown has been back in the WE CAN garden, we were SO happy to see that the plants are thriving and Michel’s chicken family is growing!  We’ve never SEEN such a gorgeous display of herbs, eggs and baby chicks!  Local food indeed.

WE CAN shares RootDown LA’s interest in using healthy, locally grown food as a catalyst to inspire people to eat well, connect, build healthy communities and LEARN!  We’re looking forward to collaborating again for WE CAN’s Read and Seed program this summer.

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While we continue to negotiate a formal deal to create a home base for RootDown LA in the Ralph Bunche house, the LA Community Redevelopment Agency has been nice enough to let us run some programming in this gorgeous little home, just a half block from where we currently operate, at Jefferson High School.

We’ve been acting as stewards of the house for a couple of months now, picking up the trash, fetching the mail and meeting the neighbors.  Now were are slowly getting in, cleaning up and running some of our Youth Leader trainings in the child hood home of Ralph Bunche, American political scientist and diplomat who received the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize.

Last Saturday, Rudy Sanchez from the Environmental Charter High School came to work with our Youth Leaders on their presentation skills.  Our kids were amazed to hear that Rudy, who was SO energetic and confident throughout the training, used to completely AVOID any classes where he would be required to speak publicly.  He assured them that their willingness, just to step up and attempt to share some of their knowledge in front of a group, was a GREAT start.

We’re using this time to amp up for our “You’re Gonna Wanna Eat Your Veggies” campaign; new this year, our RootDown staff and Youth Leaders will be delivering cooking, horticulture and healthy food system advocacy classes from the house.  We’ll also continue creating experiences out in the greater community that inspire people to eat and grow their  veggies!

We’re knocking out veggie aversions and working to get everyone reconnected to affordable and convenient sources of veggies (and other healthy foods -we’re omnivores here!)!  And, thanks to a new MAJOR grant from the Network for a Healthy California, and to our partnerships with people and orgs. who already know a lot about growing, distributing, and cooking healthy food in LA, it’s going to be a LOT more fun to increase the daily consumption of the fruits and veggies in South LA!

The California Department of Public Health, Network for a Healthy California sent an email last week, welcoming RootDown LA into the Network!  We will receive $85,000 in three consecutive years to launch our ‘You’re Gonna Wanna Eat Your Veggies” campaign.    Starting in October, our programming will expand in two ways:

1. Youth Leaders receive stipends to take more of our Healthy Food Tastings out on the road – providing educational experiences that excite (and sometimes flat-out coerce) people to taste, cook, understand the health benefits of, and now even grow their own veggies.  “Eating your veggies” is our code phrase for knowing how to affordably and conveniently include fresh foods into our daily diets.

2. Core programming at Jefferson High expands into the broader community through the Ralph Bunche House, situated a half block from the school.  We will benefit from finally having a home base, and a space where we can gather with all our neighbors, to share our knowledge about cooking and growing healthy food – inspiring and empowering one another to build healthier food communities.

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RootDown LA was founded with a focus on demand-side efforts for food systems change – with our portable stoves, knives, sautee pans and spices, we get in a room with kids and no one leaves until everyone has discovered SOME technique to make the veggies we previously despised, taste better.   We leave people wanting more – beets, broccoli and even this year, brussels sprouts.
We’ve now got this demand part down, so we were excited last year to receive funds from Crail Johnson to launch new supply-side programming for food systems change.  RootDown Horticultural Program Manger, Ali Bhai explains the ways in which we are working with youth to increase supplies of healthy food in South LA:

We take seriously the tried and true formula that if you connect people to the source of their food, they are more likely to value what they put in their bodies.   Our supply-side efforts started back in September when we teamed up with the We Can Foundation to deliver the first entrepreneurship and urban farming training to our Youth Leaders. Ledette Gambini joined me to develop this training with the intent to impart the fundamentals of entrepreneurship and the principles of contemporary sustainable urban farming in an integrated, hands-on way.

Students learned about business options, market and competitive research, producing for profit, sustainable farm design, and the state of our current food system; all with the underlying goal of starting a micro-enterprise that converts sub-acre city spaces such as backyards and school gardens into edible landscapes – the harvest from which is taken to market.  Continue reading ‘RootDown, now growing SUPPLIES of veggies to meet DEMAND.’

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RootDown LA hosted Jennie Cook as she pulled off a third annual Mystery Lunch Box Cook-off at Jefferson High last month, assisted by a top team of volunteer chefs. Thanks to ALL who showed up to participate – students, staff, visitors and judges!

Volunteers were Phillip Gaiser, a research and development chef from Whole Foods, Rosemary Ochiogrosso, a midwife with a flair for cooking up community events and holiday biscotti, and Roy Choi of Kogi truck fame, along with his star marketing staff, Alice Shin and Natasha Phan.  We were honored they took time away from their LA food empire to join in on the culinary spree.   About thirty students, many of whom had NEVER cooked before, showed up for three weeks to learn what how to cook veggies.  On the third week, each team of budding chefs was presented with a mystery veggie, which they had to incorporate into some dish to be judged by their peers and Jefferson staff.

When all was said and done, each team won SOME prize for flavors and presentation.  The kids were proud of their dishes and excited about their new skills.   The guest chefs too, must have enjoyed themselves.  Phillip took time on his birthday to be with us and Natasha later wrote:
“Roy wanted to let you know that there is nothing more important to him than the youth of our city.  Thank you for what you do and maybe one day he can help even more to flip the script on food and life in the inner city.  He bows down to RootDown and is always at your disposal….Alice and I had such an amazing time.  We each went into a “zone” when cooking with the students, would love to help in future projects! Wish there was Mystery Lunch Box every quarter!!

AWWW!  RootDown agrees!  Who wants to donate funds for the next Mystery Lunch Box cook-off?

Jefferson High Math teacher, Jovita Correa, nearly slipped from our grasp yesterday.  She came to watch our Youth Leaders making  our homemade ranch dressing as part of a Healthy Food Tasting for a parent teacher meeting.  The kids were using their best tactics to try and convince Jovita to taste a red bell pepper and she refused.  She HATES peppers, she claimed.   Executive Director and Renegade Nutrition Educator, Megan Hanson heard the resistance and stepped in with some supremely overbearing veggie pushing tactics our Youth Leaders are still sometimes too polite to employ.  One Youth Leader told Jovita – “You’re in trouble now!” Continue reading ‘Jovita Correa wants to eat red bell peppers now!’

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Thanks to Jolly Llama for sponsoring one of our “You’re Gonna Wanna Eat Your Veggies” healthy food tastings at the Boys & Girls Club Venice this week.  It was great to take our Youth Leaders across town to connect with the kids who take advantage of the many after-school activities the BGCV has to offer.  What a smart and fun crew of kids at the BGCV!

And from here, we’ll let the pics, above, and the report-back from our BGCV contact tell the story:   “The kids had such a great time. Teens can be a tough crowd at times, but you were amazing with them. They were so involved and engaged. All of them stayed well beyond the time their class finished at the club and many left talking about what they tasted and learned.” Woot! – for our Youth Leaders, Celia and Ana, who helped host this tastings and YAY for the fresh veggies!

If YOU want to sponsor one of our “You’re Gonna Wanna Eat Your Veggies” tastings for youth OR adults where you live, work, or go to school, just drop us a line! rootdownla [at] gmail [dot] com