Thank you to the many folks who were able to come out to the discussion last night led by Debbie Hillman of the Evanston Food Policy Council and hosted by Wild Tree Cafe. We focused on the idea of creating a collaborative task force to look at how best to support sustainable school gardens in Evanston. We were very pleased that District 65 School Board Member Kim Weaver was present and will help in facilitating coordination with the school district as we build this collaborative.

In January those parents and teachers involved in managing and teaching in the school gardens will be coming together. This will give us an opportunity to learn more about the various programs and needs in our schools as well as consider how we build sustainability into our movement.

Meanwhile, I am working with Keep Evanston Beautiful on developing a school garden workshop. Do you have a topic that you would like addressed?
The workshop is tentatively scheduled for February.

From Slow Food in the Schools:
Building Health Communities Grant, sponsored by Home Depot, is providing up to $2,500 to 'community improvement projects that include activities such as increasing energy efficiency or sustainability, landscaping, planting of native trees, community facility improvements and the development and/or improvement of green spaces.' For more information check out: http://corporate.homedepot.com/wps/portal/Grants. The deadline is December 15, 2009.

Came across this article today on composting at Chicago area schools.

On behalf of The Oakton School PTA, I would like to publicly
thank St. Francis Hospital once again for its generosity. For
the second year, St. Francis employees and medical staff have
donated money to help fund Oakton's Edible Garden. Last year's
$1000 was "seed" money to get our garden started. Last week,
St. Francis Hospital presented Oakton with a check for $1500!

About $1000 was raised at the employee picnic Dunk Tank in
September. The other $500 was donated by St. Francis medical
staff.

Additionally, Whole Foods South donated a Rain Barrel to be used
in the Edible Garden. And, Keep Evanston Beautiful kindly
donated more than a dozen Earth Boxes which we used to plant our
seedlings this past spring.

Oakton PTA has a master plan for creating raised beds on the
school grounds. We are working on getting grants and donations
to fund this plan.

I just think it's so great that Oakton School has bridged these
amazing community relationships with St. Francis, Whole Foods
South and Keep Evanston Beautiful. These organizations have
really stepped up in supporting our school. Thank you!

Julie Fleetwood
Oakton PTA President

Check out this organization and learn more about Nurture a local organization doing amazing work in supporting families in eating more healthily. You can also sign up for their free email newsletter, Healthy Kids Idea Exchange at this site: www.nurtureyourfamily.org/id3.html

Thanks for forwarding this information.&#A0; I will definitely be there.
Kristin Alexander
Washington School

--- On Thu, 10/29/09, QT - Lynn <qtopic-43-6GVJ6WdZM6jji@quicktopic.com> wrote:
From: QT - Lynn <qtopic-43-6GVJ6WdZM6jji@quicktopic.com>
Subject: Evanston School Gardens
To: "QT topic subscribers" <qtopic-subs@quicktopic.com>
Date: Thursday, October 29, 2009, 7:18 PM

�A;�A;�A;
< replied-to message removed by QT >

Hope that you might join us.

Evanston Food Policy Council Community Potluck and Conversation
Thursday, November 19, 6:30 - 8:30 PM at Wild Tree Cafe (1100 Davis
St., at Oak).
Potluck begins at 6:30. Bring an entree or appetizer (to serve
8-10). Drinks provided by the Wild Tree Cafe.

Conversation starts at 7:00 PM. Everyone invited to the potluck and/
or conversation!

Topic for November:

Growing Community support for School Gardens: Integrating Gardens
into Evanston Schools

Featured guests:
Lynn Hyndman, Coordinator - Dawes Elementary School Edible Garden
Fran Freeman, Chair - Dawes Garden Committee
Kim Weaver, Dist. 65 school board member
Lauren Spain-Bondi, Farmer-in-residence - Kingsley Green Acres

Potential action items to be discussed:
(1) Write job description for School Garden Coordinator (possibly
Dist. 65 or city-sponsored -- including private schools?)
(2) Plan a targeted fundraiser for such a position
(3) Identify grants and grantwriter for funding individual school
garden coordinators
(4) Integrate curriculum with ETHS Edible Acre Pilot Project and
Oakton Community College
(5) Interface with related programming at summer camps
(6) Write a letter to City-School Liaison Committee requesting joint
support for school gardens
(7) Other ideas needed and welcomed!!

Edited by author 10-29-2009 07:17 PM
Chute garden photo gallery has been added.

Thanks, Cliff, for including Chute on the website! You may use our names, of course!
Thanks also for introducing us to Nancy on Friday! What an extraordinary woman she is! Can't wait o buy her books and perhaps meet her again! Kitty

Kitty, I'll soon be putting up a gallery of Chute garden photos on the website. May I have your permission (and Felicia's) to use your names - giving credit to you two, along with the photos?

a confirmation - Nancy and I will be at Chute today at 3:45PM.

Very exciting!&#A0; Thanks for all you work Clif!

Kristin Alexander
Washington

--- On Thu, 10/22/09, QT - Clif Brown <qtopic-43-6GVJ6WdZM6jji@quicktopic.com> wrote:
From: QT - Clif Brown <qtopic-43-6GVJ6WdZM6jji@quicktopic.com>
Subject: Evanston School Gardens
To: "QT topic subscribers" <qtopic-subs@quicktopic.com>
Date: Thursday, October 22, 2009, 10:50 AM

�A;�A;�A;
< replied-to message removed by QT >

My plug for the website got into the Traffic Guy column in the Roundtable, as follows...

"Since this is a "green" edition of the RT, TG thought these might be of interest:

to TG: As you know, there are several school gardens in Evanston. Now we have a website devoted to them, cbplace.com/garden/. It has photo galleries there for the gardens at Dawes, Kingsley, Oakton and Washington schools and there is enthusiasm to get more going next spring. We are promoting the site as a way to get more folks involved. Volunteers are welcome as there is plenty of work to be done.

- Clif Brown, webmaster, Evanston School Gardens

From TG: And those gardens - at least the ones TG has seen - are wonderful, quite an addition to the schools and the community. Let's hope you get some volunteers."

Kingsley garden gets a short mention in the Evanston Roundtable.