From Kate Lee, the Farm Manager of Common Good City Farm:

Come see Common Good City Farm’s rain garden and learn how to design your own as an attractive way to prevent water run-off from polluting our watersheds. USGS scientist Dean Hively will talk about conservation planting and the relevance and importance of diverting water run-off.  This workshop is free, but we are suggesting a $25 donation if you earn more than minimum wage.

Saturday, October 22, 2-4pm at Common Good City Farm, V. St, NW between 2nd and 4th Sts.

Please visit our website to register.

Vote to help us to share $65,000 from Nature’s Gate to benefit our youth education program, LEAF.

We’re up to 470 votes today and growing, but we still need your help to reach 3,500 votes to be a finalist in the national “Gardens for Good” contest to share $65,000 from Nature’s Path.  We have 3,000 subscribers on this list. So if each of you clicks today, we’ll reach 3,500 votes and be a finalist to share $65,000 in grant funding! (No Facebook or Twitter account necessary!) Our entry is listed under my name, “Helen Yuen.” Can you click on “Vote” here today with one click?

Last week, we entered a contest launched by Nature’s Path organic food company. Thank you for getting us to 470 votes. But it’s not over! We need to reach 3,500 votes to be a finalist to share $65,000. Can you keep us in the running?

Voting Takes Just a Second!

Can you click “yes” today to help us fund our farm education program for impoverished youth? This is a direct link, so you do not need Facebook or Twitter. Just click “vote” on this page.

Please don’t delay. It takes just a second to click and we can only be a finalist with your help. Voting ends next Friday September 30. Soon! Each day that passes, the gap widens between us and the top contenders.

We can’t do it without you.

The top 5 U.S. and top 5 Canadian vote-getters will be reviewed by Nature’s Path, and they will choose 3 nonprofits to split $65,000. Right now, the nonprofit in 5th place has 3,000 votes. We have 470, so if you and each subscriber on this list clicks, we’ll have nearly 3,500 votes and be a finalist. Can you click today?

Daily voting is ok until Sept 30. These are the last days so don’t forget to click once a day and spread the word to your friends!

Thank you for supporting us! 

Helen Yuen
Communications Fellow

P.S. If each of you on this subscription list clicks to vote, we’ll reach 3,500 votes and be a finalist to share $65,000 for our youth program! Click here today. Thank you for rooting for us!

Here is the July Schedule for the DC Field to Fork network partners who will be at either the Mount Pleasant Farmers’ Market or the Ward 8 Market. Please stop by the booth to check out information, produce and other items from our partner groups!

Mount Pleasant Market

July 2nd: Common Good City Farm

July 9th: City Blossoms

July 16th: Neighborhood Farm Initiative

July 23rd: Beet Street Gardens

July 30th: Bread for the City

Ward 8 Market:

July 2nd: closed for the July 4th holiday

July 9th: Beet Street Gardens

July 23rd: Neighborhood Farm Initiative

Ever wonder how to keep your thirsty plants happy in the summer, especially when you’re away?

Come tour the farm this Saturday June 25, 10:30am-12:30pm and see how we do it at Common Good City Farm. Your instructor is our fabulous volunteer staff member Murray Schmechel, who also installed our farm’s drip irrigation system. He’ll then show how to easily install one for your own small or patio garden. Principles learned can be applied to larger gardens and orchards.

In this hands-on workshop, participants will learn how to

• assemble a low-cost drip system;
• evaluate a variety of dripper and mini-sprinklers suitable for patios and small gardens;
• order, and install a small custom system for less than $125.

Spaces are still available! Register for this workshop.

Can’t come this Saturday? Check out other upcoming workshops and events at the farm.

Teacher: Murray Schmechel is a retired life long gardener who has been “dripping” for the last 15 years. He has helped numerous neighbors become “drip” enthusiasts.  He is part of the Common Good City Farm staff.

Common Good City Farm is still seeking participants in their “Green Tomorrows” program.  In exchange for two or more hours per week of instructional, hands-on work on the farm, participants receive a bag of fresh farm fruits and vegetables. To be eligible for Green Tomorrows, you must make less than a DC living wage, which is $480/week without children or $980/week with children or other dependents. To find out how to apply, visit their website.

(taken from the Common Good City Farm Newsletter)

Bread for the City, ONE DC, and Common Good City Farm are hosting a listening session to capture ideas from the Shaw neighborhood to develop a new local food system. Our organizations and many others are building a food justice/food policy coalition. This effort will support initiatives and promote city-wide policies that fight obesity and hunger. We want to be sure that residents, especially those experiencing food insecurity and hunger, are shaping our priorities going forward.

Join us on Saturday, May 7th from 1 – 2:30 pm at the New Community Church Sanctuary (614 S st. NW). Food and childcare provided!

You’ve heard of “Temporariums” and pop-up shops?  Well, the Better Block Project is a pop-up neighborhood!

On April 9th (this Saturday), an assortment of artists, community activists, kids, street performers, crafters, thrift stores, gardeners, and other random do-gooders are getting together to transform a gritty, half-empty commercial stretch of the main street in Mt. Rainier MD (just a few blocks from the border of NE DC).  By sprucing it up and bringing some color and life to it for a day, we are going to demonstrate the economic and social potential of this space.  The day is inspired by a similar event in a rundown little town in Texas – when Oak Cliff held a Better Block Project, every vacancy in their commercial strip was rented within a month!

Arts District Community Revitalizing its Main Street Through

The Better Block Project

Viral Neighborhood Improvement Festival Blossoms Inside the Beltway