For complete flier PDF file, please click the link for the outreach email flyer.

Rooting DC 2012 was a success!

Thank you for sharing your energizing feelings of friendship, creativity, inspiration, connection, love, and support to make this event possible! Here is to a great kickoff for the 2012 season!! 

The Beet Street Gardens clan at Rooting DC 2012

Just a reminder for everyone who is planning on coming to Rooting DC on February 18th to sign up via our registration portal on www.rootingdc.org!

Follow us! Pass the word along!

Twitter: @RootingDC

Facebook: www.facebook.com/rootingdc

Rooting DC 2012 Flyer

I know you all are waiting anxiously for the 5th Annual Rooting DC, which is still on its way in a couple of weeks, but in the meantime, come and celebrate the excitement with us this Thursday, February 2nd, 5 – 8 pm at The Looking Glass Lounge!

Check out the Facebook event for complete details: https://www.facebook.com/events/312966532075646/

Celebration!

Join us for some treats and good company to celebrate 5 years of Rooting DC! We will be asking for a $10 donation at the door, but this is a suggested donation, and no one will be turned away! There are also some excellent drink specials from Looking Glass Lounge: $2 off draft beers, $1 off rail drinks and special just for US a $4 Rooter Shooter!!!

Silent Auction Fundraiser!

We have some awesome prizes so please bring cash or a checkbook & come ready for bidding! Prizes include gift baskets, certificates to yummy local restaurants, and many more! All money raised from the silent auction will go directly towards offsetting the cost of the Rooting DC forum (to keep it free for all who attend!)

Hope you can make it on Thursday! If not, save the date for Rooting DC – February 18th, 2012 from 9:30-4. Registration details coming very soon!

Stay up to date with Rooting DC details on Facebook and on Twitter (Follow us @RootingDC and help spread the word with #RootingDC !!)

Please come! Rooting DC is an annual, FREE, community and urban gardening focused forum, with over 500 attendees! Come, attend sessions to learn and get information about what is going on in your communities and how you can get involved. Want to know how you start your own garden or how to compost? Come to Rooting DC 2012!

Please feel free to pass this information and flier along to others – Hope to see you all there!

Follow us on Twitter @RootingDC as well as on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/rootingdc

At Busboys & Poets

14th & V Street NW.

6:30 pm

(From the Busboys and Poets website about the film):

6:30 PM (Langston Room) – Following the screening, Marsha Weiner of Food Muse Media will moderate a panel discussion with filmmaker Cintia Cabib, Alice Kamps, curator of the National Archives exhibit “What’s Cooking, Uncle Sam?”, and several community gardeners. // FILM SYNOPSIS: Throughout Washington, D.C., people of all ages, backgrounds and nationalities are gardening side by side, growing vegetables, fruits and flowers in community gardens. Some are looking for basic sustenance, others for a way to remember their homelands, still others for a place to find a respite from their troubles. Through the voices of young people, senior citizens, immigrants, garden volunteers and educators, “A Community of Gardeners” explores the vital role of seven urban community gardens as sources of fresh, nutritious food, outdoor classrooms, places of healing, links to immigrants’ native countries, centers of social interaction, and oases of beauty and calm in inner-city neighborhoods. The film also looks back on the history of community gardens in the United States, from the potato patch farms of the late 19th century, to the victory gardens of World War II, to community gardening’s current renaissance. // FREE & OPEN TO ALL. http://communityofgardeners.com/

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.

Next week will mark the first Food Day celebration with events occurring across the United States. According to the website FoodDay.org, Food Day “seeks to bring together Americans from all walks of life—parents, teachers, and students; health professionals, community organizers, and local officials; chefs, school lunch providers, and eaters of all stripes—to push for healthy, affordable food produced in a sustainable, humane way.”

It is a “people-powered” movement that provides the avenue for celebration, education and access to food and nutrition-centered events, cooking demonstrations, volunteer (and eating) opportunities. There are numerous events planned, taking place all across the Washington Metropolitan Area for you and your family to be involved in Food Day 2011. Please ask your local church, school, farmers’ market or town hall for more information about what will be going on in your area.

Another great place to go for resources is the Food Day website, FoodDay.org. Here you can search for events near your neighborhood, whether you live in Washington DC or outside the beltway. There are also resources for you to get an event started if you want to do something yourself. Take a moment to check out the website and see what will be happening near you!

The purpose of Food Day is to promote six central principles:

1. Reduce diet-related disease by promoting safe, healthy foods

2. Support sustainable farms and limit subsidies to big agribusiness

3. Expand access to food and alleviate hunger

4. Protect the environment and animals by reforming factory farms

5. Promote health by curbing junk-food marketing to kids

6. Support fair conditions for food and farm workers

(for more information on the 6 Principles, please refer to Food Day – 6 Food Day Principles)

By conducting a quick search for the Washington, DC area, I was able to find almost an endless list of events that are planned including speakers, neighborhood garden open houses, food truck culinary appreciation, nutrition education, university sponsored events, and the list goes on! If you go to the FoodDay.org events page, enter your zip code or address to find something that is going on within your neighborhood. Among a few of my favorites include:

- Food Day Proclamation

- Food Day Food Truck Festival (13th-17th St and K St NW)

- Food Day Extravaganza

- Inaugural Bike Blender Smoothie Sale

- American University’s 3 Day Celebration also click here for more details: AU’s Food Day 2011 Celebration AUFood Day

And so many more!!

Check out the website, find what is going on in or around your neighborhood, and go celebrate Food Day 2011!