Building A Butterfly Garden: Monday, May 17, 7:30-9:30pm, Brookside Gardens, Wheaton, MD. The Silver Spring Garden Club invites you to this talk by Carol Allen on attracting “winged flowers” aka butterflies to your garden. Doors open at 7:30pm, speaker starts at 8pm. Free and open to the public. Directions at http://www.brooksidegardens.org/.
The Future of Local Gardening: Sunday May 23. Panel Discussion led by Kathy Jentz, Washington Gardener Magazine. Come join us for a slice of cake and cup of bubble to mark Washington Gardener Magazine’s 5th Anniversary in print. We will host a panel discussion on local garden trends and the future of urban gardening in the 21st. Local experts will share their views and we anticipate a lively discussion of where we’ve been and where we are headed next. The talk is free and open to the public. It is at the HSW-DC, directions at: http://www.historydc.org/
FRESH Screening and After-Party! Friday May 21, 2010, 4:30-6:30, Rayburn House Office Building Foyer The National Independent Consumers and Farmers Association and FRESH are sponsoring a special screening of FRESH for our legislators. Has FRESH inspired you? It will also inspire those who make our laws. The food safety bill is in front of the Senate right now. FRESH will educate our legislators on the benefits of a local food system threatened by S 510. Let’s get our Senators and Representatives there so they can see and understand the unintended consequences S 510 would have on our small farms. More info here.
Sowing Seeds Here and Now!: A Chesapeake Area Urban Farming Summit: Friday, June 18th, 2010 at the Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center. Keynote speaker and inspiration is Will Allen, CEO of Growing Power in Milwaukee, WI. Will Allen is a pioneering urban farmer whose organization Growing Power does exemplary work and who was named a MacArthur “Genius” Fellow in 2008. Dr. Molly Jahn, Deputy Under Secretary for Research, Education, and Economics at the USDA is confirmed to attend the event. The goal of our one-day hands-on learning and strategizing event is to catalyze and support urban farming throughout our metropolitan area – Washington, DC, Prince George’s and other local counties, and Baltimore –which we call the Chesapeake area. Buy tickets here.
Help fund the Healthy School Act! The DC City Council recently approved the Healthy Schools Act, which makes significant improvements to the food served in schools across DC, a great step toward reducing obesity and the health issues related to malnutrition in the district.There is a job opening for a one-week stint for organizers who will help collect signatures for the petition to fund the act through a tax on soda. The position is posted here.
The Neighborhood Farm Initiative seeks Volunteer Assistant Team Leaders to grow vegetables with teens! Deadline for applications is today!
NFI is looking for Volunteer Assistant Team Leaders to work with the NFI Team Leader and our 12-person summer youth team. The Assistant Team Leaders will help monitor the space, provide instruction and supervision, build relationships with youth, and assist with general garden maintenance.
We’re looking for volunteers who can commit to one day per week for 5 hours each week for the duration of the program, which runs Monday-Friday from June 28 through August 20 2010. Volunteer shifts will be between 8:30-1:30 on weekdays. Please send a note describing your interest and experience with organic gardening and/or working with youth, plus 2 professional or academic references to NFI Volunteer Coordinator Liz Whitehurst at NeighborhoodFarm@gmail.com by May 17.
