Dear Gardenistas,
Long time, no see!
I apologize for the lack of activity regarding the Peekskill Garden project. The crux of the problem has been time; Scott was totally unavailable this summer, and I, too, was overly busy, (including a trip to India).
The good news is that Laura P. has worked diligently with John Cooley of the Peekskill Middle School and they got a wonderful, thriving garden going for the science club students to run, with help from adult volunteers through the summer. Way to go, Laura!
Now, it’s time to get back to planning the Forrest View garden.
I’d like to get back to regular meetings, (maybe every other week?) to brainstorm with you all on how to proceed, and assign tasks to those who can commit to getting them done. I will be out of town this coming Saturday, so can we meet on Saturday, October 16th at 9:30 a.m. at the coffeehouse?
Scott has tried over and over to chase down suppliers who promised to donate materials we need to get the drainage work done, (and I followed up once). No response yet.
WHAT WE NEED TO DO:
See them face-to-face and set up a DATE for the donation to be made.
WHAT ELSE WE NEED TO DO:
- Raise money with fund raisers. I think a big tag sale could be a good start. Don’t we all have friends who’d like to get rid of stuff and help create this project at he same time?
-Get Head Start or Americorp (Emily works with them) or some such young volunteer man power to help us.
My friend Donna Sharrett emailed me this notice about the Ossining Community Garden (below), along with a link to a LoHud story about their very impressive accomplishment. It’s inspirational.
Cheers!
Barbara Lipp
About the garden from Bill Cary’s Journal News blog: http://gardening.lohudblogs.com/2010/10/04/meet-ossinings-community-gardeners/
This Sunday at our garden:
Ossining Organic Community Garden to host 350.org Global Work Party
Fall Clean-Up at the Garden
This Sunday October 10, 2010
12 noon to 3 pm.
Activities will include:
Winterizing the Compost System with members of our compost team
Creating a New Garden Plot Using the Sheet Mulching Technique with our gardeners & the St. Paul’s Episcopal Church Youth Group
Installing a Rain Barrel with the St. Paul’s Episcopal congregants
Mulching & Composting with our gardeners
Join us in this international event! More information about 350.org: www.350.org
Come early for a Learning Event with the Master Gardener Volunteers of the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Westchester County
Closing Shop: Preparing the Garden for Winter
Final Harvests, plant removal, cover crops & care for overwintering or late season crops will be discussed. Garlic planting will be demonstrated.
10am – 12noon.
Ossining Organic Community Garden is located at:
Cedar Lane Park, 235 Cedar Lane, Ossining, NY
Leah Quinn - Artist & Designer
Barbara,
I’m sorry to see that you are not happy with your relationship with InterGenerate. I’m confused by your comments here an would like to remind you that InterGenerate did not promise to give you money. Please remember that InterGenerate is not a funding organization. We are dedicated to building community around food security and thought that gathering gardens in need for one grant proposal would be more successful than each garden trying on their own. We never promised anyone that we would be handing out money. We simply said we would add you to a proposal we were creating. As it happens, we withdrew our proposal when we realized the grant didn’t allow for the kind of generosity across organizations that we had planned.
This means that neither your garden nor ours nor anyone else’s got funding from that particular grant application. We are not giving up and will continue to invite community gardens around the county to partner with us in our efforts to strengthen the movement to provide food that good, clean and fair.
Peggy, I am SO sorry; I wrote in haste and my comment was inaccurate and very insensitive. Please accept my apologies. I made a mistake. One should never write in haste.
My frustration with getting building supply donors to come through, getting people who were coming to meetings to return and get involved, and hoping for assistance from your organization came through in my note inappropriately. I know you and your organization are working hard to make something really wonderful happen, and I did not mean to imply you were reneging on a ‘promise’. I put my foot in my mouth.
It’s been frustrating trying to make this garden happen, losing people, when I myself have so little free time too give. None of this is an excuse for my mis-statement. Just trying to explain.
I’m very sorry.
-Barbara
Thank-you, Barbara. We’ve all been there. No worries. All is well.
Thanks, Peggy. I appreciate that.