Discover This! – December 2012
We at the Live Earth Farm Discovery Program would like to thank you, our community for all of the amazing support you have given us over the course of this past year. We have incredible accomplishments to report.
- We have shared the farm and all of its educational opportunities with about 1500 kids, and that doesn’t even include all of the adults who have benefited from hands-on learning in the fields.
- We funded 23% of our field trip visitors up from 10% in 2011!
- We paid for transportation for 100 students, and more are scheduled for the spring season.
- 31% of the students we taught to build a healthy plate of plant-based foods were from underserved schools, up from 25% in 2011.
We are doing the good work we set out to accomplish. We are teaching students of all ages about where, their food comes, and how their choices affect themselves, their environment and their community. Now, here is how you can help us make this possible again in 2013.
Help us reach our 2012 fundraising goals, and raise $6000 before the end of the year. Please make a tax deductible donationto the Live Earth Farm Discovery Program before the end of 2012.
Make your donation by:
- check: LEFDP, PO Box 3490 Freedom, CA 95019
- credit card/paypal: http://liveearthfarm.net/discovery-program/support-us/
- or for current CSA members, through the farmigo webstore: http://csa.farmigo.com/store/liveearthfarm#Account
We have a matching gift of $500 to get us started. Every dollar donated today up to $500 will be matched, so make your donation TODAY!
Main Street Garden & Cafe Features Live Earth Farm …
Main Street Garden & Café Features Live Earth Farm and Benefits the Live Earth Farm Discovery Program
On Thursday November 15th, Main Street Garden & Café Chefs Farm Night program will feature Live Earth Farm’s produce and pasture raised goat in a 5 course, prix fixe meal for only $50.00!
For every prix fixe meal sold, $5.00 will go to the Discovery Program to provide ongoing opportunities for local youth to have hands-on, farm-based education and nutrition programs at Live Earth Farm. Through LEFDP’s programs local, under served youth build confidence in learning to be active caretakers of themselves, their community and their environment.
Contact Main Street Garden & Café for reservations: 831-477-9265 or go to www.mainstreetgardencafe.com
Main Street Garden & Café features “slow food” prepared-to-order from simple, fresh, organic ingredients. All their pastas are hand-made! They hand-make their pizza dough and bake it in an Italian-made wood-burning oven for an authentic tasting pizza. On Saturday and Sunday they offer an Italian style brunch featuring frittatas made with fresh eggs from their chickens.
Main Street Garden & Café is open Wednesday through Sunday at 5 pm and Saturday and Sunday noon to 3pm. They are located in downtown Soquel at 3101 N. Main Street.
The Live Earth Farm Discovery Program (LEFDP) is a farm-based education not for profit organization in Watsonville, California. LEFDP makes seed to mouth, farm to fork, and child to community connections through a variety of hands-on educational programs serving the youth of Santa Cruz, Santa Clara and Monterey counties and beyond. A special emphasis is placed on reaching under served people in the community to bolster individual, community and environmental health.
Discovery Program Update: 11/12/12
Hello again LEFDP Fans! Starting this month, the LEF Discovery Program will begin producing its own newsletter, Discover This, once a month, on the third Tuesday. Keep an eye out for the first issue on November 20th, next week. That is why you are only getting a quick peek here.
What’s the peek? Well, you can help the LEF Discovery Program very quickly and easily by nominating us for a Seeds of Change Share the Good Grant.
http://seedsofchangefoods.com/sharethegood/
Just fill in your contact information and ours:
Live Earth Farm Discovery Program
172 Litchfield Lane
Watsonville, CA 95076
Proprietor Name: Jessica Ridgeway
Then cross you fingers for us while we do the rest!
Thank you,
Jessica Ridgeway, Director – LEFDPDirector@gmail.com or
Grace Chollar-Webb, Program Coordinator – LEFDPeducation@gmail.com
Live Earth Farm Discovery Program
Seed to Mouth, Farm to Fork, Child to Community Connections
Discovery Program Update: 10/29/12
Hello LEFDP Fans! Just a quick greeting from the Discovery Program desk and a simple request . . .
We had a stellar week last week in the fields with about 180 kids visiting the farm between Wednesday and Friday. It would have been about 240 kids had Monday’s visit by Ann Soldo Elementary not been rained out. We admit to relishing those surprise moments of calm, when we can catch up on paperwork, answer phone messages and the like. We also really look forward to Ann Soldo Elementary’s rain date.
On Wednesday we hosted 17 new Homeschooling families, which was a pretty good turn out for a wet morning. They were all treated to late season harvests of apples, tomatoes, basil, padron peppers and the last of the strawberries. We cleaned up the quince orchard and took all of the plastics (irrigation hose and mulch) out of the strawberry field. A number of families took home the year-old strawberry plants to give them a new life in home gardens. I look forward to hearing how our Albions do in their new places. We finished our busy morning with well earned apple cider made from Galas and Pippins the kids collected from the ground and trees. On the same day Grace lead a group of first graders from Happy Valley Elementary.
On Thursday Wavecrest Montessori celebrated the Harvest with Squash soup, scarecrow making, and pumpkin carving, while Soquel Parent Education Nursery lead by Kim Woodland and our very own Doug Dirt explored the treats a farm in the fall has to offer. I had an especially good time hosting some very good friends in that class, who showered me with love and hugs.
Friday brought Santa Cruz Children’s School to the farm and that is how we were able to host so many kids on the farm in one half week. Our fall dance card is as full as can be with tours running later into November, than ever before. Thank you for making us feel so important to the fall experience for local kids. Now lets just hope the weather holds on this coast.
A call for help. We are desperately in need of a database to track all of our contacts, volunteers, donations, etc. Yes we are there; we have matured as an organization to the point of needing to centralize our information. All of these well-organized and well-built spreadsheets are just not enough anymore. So we need your advice on what we should use. We have about 2000 contacts, which play multiple roles and we have Filemaker software. We need to organize volunteers, donors, and participants. Please, if you have worked in the land of database management, design, programing or nonprofit management and have advice to share, get in touch with me ASAP. Here are three ways you can help in this area:
* Tell us what to get
* Donate to help us with this purchase (CC Nonprofit, one Filemaker software purchase we are considering, costs $250)
* Help us get the data transferred – it will take some time to transfer the information from our spreadsheets to our new database AND we have lots of new contacts coming in all the time, which need to be added.
Thank you,
Jessica Ridgeway, Director – LEFDPDirector@gmail.com or
Grace Chollar-Webb, Program Coordinator – LEFDPeducation@gmail.com
Live Earth Farm Discovery Program
Seed to Mouth, Farm to Fork, Child to Community Connections
Discovery Program Update: 10/15/12
We of the LEF Discovery Program have been busy in the fields and off site this fall. We are in the heart of our fall tour season, and have about two tours a week with schools mostly from Watsonville. We are hosting a lot of third graders this year, which is new. We are glad our Applemania tour is so appealing to their teachers. Grace is doing a great job with these visits and managing a lot more.
We are building a new group of homeschool families, who will visit the farm every fourth Wednesday of the month. On October 24th we will pick and press apples and work in the Discovery Garden and fields weeding, harvesting and prepping beds for winter crops. Please get in touch if you are interested in joining this program.
Last week we hosted fun educational tables at three events: The Independent Marketplace, The Staff of Life Harvest Festival, and The Santa Cruz Montessori Ice Cream Social. We decorated a lot of pumpkins, pressed gallons of juice, and connected with many families new and known.
This weekend we are looking forward to the Harvest Celebration, where we will be launching our new Discovery Program Newsletter (you can sign up to receive it on our new website in the bottom left corner of every page). We will also be painting faces and pumpkins, bobbing for and pressing apples, sharing a potluck and bonfire, and sipping Uncommon Brewers seasonal Casserly Pale Ale. Also on “tap” join us next Thank you Thursday October 25th at Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing where a $1 of every pint sold all day long will benefit LEFDP! Tom and the LEF crew will be there in the evening to enjoy each other’s and hopefully YOUR company!
Jessica Ridgeway, Director – LEFDPDirector@gmail.com or
Grace Chollar-Webb, Program Coordinator – LEFDPeducation@gmail.com
Live Earth Farm Discovery Program
Seed to Mouth, Farm to Fork, Child to Community Connections
Dig! Fundraiser Recap
Thanks to so much support from our community, Dig! was a huge success! We are still tallying results, but it looks like we netted about $15,000 in funds that will go directly towards providing education programs on the farm for local youth! This event is unique in so many ways, one of which is that we have almost no overhead. Everything is donated: The Chefs skills, and time, the ingredients used to create their delicious masterpieces, all of the silent auction items, the services of Lightfoot Industries, the flowers, the wine, and all of the manpower that brings it all together. Which means almost ALL of the money raised pays for kids to participate in our programs. The result is truly a community achievement. My heartfelt thanks to those who participated whether guest, volunteer, staff or sponsor — you all contributed to a beautiful and successful afternoon.
Here is text of the speech I made at the event, thanking our guests for their support and inspiring them to do even more:
“Does a girl named Yasmin ring any bells for any of you? She is the student from Oaxaca who I mentioned in the invitation letter for this event. I told her story because it so nicely illustrates what we are trying to do through the Live Earth Farm Discovery Program. We have so many high minded and well intentioned goal: to improve childhood nutrition, to foster an environmental ethic, to build and support local, organic food systems, but it only takes one student leaving the farm feeling proud of themselves to know that we have planted a powerful seed.
“Yasmin is a quiet girl, who visited us with the English Language Learners of EA Hall Middle School. She is the kind of student you might not take notice of. She never raises her hand to volunteer an answer. She is always respectful of the guide and of her peers. She is sweet and not overly jovial or somber. Academically, she is middle of the road. She never stands out, which is why when she spoke up during our goat milking activity we all took notice. As we began to introduce our goatherd and explain how to milk, she shyly told us she knew how, then uncharacteristically jumped right in to demonstrate to her fellow students when given the opportunity. She milked the goats with a practiced hand, and impressed the other students with her speed and comfort with our large and sometimes ornery Moonshadow. For the rest of the activity the students directed their questions to Yasmin who deftly answered them. This student who had never seen or seemed to want the spotlight, blossomed when in her element. On the farm, she was in an environment she knew well from her childhood on a ranch in Oaxaca. And here she could be a leader, where in the classroom she just blended in.
“According to her teacher, Ms. Flores, the pride she showed after this encounter on the farm followed her back to the classroom and gave her confidence in both her social and academic endeavors. A pre teen feeling pride in their background, in their family, and in their own knowledge is a rare blessing and a welcome consequence of the work we are doing through the Discovery Program.
“When you make a donation, you are enabling us to reach more students like we did Yasmin. Through our programs kids will become more confident, better eaters, conscious consumers, and maybe even some day producers in a more sustainable, local, and organic food system.
“In 2011, the Live Earth Farm Discovery Program served 1,400 kids, an increase of 75% since 2008. This fall, through our fundraising efforts, LEFDP will host and pay for transportation for 120 third graders and 60 second graders and 60 fifth graders from Ann Soldo Elementary School on East Lake Boulevard. On Monday the 17th we debuted our new Applemania tour with the first group of 60 3rd graders. The tour included apple harvesting, a farm hike, four hands-on, grade level appropriate stations and our new newsletter.
“In this coming year we are building a program, which still needs a name, but I am calling Seeds Become Fruit. It is a three-part project, engaging kids on the farm in hands-on lessons that deepen and expand with the ongoing participation of local students in three farm projects over the course of a year. All of the students who visit the farm will be invited back to one of our annual celebrations. At the celebration, they will be awarded a certificate of participation and the older ones will be junior docents, leading learning stations like the ones they participated in in their first visit. With their Certificate of Participation is an invitation to our Summer Camp and a promise to make camp affordable for as many of the students as we can accommodate. With your help, we could offer more free and reduced fee spots than we do full price.
“At Summer Camp kids get to spend a whole week deepening and expanding their experience of Live Earth Farm. When you give as much as you can tonight, you are making all of our programs accessible to all of the kinds of kids that live in the Pajaro Valley, Monterey and South Bay areas.
“And last but not least if you have more time than money, you can become an LEFDP Docent and help lead these tours and camps, or maintain the discovery garden.
“So, please write a check to LEFDP to make a tax-deductible donation. Everyone has something to offer.”[Readers online can click here and make a donation online.]
And just in case wine dinners are not your thing, we have a few fun events coming up for you too. On October 20th at the LEF 2012 Harvest Celebration we will be serving beer to raise funds for LEFDP along with all of the other fun stuff we always do AND on October 25th Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing will be donating a portion of every pint sold to LEFDP on their “Thank you Thursday”. Tom, Constance, and I along with members of our Board of Directors will be there to enjoy a pint or two with you. RSVP to the event on our facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/LEFDP.
Farm Tour Season Begins!
Stanford University, Ann Soldo Elementary kick off tour season.
We are off to a busy week in the Live Earth Farm Discovery Program! We had an amazing time with the “SPOT-lets” (Stanford Pre-Orientation Tour). We had ten wonderful incoming freshmen and two enthusiastic leaders who are sophomores at Stanford stay with us for four nights. The SPOT-lets helped us prepare for the fundraiser and with general needs around the farm by cleaning out the goat pen, moving hay bales, prepping the Discovery Garden, and picking and cleaning apples. But the biggest help they gave us was assisting Jessica and Grace with our first school tour of the season!
Two third-grade classes from Ann Soldo arrived at the lower barn on Monday morning for a tour filled with apple picking, goat milking, scavenger hunting, cider making and relay races. The SPOT-lets helped out at four of the stations, allowing the third graders to get an in-depth appreciation of the farm. Jessica and Grace have implemented a new curriculum which includes nutrition and history of the valley, and so Monday’s third graders were the first to experience it. One of the teachers on the tour filled out a feedback form and wrote that the best thing about the tour was that “the knowledgeable staff at the stations were outgoing and positive with the students.” When the SPOT-lets read that statement, their eyes lit up. It was amazing to see students teaching students.
We are proud to announce that we are able to offer free transportation to eight classes at Ann Soldo this fall! That is almost 250 kids that will get to experience the wonders of the farm thanks to generous donations from members of our community. This Monday’s visit was the first time that classes from Ann Soldo have been able to come to Live Earth Farm. A large proportion of the student body receives free and reduced cost lunches, and many parents work in the agricultural sector. We believe it is important to show these kids what an honorable accomplishment it is to be a farmer, and to help them discover the wonders of their community!
Ground Swell – Short Video about the Live Earth Farm Discovery Program
Long-time CSA member and LEFDP board member Tera Martin produced this wonderful short movie about the Discovery Program. Please take a moment and enjoy!
Your Donations at Work Educating All Ages
I am getting so excited for another fall season of education to begin on the farm. The transition into this, the busiest of seasons, makes me so proud of what we have built. With just one reminder e-mail to the schools of the Pajaro Valley and Monterey Bay Area, we received dozens of phone calls from teachers hoping to participate in our programs.
With the money the Discovery Program has raised, we’ll be transporting 120 kids to the farm this month. Thanks to our wonderful supporters, those 120 kids will get to walk and work in the fields, harvest apples, hunt in our Discovery Garden, milk our goats, make apple cider with our press and learn about the nutrition and local history of the glorious apple. We call this visit Applemania! Yet another 120 or so kids will get to participate for free and/or reduced tour fees — again, thanks to your generous donations (through events like our fall food and wine “plein-air” fundraiser dinner, DIG!).
Through our tours and other programs we will reach about 400 kids this fall, teaching them about healthy eating habits, healthy farming practices, and share some fulfilling physical activity though fieldwork and farm hikes.
In addition to the fall Applemania tours, we will also be hosting a mostly new group of homeschooling families on the last Wednesday of each month (this may still have some space in it). Wavecrest Junior High, from Santa Cruz Montessori, returns this Thursday September 6th and will be joining us again this year, every Thursday, for their whole school day. We will also be working in the fields with two groups of College students — one from Stanford University and another from Williams College. We also hope to have the young ones from Wishing Well Preschool visit us each season for a five senses experience of the change of seasons on the farm. And of course we will continue our Wee Ones and Small Farmers drop in programs through October or, with enough interest, all winter as well.
But the fun does not end there. Adults get to participate too. We are now accepting applications for College interns from Cabrillo College and UCSC. And if your demographic has still not been mentioned, we are developing a Discovery Docent program for adults who want to learn more about the farm and help with our kids programs.
We truly relish your enthusiastic participation in all we have created and thank you, our community, for helping us reach so many people of all ages with our healthy kids, environment and community goals. As always, we encourage you to be in touch.
– Jessica
Art on the Farm, Session 2
Pickles and felting and masks, oh my! Last week’s session of Art on the Farm camp breezed by in a haze of arts and crafts, cooking and baking, and planting and harvesting projects. We had a small group this session (only 5 campers by the last day of the week), but that meant we got to spend a lot of time swapping stories, telling jokes and getting to know each other really well. The pictures below tell the story.
We couldn’t have made camp so special without the help of our amazing LIT’s (Leaders In Training) and enthusiastic campers though! So thanks to everyone who participated.
