As I get ready for The S. Kitchen presents...A Year in Review, I will be sharing appeal letters from the guestperts that will be in attendance. First up is Urban Sprouts. Audrey Roderick from Urban Sprouts was our featured Guestpert at The S. Kitchen presents...Slowly Growing Green in May 2010. If you would like to donate to Urban Sprouts, click here.
Or...Attend The S. Kitchen presents...A Year in Review (RSVP on Facebook or Socializr) on Wednesday, December 29th at 5pm and donate to the "pot" to maximize your contribution across four fabulous organizations: The S. Kitchen, Urban Sprouts, OutLook Theater Project, and Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir.
On a hill overlooking the southern San Francisco skyline, there is a noticeable humming. The sound intensifies as you get closer to a tucked away corner of this Urban Sprouts school garden. Peer closely and you’ll notice one, then thousands of honeybees pollinating on the native grasses and flowers of this inner city neighborhood.In the past year, this buzz has swept into schoolyards across the nation, as school after school seeks the benefits of school gardens for their own students. Urban Sprouts is poised at the forefront of this wave of excitement. We are ready to share our six years of experience and research-tested results with more students and teachers, who are hungry to grow fresh and healthy food at their own schools.
Whether you are new to the Urban Sprouts community, or have been with us since our beginning, you have likely heard stories of our early days at struggling urban schools. Students carried water buckets out to small garden boxes on top of cracked concrete.
Today, we are rebuilding and expanding our school gardens to include outdoor kitchens, specialized composting facilities, fruit tree orchards, and even a 30-foot greenhouse, helping students to build abundant urban farms on their school campuses. By using professional facilities for cooking and tending baby plants, our students will be more prepared for careers in the green sector than ever before.
As our gardens mature, we too are ready to take the next step. As our supporter and champion, you have seen that Urban Sprouts’ school gardens help students eat better and gain a therapeutic connection to nature and to peers. But, our research shows that school gardens can do much more. They can help turn around failing schools and bring fresh and healthy food into neglected neighborhoods dismissed as food deserts.
However, not just any school garden can transform youth, families, schools and communities. Urban Sprouts uses a highly-effective model, based on theory and research, that can produce these inspiring results.With your support, we will not only strengthen and professionalize the school gardens at those San Francisco middle and high schools most in need. We will share our method with youth, families and schools up and down the West Coast.
I’d like to share with you specifically how your gift will make a difference. Your gift of:
• $48 – provides cooking pots, pans and utensils for our new outdoor kitchen
• $82 – purchases supplies for our new greenhouse, including seeding trays, soil amendments, thermometers, and hand trowels.
• $100 – enables one teacher or school volunteer to attend our Garden Educators’ 101 training course.
• $250 – covers an irrigation system for our new fruit tree orchard at June Jordan high school.
• $500 – brings one class of students out to the school garden for a day of learning.
I urge you to join me today, by writing your check of $82, $250 or $500 or by giving online through our secure website at www.urbansprouts.org.
Your investment will make a real impact, nourishing young people’s minds and bodies, and helping them to transform their schools and neighborhoods with fresh and healthy food.
Thank you very much!
Sincerely,
Abby Jaramillo
Executive Director
P.S. Here’s a special buzz! All donations of $200 or above received by December 31, 2010 will receive a jar of honey from the Ida B. Wells High School beehive!
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