Mike's Week 3 in the Clev

Since my last post I have been busy in the gardens I am working at. We had rain on Monday so in between the showers we took advantage of the loose soil and pulled out as many weeds as we could. The squash are starting to get big and the peppers are looking good. We had some issues with our greens however as they were harvested not by us but by rabbits and deer. On Tuesday we used the loose soil to continue weeding and today I helped lead class discussions about obesity after watching news clips. We touched on a lot of issues that we went over in Columbus like food deserts and how there are many more fast food restaurants than grocery stores in many neighborhoods. I am excited to get more kids in the urban garden that I work at on Tuesdays and Thursdays and I am trying to put together some lessons.

I watched Food Inc. and it impressed me more than I thought it would. I would put access to healthy food up with healthcare as a right for all people and I think that Americans espescially make food an after thought. Eating is one of humanity's greatest pleasures and I can't believe how far removed we are from what we eat. Even just as an education tool to teach people where their food comes from the projects all of the OCC Vistas are doing are very important. I am excited for the rest of summer and hope to be able to do more educational activities.

My thoughts...

Hey all, Katy from Mount Union here again. Before I give you my thoughts on the video and the article for this week, I gotta tell you about the parade over the weekend.

Cali and I were in a parade in downtown Alliance with other people from the Nature Center, promoting the center itself and our VISTA program. We handed out over 500 healthy snacks to people along the streets and distributed over 200 flyers promoting the Nature Center and our programs. My poor feet are covered in blisters...sacrifice I guess.

I thought the video was very interesting. The idea of people from underprivileged communities having shares in farms and their produce is excellent. Obviously its working for the South Bronx area and the more people there who see their neighbors flourish because of being able to eat healthier, the more people who will join this program. I think CSAs ar a wonderful idea. I actually know some people from Carroll County who participated in one last year. It was shown how they were actually able to purchase a farm that could then be divided into shares amongst the people. There are too many farms going under now because of the economy and by salvaging them, the doors have been opened to fresh produce and healthier living. Hopefully more farms can be saved for programs like this.

As for the program in Belo, I think that is a good idea too. In the United States, I don't know how much I could see it working. The government already has too much power and so giving them control over farmers and how they sell their produce could go in a bad direction. The idea is good however. That's it for now.

Week #2 - Sarah Bachman, Shawnee State

I'm a little behind in posting my thoughts for week 2, but having had the weekend to mull it over, I am here now to give you my thoughts on last week.

Mason already filled you in on some of it- mainly the part about all the weeds that were taking over. We put in a lot of hours on Friday and got a few rows cleared, but it rained over the weekend so they are coming back with full force. We also labeled all of our rows on Friday with laminated pictures of each of the crops we have planted. Some students from Shawnee State University came out and volunteered with us during the week to help us tie up the tomatoes, and of course, to weed. During our second week, we also got started on a little documentary about our garden. I'm really excited about it. We interviewed each other on camera, took lots of pictures and started editing some of the clips on our days in the office. Filming will be ongoing over the next few weeks, but I will be sure to post a little teaser for you all to check out.

a Fine Glimpse of Week (2)

to Review, the beginning of Week #2 was somewhat spent gathering Blackberries and assessing what needed to be accomplished with the Garden that week. The days were hot, they were long, but they were productive nonetheless. Nothing too exciting but the process itself...

Future of Food

This is Catherine from John Carroll University. I watched "The Future of Food" documentary. It focused on genetically enhanced foods and the harm that is caused to a person's body by taking in these types of food. I thought the commercials were really hilarious. They featured frozen foods like hot pockets and tv dinners. This is a huge reason why there is such confusion among the American population about what food to buy and from where to buy it. A documentary about the effects of genetically enhanced and chemical smothered foods is interrupted by commercials promoting those exact things. This is why educating people about these issues is so important. Without the proper education, consumerism becomes extremely confusing.

This week I worked on developing a teaching tool for JCU students volunteering at food centers, kitchens, and shelters. Hopefully, with the help of my outline on hunger and poverty in the Cleveland area, JCU students will be better acquainted with their service placement before they begin their actual service.

The Future of Food

Hey everyone! This is Gabe, the summer associate with Save Our Children. I just finished watching the documentary entitled "The Future of Food". This film explores the development and implementation of genetically modified foods within an industrialized food system. If anyone is interested in the issues surrounding patenting seeds, food labels in supermarkets, the economics of industrialized food markets, and the corporate role in food production then I highly recommend this movie for you. Many scenes in the movie are scary especially one in which a representative from Japan states that the Japanese government plans to watch American children over the next ten years to see how harmful the side affects of consuming genetically modified food truly are. One thing I found amusing was that I watched the video on Hulu and every fifteen minutes the advertisements that appeared were for processed foods such as Stouffers TV dinners.

In other news, my work at Save Our Children is going great. I have been teaching cooking classes to students, working at an urban gardening initiative known as Eden Vision, and have been donating my time working at the Elyria City Fresh stop. In addition, I have plans to play with my jazz band at numerous community dinners that are supporting the organic movement.

Keep working hard and enjoy your week!

the Garden

Hey there in the second week, this is Brenna, and I just finished watching "The Garden." The documentary followed a group of South Central farmers in LA fighting to keep garden property given to them by the city, which was then abruptly sold without public announcement to a private owner. The farmers were told they would be evicted in a short amount of time. It was disheartening to watch, in that the group rallied a lot of community and public support and ended up raising 16.2 million dollars in order to buy the land from a private owner, who in the end, refused to sell it to them, on the grounds of dislike for their methods/politics. The gardens were used by the people to grow food to feed themselves and their families. It saddens me that things, like community gardens, which should be so simple, are barred by heavy bureaucracy and legal complications.

My week at camp has been very busy, with 5-8 hours of class a day and the rest of my time spent with campers. However the garden is growing, I brought classes around to taste different herbs, and with most of my classes we made bracelets out of sheep wool, in lieu of sustainable crafts, or visited the farm animals we have at the ranch. Over the next few weeks I'm hoping to develop some solid lessons about food, and hopefully I'll have some things in the garden to pick and cook with the campers.

Steamy Garbage

This is Branden from Springfield. Nicole and I just finished watching Food inc. I was impressed by the variety of aspects that were considered. What was especially enlightening was the discussion of the bustling business of organics. I have lately felt, as the film aptly acknowledges, that the organic, free-range, local, etc. movement has been inevitably corrupted by capitalist greed i.e., Walmart. However, the film takes a refreshingly practical look at the enormous benefits of such a transformation. Not perfect, but decidedly better.

We recently submitted a donation request to Home Depot for the materials to build a large three-bin compost system. The soil we're currently planting in is less than ideal. Hopefully this system will allow the community to build raised beds in the future. It would also allow us to educate people, particularly young people, about sustainable gardening.

Nicole Niese

This is Nicole Niese from the Grand Avenue South Garden in Springfield. We watched Food Inc. which couldn't have been a more depressing way to start off the day. It focused on raising awareness about where food comes from, how workers and animals are treated, and the downside of having huge companies that control the food industry. I was pretty surprised to hear that the ecoli breakouts had so much to do with the food animals are now being fed. I had heard about the spinach recall when it happened, but nobody ever told me how it all got started. SHOCKER! If nothing else, the stories shared in the movie have pushed me towards reconsidering which foods I am buying at the grocery. I'm more inclined to head to the Saturday farmer's market and getting some "real" food.

Besides the depressing movie, it's been a great week out at the garden. We finished mulching the pathways and have written up our donation request for the composting system we want to build. Everything's looking great. We've seen more people out at the garden this week which is awesome! Can't wait to get started planning our neighborhood celebration!

Botany of Desire

Hey everyone, Cali and Katy here from Mount Union. We watched the documentary Botany of Desire. It was a very interesting film that explores how certain plants have had a great influence on society, and in return, how people have helped take care of these plants. The movie goes over four different plants that have influences people throughout time: the potato, the apple, cannibis, and the tulip. Each appeals to human desire in a different sense. Potatoes are like the ultimate food source for humans. Apples appeal to the sweet side of everyone. Cannibis, or marijuana as most people call it, appeals to the forbidden desire within people. It is illegal afterall. And the tulip appeals to emotional desire between people. It is a way of showing love and compassion. Overall, this was a good documntary and a great exploration into how people think about the plants around us.

We had an alright week at the free lunch program. We implemented an activity chart this week which requires the kis to do certain things to get stickers. The kids who have the most stickers at the end of the program get an awesome prize...like a pool! The kids who do something every day of the week get a small prize on monday morning when we tally everything up. We're reusing trays from lunch to paint on. Cali's mom made jump ropes out of twine which the kids have liked so far. At Feed My Sheep, not much went on but we helped a lot in the kitchen and worked in the serving line.

This saturday we are in a parade here in town. We're decorating someone's car as a bumblebee and passing out little handouts about the Nature Center and the VISTA program. We're also passing out "Bug Bites" which are cute little bug graham crackers. That's it.

Week #2 - Mason Bradbury, Shawnee State

With the rain and hot weather the weeds are growing like...well, growing like weeds, so we've spent a lot of time this week dealing with them: hoeing, hand-weeding, etc. It becomes a little monotonous, and it's hard to get volunteers excited about another day of weeding, but pretty soon the plants will be big enough that harvesting, rather than hoeing, will be our first priority.

Along the way, I've been learning how generous many people are - with time, with resources, whatever they have to give - when you present them with something they believe in.

Mike-Case Western Reserve Update

I had a productive first week and the second week has been productive as well. In week one I helped set up a bed at the Case Farm and helped organize seedlings to be planted by students this past Saturday. At the Urban garden in Cleveland I prepped the garden for the arrival of the student workers that arrived this week. This week I weeded and tilled a large bed at NuGarden (the urban garden in Cleveland) with Chris and LJ who both attend high school in Cleveland. We turned what was previously an ugly barren plot of dirt into a home for our tomato plants! Today I watched "Super Size Me" with kids at the NYSP summer Camp at case and had an interesting discussion with them about their reaction to the movie and alternatives to fast food.

The other Nicole

This is Branden from the Grand Avenue Garden in Springfield. First week was hot but productive. Made friends with a local 12-year-old named Clifton who loves to bust my chops. He is quickly becoming the garden's mascot. Going to see what I can do to get a statue of him erected by the entrance. That is my goal for the summer. Oh, and also all those nice things Nicole listed. I'll post a picture of Clifton on my next post.

Due to inclimate weather on monday, we found ourselves indoors all afternoon. While the garden soaked up some much needed rain, we watched a few documentaries. The first was Black Gold.

The following is from the films website.

http://www.blackgoldmovie.com/

"As westerners revel in designer lattes and cappuccinos, impoverished Ethiopian coffee growers suffer the bitter taste of injustice. In this eye-opening expose of the multi-billion dollar industry, Black Gold traces on man's fight for a fair price."

The second film was The Botany of Desire, based on the best-selling book by Michael Pollan. The documentary first aired on PBS in 2009.

Nicole Niese

This is Nicole Niese from the South Grand Avenue Garden in Springfield. We had a good start to the summer planting a great donation of flowers around the perimeter of our community garden. It's been a big to-do, but is coming along nicely. We are also finishing up mulching our pathways and putting up a fence painted by the children from Project Jericho.
Our goals for the next few weeks:
1) Build/Implement a compost bin on site
2) Harvest crops to be donated to the food bank
3) Prepare the garden for the city beautification contest
4) Raise awareness and increase community participation

JCU Community Garden Pictures

I thought I would add a picture of our community garden. The beans are beginning to sprout and everything else looks good!

First Week/Goals

Hi All!
This is Catherine from John Carroll University. My first week here went well. We got our community garden planted finally (a little late in the game, but hopefully everything still turns out well) and I worked two days at the Heights Emergency Food Center. We have a few JCU professors volunteering to help with the garden on a weekly basis. My main goals for the summer are 1) to develop a plan to expand the garden and make it as productive and useful to the community as possible, 2) to build awareness about hunger in the greater Cleveland area and 3) to educate clients at the emergency food center on nutrition and health. I hope everyone's first week of service was great!

Marietta College- Ely Chapman

This is Laura Finck and I'm working with the Ely Chapman Education Foundation in Marietta this summer. I'm helping with their Summer Food Service Program. I have a few different goals to help with my overall goal, which is to overall improve the program by stretching it to be the best it can be. First, I would like to get as many people coming in off of the streets as we can. There's a huge need for a feeding program in Marietta, yet we have very few people who come off the street. Ely Chapman served over 600 meals this week, mostly to participants in the summer camp. This is still incredible because these children need a steady supply of nutritious food. However, I think that we have the capacity to serve even more. So I would like to increase our client count. Next, I would like to increase the number of donations we receive. I would like to get donations from Harvest of Hope by working with Autumn and hopefully from local farmers by approaching people at the farmers' market. I will also be helping the camp councilors to plan three nutritious snacks to teach the kids to prepare. I did two already this week, so I may do more than that. Finally, I hope to decrease the food waste in the kitchen. I will be developing a program to do this that incorporates the children. We will be weighing the food waste and letting the children keep a chart to show our progress. This is to increase their awareness of the issue. I really enjoyed my first week and I hope to accomplish a lot this summer :) Good luck to everyone!!

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone. - N.D. Walsch
^ I just thought this was a good quote to start with :)

This is Katy again. I thought I would post some pictures from our first actual week at Maple Beach Park and some from the gardens at Feed My Sheep Ministries!

Hey all, this is Brenna Taylor from Hiram College. While I'm working at Hiram House camp for the summer, I'm teaching a class about food, farming and gardening to campers on a daily basis.
Here are my goals for the summer:
Educate our campers about A) gardens, why we have them, how to create them, care for them, what they can provide for you (nutritional values of veggies!)...show kids where the food in grocery stores comes from.
and B) our farm animals (including 2: sheep, goats, cows and pigs)...how these creatures provide for us, how they grow and eat, and their place in the larger scheme of food production. A challenge I face is creating an engaging way to teach these sometimes daunting concepts to a wide age-range of kids, 6- 13 years. I want to establish some solid hands-on activities that will at least get the wheels turning.
I also aim to keep our animals and garden in a healthy and happy state, reaping some food from the garden to feed campers, if only for a salad bar. I'm hoping I'll learn more while at the task and continue sharing ideas with co-workers and friends.

What's up it's Cali from Mount Union College. Our first week went really great, and we made a lot of connections with all of the kids that come out to Maple Beach Park for the free lunch program. Yesterday, Katy and I went to Feed My Sheep Ministries to help out in the community garden and put new soil down, and when we were done my arms were as black as night. HAHAHA. It was awesome! Well my goal for the summer is to get kids more interactive with nature. I want them to have an appreciation for insects and be able to tell the difference between spiders and other insects.

Hello all. This is Katy from the Mount Union Nature Center. I'm going to keep this short and sweet. Of course I wanna see our gardens at Feed My Sheep grow and produce a lot this year! Hopefully that will happen with the help of our garden watchdog Glenna (she lives across the street and takes care of them when we can't). And also, I hope we have a lasting impact with the kids at Maple Beach Park. Three days with them and so far, so good! They are excellent kids and I look forward to the coming weeks. Hopefully all our planned activities and learning opportunities work out for them and for us!

My personal goals: to get at least one kid who hates math to change their mind and like it...somehow! And my somewhat iffy yet hoped for goal is to create a raised garden bed at Maple Beach Park. The park is in amongst a bunch of government housing so hopefully the families there will use it. And hopefully it won't be destroyed by the bad kids in town. I think Cali's writing tomorrow. Later y'all :)

Food, Inc.

Today, SSU Summer Associates will be watching Food, Inc., the first film in a series of films they will be watching that deal with food. The following is from the film's website, http://www.foodincmovie.com/:

"In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, herbicide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli—the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.
Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield's Gary Hirshberg and Polyface Farms' Joel Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising—and often shocking truths—about what we eat, how it's produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here."

I've been asked to share some of my goals for the garden this year....
My name is Sarah. I grew up in gardens, mostly tinkering in the shadows of my elders, pulling weeds picking cherries and watering tulips. When I grew up and got out on my own, I carried on the tradition and took up the hobby myself. In recent years, it's less of a hobby, and more of a year long endeavor. I started my vegetable garden this year back in February, starting seeds in my windowsills. I've been dreaming of a fresh tomato for months. My own garden is probably feeling somewhat neglected these days though, since I spend most of my days in the Pantry Garden. But it's for a good cause and I find that my heirloom tomatoes are pretty hardy.

I am so proud of what we have created. It is not just a vegetable garden, but a community space where young and old work together, learn together, and grow. I have seen small children following in the shadows of their grandmothers at the garden, happily munching on turnip greens. I have seen teenagers excited to learn about growing their own food. I have been fortunate enough to learn new gardening secrets from elderly women who have been gardening for half a century. I am looking forward to learning more as the season progresses and to instilling a love of gardening in others. And I am counting the days to that first tomato!

Summer Goal(s)

im josh Aeh and to gain access as to what my goal(s) are, well, no need to continue further because here they are: with this, i personally wish to achieve a sort of New Print of an outlook as to way LIFE can be when you come from a background of different colors (strokes). By doing this i hope to broaden my understanding (open my mind), as to how each of us as Individuals cope with what it is that we already possess and how to appreciate/make the most of what is offered to us, Life Lesson's so to speak. I then would like to apply the Knowledge gained to my own Canvas, Life if you will, and use it not only to my advantage but to share IT with others so that they too, may have a finer understanding (Appreciation) as to the LIFE that exist outside themselves, ourselves...

Summer Goals

Hi All,
This is Mason Bradbury from the Shawnee faction. I hope all of the projects are beginning well! My goals are as follows:

• production - grow and distribute lots of healthy food
• education - share my experiences with, and learn from the experiences of, community members with whom we're working
• continuation - garner community support and ownership and set the foundation for the garden to continue without Americorps*VISTA involvement.

Shawnee State University

Portsmouth, OH: Shawnee State University (SSU) is thrilled to be hosting three AmeriCorps*VISTA Summer Associates this year and partnering with Ohio Campus Compact and the Portsmouth Pantry Garden (PPG). Joshua Aeh, Sarah Bachman, and Mason Bradbury have been selected to serve as the Summer Associates for this project and will be working to strengthen and expand the capacity of the Portsmouth Pantry Garden to provide fresh, healthy produce to individuals and families in need in the Portsmouth community through the distribution of harvested food to local food pantries.

Portsmouth is located in Scioto County where over 20% of the population lives below the poverty line and in a 2003 report, it was found that 37.3% of the Southwest Ohio population was overweight and 23% was obese. The two major risk factors for obesity are a sedentary lifestyle and unhealthy eating habits. Many people have started recognizing these causal relationships and are choosing to buy healthier food such as local, organic produce, and are avoiding high fructose corn syrup and other food by-products. Unfortunately, many families in the Portsmouth area do not have the financial resources available to them to make these decisions and their diets are often dictated by what is available to them at food pantries.

The Portsmouth Pantry Garden, sitting at just under 1/2 acre of land (and over 20 different types of fruits, vegetables, and flowers) donated by the City of Portsmouth, seeks to provide a way for pantry clients to have access to fresh, pesticide-free produce and also offer the opportunity for families to take a more active role in the food they are receiving such as volunteering or even just visiting the garden. The Summer Associates will provide recipe cards with each item of produce distributed with ingredients that clients would likely receive at a pantry to create healthy, well-balanced meals.

Aeh, Bachman, and Bradbury will also be supervising the court-appointed community service workers that are assigned to PPG, a facet of the project that is already blossoming beyond what we had anticipated. While some of the workers have said that they learned something new while being at the garden, others have reflected that 'it really felt good to give back to the community'.

Finally, the SA VISTAs will be working to develop pantry relations, both by hosting an information table about PPG during Pantry distribution hours, but also they will hold a canning demonstration at both partner pantry sites to help teach sustainability.

Below are links to articles about the project:

http://www.compact.org/news/portsmouth-pantry-garden/11268/

http://www.shawnee.edu/off/com/nr/05.17.10.01.html

http://communitycommon.com/bookmark/7553792-Portsmouth-Pantry-Garden-Teaches-Sustainability-

Wittenberg University

Wittenberg University, located in Springfield, Ohio, is very excited to announce their 2010 OCC AmeriCorps*VISTA Summer Associates, Branden Fugate and Nicole Niese.

The goal of Wittenberg’s Summer Associate program is to expand the capacity and scale of the Grand Avenue South Neighborhood Garden, a joint endeavor of Clark County Community Habitat for Humanity and Wittenberg University in the spring of 2010.

The need and opportunity for this neighborhood garden arose when the City of Springfield received a Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP 1) Grant to improve housing in the urban neighborhood. In addition to building 16 new homes in the neighborhood over the next three years, Habitat hopes to develop a community within the neighborhood that recruits, encourages, and supports its residents. The garden seeks to promote revitalization and stabilization through providing social, educational and recreational opportunities within the neighborhood, and encourage production of nutritious food through urban agriculture. In addition, the community garden was recently selected as a judging site for the city’s participation in the national America in Bloom contest.

Branden and Nicole will vital to the success of this year’s garden. Working with VISTAs Stephanie Rines and Rob Fellows (Garden Coordinators) the Summer Associates will focus on maintenance, community outreach and sustainability planning for the garden. Much of the food grown at the garden will be donated to a local food pantry and given to neigborhood residents.

Branden and Nicole are both rising seniors at Wittenberg. Branden, an English major, has a passion for gardening in addition to his landscaping experience. As a biology major, Nicole recently spent a semester studying at the Duke Marine Laboratory in Beaufort, North Carolina. While in North Carolina, she helped build and plant a community garden and explored various square foot gardening techniques.

Wittenberg thanks OCC for the opportunity to participate in the 2010 Summer Associate Program and looks forward to a productive summer!

Lorain County Community College

Lorain County Community College (LCCC), located in Elyria, Ohio, is excited to partner with Ohio Campus Compact (OCC) to host two AmeriCorps*VISTA Summer Associates! LCCC's Service Learning Program will be coordinating the program for the college and has placed one Summer Associate on-campus and the other in the local community at Save Our Children!

The two OCC AmeriCorps*VISTA Summer Associates hosted by LCCC will be focusing on issues of food access and security in Lorain County, Ohio. The Summer Associates will work to increase access to fresh, healthy food in low-income communities in Lorain County by building the college and community's capacity to provide access to healthy, affordable food sources.

The OCC AmeriCorps*VISTA Summer Associate located on the LCCC campus is Heather Sedlacek! Heather is a rising junior at Oberlin College and calls Lincroft, New Jersey home. She has made service to her community and volunteerism a central focus of her life. Heather volunteers at Oberlin with Girls in Motion and is a founding member of the Lorain County Food Policy Council. Heather has also shared her passion for service with her fellow students by teaching the "Practicum in Community Service" at Oberlin College. Her passion for food and service will make Heather a dynamic OCC Summer Associate and will enrich her work with LCCC's community gardens and farmers market. Heather will also bring to the Summer Associate position a knowledge of LCCC having intern with the Service Learning Program in January 2010. Heather is a talented individual and LCCC Service Learning is excited to welcome her back to the team!

The OCC AmeriCorps*VISTA Summer Associate placed at LCCC's Service Learning community partner Save Our Children is Gabe Pollack! Gabe, originally from Pennsylvania, is a rising senior at Oberlin College and will graduate in 2011 with a Bachelors of Arts in Environmental Studies and Bachelors of Music in Jazz Trumpet Performance. He is passionate about local, sustainable food and has harvested fair trade, organic coffee in Peru and is an active member of the local food cooperative in Oberlin. Gabe also has extensive experience working with children, specifically teaching trumpet lessons and as a counselor at a summer music festival in New York. His passion for the local food and experience working with children make him an exceptional candidate for the Summer Associate position at Save Our Children where he will be working to connect youth and their families to healthy, affordable foods. Both LCCC Service Learning and Save Our Children are excited to welcome Gabe as an OCC Summer Associate!

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Increasing the community's access to fresh, healthy and affordable food is vital to cultivating a bright and productive future for Lorain County and its residents. LCCC Service Learning and Save Our Children are proud to take part in the local foods movement and know that Heather and Gabe, the OCC Summer Associates, will be integral to advancing this mission!

Case Western Reserve University

Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), in Cleveland, is pleased to be a partner of the OCC AmeriCorps*VISTA Summer Associates program! CWRU’s Center for Civic Engagement & Learning will be hosting one Summer Associate, Mike Lalich.

Mike, who graduated from CWRU in May, will be entering graduate school this fall to study law and urban affairs to build upon his already passionate commitment to Cleveland! As a VISTA Summer Associate, Mike will assist several community partner organizations with projects committed to healthy eating, local food production/education, and urban gardening.

He will serve at the NuGarden09, an urban community garden managed by the Pearl Community Investment Corporation, Inc. that engages urban Cleveland youth through the Youth Opportunities Unlimited (YOU) program. During the summer, Mike will be involved in working with YOU teens at the garden, providing educational activities and assisting with garden program implementation, maintenance, and harvesting to increase the local community’s access to fresh produce.

At Squire Valleevue Farm, Mike will help with the development of a new sustainable food production project that will provide produce to CWRU’s dining hall, promote education about local food issues, and increase CWRU’s impact as a green campus. He will coordinate local youth visits and plan hand-on activities to educate about environmentally friendly farming practices such as bio controls, composting, hoop house installations, and irrigation practices.

Finally, Mike will assist with teaching nutrition education/healthy eating programs for several hundred Cleveland youth participating in the National Youth Sports Program.

We’re all looking forward to a terrific summer!

Mount Union

Mount Union College (The University of Mount Union as of August 1st) will be hosting two Summer Associate VISTAs through our Huston-Brumbaugh Nature Center.

We are excited to announce that we've hired Cali Granger, a rising sophomore and biology major & Katy Borland, a rising senior and middle childhood education major.

Cali and Katy will be creating and facilitating daily activities for low-income children that touch on nutrition, health, and nature appreciation through the Alliance School District's Free Summer Lunch Program.

In addition, both of them will be helping to prepare and serve a free community meal every Thursday through Feed My Sheep Ministries where they will also be working with the Ministries' clients in the FMS community garden.

Plus they will be putting together activities and information that will be implemented and distributed at the Alliance Farmers Market, which currently accepts EBT and WIC.

Finally, they will be helping with the free children's programming at the Nature Center, as well as community events such as the Martin Luther King, Jr. Parade.

We hope to see Cali utilize her love of insects and knowledge of nature and Katy utilize her love of math and musical talent in the activities, projects, and events that they create. We also look forward to each of them spearheading other projects and initiatives that coincide with their passions and interests during their tenure as VISTAs!