YouthGROW_Jo's Xanga

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 17:04:54 GMT

Today it was our last day workin in the farm. everyone split up into groups and got staright to the work. some people harvested, others cleaned up the basement, and some people worked on expanding our farm.

after farm work was over the youth GROW group had a discussion about tommorows field trip to Newport beach... as well as plans for the upcomming block party.

During the end of the day the Youth GROW group split up in to their team projects to work on their last task of the year

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Tue, 14 Aug 2007 17:32:06 GMT

Hola Amigos! Hahaha yeah, it means hello friends; if you don't know what I just wrote down. Turns out this week is our last week on the youth GROW farm program and everybody is really working hard to prepare for the block party. We all are going to miss it since summer's over and were going to have to get back to out regular lives in just a few more weeks. But, I'm really satisfied on how thi program turned into a shining star. So, today we did our regular thing, we worked on the farm, straight talk, lunch break and now group projects. But earlier this morning we had a visiter representitive vincent pedoni checking out our farm while we were wroking out booties off. wooh! Since that's about raps it up for today. I'll tell you guys about out little camping trip to the NOFA in Amherst, MA at Amherst college. This Sat and Sun have been the best days ever. On saturday.... We sold food at out own food booth, just to tell you it SOLD OUT. jealous much? Hahah jk. Ummm well after an hours of selling our food we went to volunteer with the NOFA people and played games with little kids. It was funny because one of our staffs Uhum *cough* uhum Monaye got wacked with a long foam by a little kid who was adorable and a bit hyper. LOL well we went swimming, and went out to eat at north hampton where we started to foola round with pop rocks then set out our camping tents and went to a bon fire and the cajun dance party at a barm house. after that we went back to out tents change into my sleeping clothes a.k.a pajamas!!! then we all went into the woods and came across the bon fire again and just stayed there for a while which was peaceful. A runk guy was also there which was really funny cause he kept tumbling everywhere. Then we all came back to the tents and went to sleep. The next the day we had a workshop to do and turns out a lot of people came. the room was crammed. and the conversations came out to be well. after that we went home and had a nice long shower.... Stay tuned for out last 2 entrie until next summer Laters!

Monday, August 13, 2007

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 16:46:56 GMT

Hey all!

Sorry for the lateness and length of this entry, but we wanted to update you on all our activities from last week!

All I have to say is last Tuesday was *awesome*. The morning started off with guest speaker Jennie Stephens, who teaches Environmental Science classes at Clark. She led a discussion on global warming & climate change – and showcased her hybrid car for everyone! Nate and Phonzi seemed really interested in electric cars, and the whole group was open about what they knew and learned a lot from the discussion. Another guest we had, Lisa, said she learned more from our group about global warming than from
anything else! The rest of the day continued; we had team projects and then lunch with some very important people... Ed Augustus, Tim Murray, a city councilor woman, Jack Foley and all their staffs. Our YouthGROWers did a fantastic job leading these politicians around the farm and explaining our program, and afterwards, we sat down to ask and answer questions. It went really well, and we bade farewell and sent them off with fresh greens from the farm.

On Wednesday, we had another great field trip Today we drove out to Overlook Farm in Rutland to visit one of Heifer International’s farming projects. First, some of the workers at the farm took us on a nice tour of their farm, and they let us taste some of their produce (the peas were amazing). For lunch, we had organic peanut butter and jelly, and for dessert we tried to make our own ice cream! We broke up into groups to do work in the afternoon, and then we went on another tour, this time to look at some of the livestock kept at Overlook. On the farm, multiple houses and small plots had been built that represented different lifestyles, housing styles, crops, livestock, and farming techniques from different parts of the world, including Guatemala, Kenya, and Thailand. All in all, it was a great field trip.

As for Thursday, the day started off with a productive morning of farm work. We harvested over 150 pounds of produce, which was really exciting, and we got a lot of other work done as well. In the morning we also had a discussion about food, and we all got a chance to talk about specific meals and foods that are important to different traditions or celebrations in our own lives. It was really interesting to hear all of the different meals, and to think about how food can bring people together and connect people in different ways. I can’t speak for everyone else, but the conversation made me really hungry! J After lunch, we spent the rest of the afternoon working with our team projects. With the NOFA conference on Saturday and Sunday, and with the block party coming up this Friday (read Lorena’s post from today for more info!!!), all of the groups had a lot of work to do.

Im Back!!!!!!!!!!

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 15:14:19 GMT

heyyyyy everyone guess what im back yup its meeeee lorena. long time no c right. wll i'v had an amazing time at Youth grow and sadly its almost over. iv had a blast. it been great working for the second year with yothgrow but sadly it is my last year here. We are all finishing up our team projects and the yearbook is coming out really good, most of alllll have u heard about the block party.. if u haven't then u'v been missing out BIG TIME!!!! well let me explain bascially what it is jsut incase ur curious, its an event held by the youthgrow team and it is the time were we show what we've accomplished all year. all the team projects do their thing. its a time where everyone is welcome and the music blasted off through the whole street and everyone is having a good time. food is provided and fun is unlimited. it as great last year and im sure it will be even better this year so if u wanna come its on Friday the 17th on oread st. for more into reply to this blog or contact the REC. c u there!!!! bye

Thursday, August 02, 2007

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 15:05:05 GMT

HEY EVERYBODY!

Welcome back to our blog again and guess what??? It's almost this years ending of the summer program we all love YouthGROW very much. Since the past few weeks we have been on the farm, it was a great experience and a total BLAST! Now that the bloc party is almost coming up, everyone on the team have been running around like chickens working their butt off preparing for the special event. So today we worked on the farm in the morning for a half an hour and then we plit up into groups working on personal things. For instance, the journalism group is working very hard on the cookbook, yearbook, this awesome blog and taking pictures of the whole farm team. The others teams are also working to their bones. After the group projects. We will be having visiters on our farm from Providence, Rhode Island. We all will be working on the farm together for another hour. Then we will be huddling up group discussion and we will discuss further more about food civilization. I think that's what Erin and Betsy calls it. But it's a great discussion and we will be resuming the discussion today after lunch and work. So I hope your satisfied for out team and come back again for more bloggings from us.

Thursday, August 02, 2007

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 14:11:41 GMT

Wednesday 1, 2007

Today we took a field trip to Rhode Island, Providence. There we split into two seperate groups who worked on different parts of the Providence Farm. One group worked on weeding the flower beds, and the second group worked on hoeing the next part of the garden.

Later, during lunch time the Youth GROW group enjoyed beef patties made by the Chef BoyarG's.

Afetr our lunch the Youth GROW group helped harvest chicken eggs, while other members of the groups worked on catching chickens. After harvesting the chicken eggs the group split into two smaller groups. While one group worked on putting the weeds into the compost pile, the other group worked with tarps and rotating the soil.

A small group disccusion concluded the days field trip.

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 14:08:38 GMT

Ooooooo my first time writing in this blog, well I'm Lorena. I'm a youth leader at the youthGROW program. One of the most exciting field trips to look forward to is going to Lowell and visiting our friends from U-tech. we always just have things to share and laugh about, our distant friends. One other thing thats great about going there is playing the annual volleyball game. Sadly the girls lost this year but it was an intense game and many of the youth from both sides participated. YUM YUM..........eh you probably have no idea what im talking about but it ws Tasty. At the farm on thursday we had our new tradition created by the Chef Boi R G's aka the food group. It went a little somthing like this: well first you had to guess what was in the bag. I guessed cookies and i got my turn. after you would guess, you would be blind folded and given and organ cookie and a regular store bought cookie to see if there is a difference in liking or taste. and boy let me tell you there were many surprises, Trust me! the point of the taste test was mainly to prove that organic food is not different form regular store bought food its just healthier. It surprised me that i couldn't tell the difference between the two cookies but i remember that the organic one did have more flavor.. Shocking right!!! well enough of me, but heyyy remember i'll be backkkk!!!! lol c ya!!!

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Sat, 21 Jul 2007 01:56:24 GMT

Hey everyone!

Sorry for the lateness, now that we have started our fourth time blogging on xanga about our summer program we call YouthGROW . Lets take some time to appreciate what we have and be thankful that we have a chance to gain knowledge of making a useful junkyard into and beautiful ORGANIC farmland in an urban neighborhood we call home. Thank you. So, Yesterday was precisely and ordinary day. It was more calmer than the other days, especially since the weather is basically cool & lighthearted. We spend some time going over our schedule on the marker board. Some of the youth growers had some great ideas on changing the schedule just to make us a bit more relaxed. A few of us did not agreed but, the leaders decided to let the schedule changed for the day, just to see how it all works out. First off, we farmed in the morning which was a total breeze. I (We) actually felt more energized and was ready to spend the day more chilled out. After we farmed for two hours we all were split up into four groups and had some time to straight talk with the others in our group. What we do is we say some nice things to the others in our group and probably say some bad things that the person should work on for the rest of the summer. After straight talk we had lunch and after lunch we were split up into our projects group and worked amongst ourselves. Hopefully everybody is satisfied on how hard we worked on the farm and stay tune for some more entries from the journalism group LATERS!

Grow Hartford

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 01:09:52 GMT

Hey all you!

Today was really nice getting to know the inner-workings of Grow Hartford, a youth-oriented farming program (similar to YouthGROW) in Hartford, CT. First thing's first: breakfast. The food group offered some awesome egg sandwiches before we headed out, explaining that the eggs were produced from a farm in central Massachusetts (buy local!!) I must say, the sandwiches were very well received among our group. When we made it to Grow Hartford's farm on Laurel St., Jerica, the program coordinator, gave us a short sweep of the garden, pointing out the tomato, potato, cabbage, lettuce, and various other plants. One of the biggest obstacles Grow Hartford faces is dumping of contaminating garbage and organic waste by the City of Hartford, which owns the land Grow Hartford farms. Frank and Mary's message about social change came up again in discussing what Grow Hartford's youth have the power to do to resolve this issue. After the tour, we munched on the food group's latest gourmet escapade, french bread pizzas and sauteed collard greens & kale --- so delicious!!! The post-meal lull wasn't about to set in, though, because after lunch, Jerica facilitated an "ideal city" activity in which small groups worked on devising and drafting their ideal worlds. The major message was that whatever we envision for our perfect world can become a reality if we act on our beliefs and make it our passion. Pretty powerful stuff...

I don't know about you, but I think tomorrow will be a good day. Stay tuned...

YouthGROW and Social Action

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 20:29:56 GMT

Hey all you!

Today we had two visitors come and speak to us about social change within a community (one of my favorite topics!) Frank Kartheiser is the Lead Organizer of Worcester Interfaith, and Mary Keefe is directing the Pleasant Street Neighborhood Network Center. Frank took a few YouthGROWers by surprise when he asked why we're involved in YouthGROW... "Why YouthGROW???" And, in a nutshell, we answered, to help our community, to keep us out of trouble, to spend time with (awesome) people and to have a productive summer break. Frank explained to us that social change and social action, unlike simple acts of charity, actually actively remove the need for charitable organizations; instead of buying and donating food for the unemployed, why not help find or create jobs for them? Overall, the message really sunk in, for me at least. He also deconstructed the definition of POWER, and showed us that there is power in numbers and power in our voices waiting to be heard. Mary continued to promote community organizing. For years, she has been working with the Pleasant St. Neighborhood Network Center to expose the honest opinion of community members on city issues like Worcester Community Schools and City Pools. A few of us even volunteered to help her out with the pool campaign! How's that for youth power?

The rest of the day was slightly less stimulating: the farm group continued planting in and maintaining the drip irrigation beds they've developed; the food group busied themselves with tomorrow's lunch... french bread pizza and sauteed collard greens and kale! A few YouthGROWers participated in Lead Week's youth fair on Cambridge St. while the rest of us whipped the farm into shape (lots of weeding!) The cabbage, collards, corn, pepper plants, kale, tomato plants, and basil are coming along great!

Stay tuned...