the revolution will be cultivated

New Year's Resolution

2011-12-21T18:27:00.001-05:00

Hello this is Kuwu and Paul from the Youth Enterprise at MAP the Massachusetts avenue project. Our New Year's resolution
for 2012 is to go as green as we possibly can, which means we plan on doing so much to help
our environment. We also have a few New Year's resolutions so easy that
you'll have no excuse not to keep them.

1. Use a bike for short trips-Using your bike for short trips reduces the amount of money you spend on gasoline and car maintenance, and increases your fitness level as well.

2.Buy from farmer's markets instead of groceries stores-buying from a farmers market helps our environment because it's local and no chemicals and it gets the most money to the people who grow our food.

3. Eat Smart- if you eat meat eat one meatless meal a week because raising beef, pork, chickens and other meat we eat has high costs to the environment, and our pockets as well.

4. No bottled water- do not buy water; buy filters and filter your own tap water because plastic bottles make up a large amount of container waste.

5. Borrowing- instead of buying your own personal book, borrow from a library this helps save our beautiful trees.

Hello from Desyonna-Growing Green Works!

2011-12-13T18:16:00.005-05:00

Hi, my name is Desyonna. I work for MAP for Growing Green's youth enterprise. I have not yet been here for a year but so far the experience has been great. During my time here I have been to work on our urban farm, I've sold our youth enterprise products at community fairs and holiday bazaars, I helped greet riders at our annual Tour de Farms event for a half way pit stop and much much more. Doesnt that sound like alot?? But thats just a part of what we do here. We also talk alot about ways youth can make positive changes in our communities. Helping people get healthy organic foods that they can afford, helping politicians see why its important to support local farms and what we need to do to put people and the planet first, not corporations. This is a great first job for me. Everything we do helps us learn skills and make the situation better for our communities. Its not easy being a leader but it is good to feel like what I do helps others. I am proud to work at MAP and work with other teens to decide what kind of future we want to create. I wasnt sure what my first job would be like but now I know and I enjoy every moment of it...

Hello from Kuwu at Growing Green Youth Enterprise

2011-11-16T16:47:00.009-05:00

hey, my name is kuwu kabah and i am a youth employee at growing green. I've started working at growing green in July 2011. there are three different groups and they are the outreach group, business group, and farm group. during the summer i had the opportunity to work in the outreach group and in this group we were in charge of making posters and making videos to show what our goal is at growing green. this fall i was selected with 10 other youth to continue working for the School year program. this fall i'm apart of the enterprise group also known as the Growing Green Works. since I've started working with the enterprise group I've learned so many things about business, like break even analysis and how to do market research for a product. We finally produced our Raspberry Apple Cider Vinaigrette and its very good. It is not available in stores yet but give us a call if you'd like to order some 882-5327 ext 5.
I have learned a lot that i didn't know before. when i first started selling our products i was very shy and a bit scared to speak to our costumers. my supervisor Zoe taught me so much about communication, persuasive speech and presentation and has been very patient with me. now i can speak in public and sell products out in the markets with out being nervous. I've also learned a lot of information about the foods that are being sold in groceries stores and i believe that everyone deserves to know these facts because after finding out what I've been eating for so many years i felt very bad that I've stop eating things i thought were good for me when all along they were really harming me-like fast foods, factory farm fish and meat and foods with pesticides. once again I'm kuwu kabah and I'm a youth employee at the Massachusetts ave project ( growing green)

Want a Greener City Buffalo? Take it to the Green Code

2011-11-04T21:14:00.013-04:00

Hi this is Patience Nimely and Ne’Shay Kennon reporting from the Massachusetts Avenue Project. We are the youth leaders of Healthy Kids Healthy Community (HKHC) Buffalo. HKHC is a partnership that aims to improve policy about healthy eating and active living. We recently attended the Buffalo Green Code unveiling of Buffalo’s Future Land Use Plan? The Green Code is a revision of Buffalo’s land use and zoning policies that will promote investment, create jobs, and improve the urban environment. It’s also a way to create a future development plan that maps the entire city by type of place. The Future Land Use Plan provided a draft of what will become of our city and what they have considered over the past years.

We attended the Buffalo’s Future Land Use Plan at Erie Community College to preview the draft that’s been prepared by the City of Buffalo’s Strategic Planning Department and consultants. The draft includes land use, new zoning, community environment, and future place type. To create the plan the city was divided into neighborhood groups where community residents were able to reflect, ask questions, and give comments about the draft. On Saturday we spoke with Mayor Brown and news reporters about our personal experiences as youth in our communities and our comments on the plan.

We were proud to be a part of the process and to voice our opinions on what matters to us. We found the plan to be a good beginning but it also left out some important points and solutions. We were pleased to find reinvigorating public health as a part of the draft. The plan promotes developing grocery stores in low income areas. It also expressed the allowance of urban agriculture in high-vacancy neighborhoods. But we feel community gardens and urban agriculture should be promoted everywhere, not only can these spaces be used for education and nutrition for the people but they also improve neighborhoods aesthetics and divert water from overwhelming our sewer systems.

The plan implies the temporary support of vacant land to be expanded for further usage. With 23,000 vacant lots and buildings in Buffalo, there are more benefits to developing a percentage of them as urban green spaces with long term land use. The plan talks about colleges and universities but we didn’t see anything about high schools or school zones but there are more than 60,000 teens under 18 years old in Buffalo and we think there should be special guidelines to lessen the amount of liquor stores, fast food restaurants and places selling only unhealthy food in those areas. Also we have to get the places that produce and store toxic chemicals away from where people live, work and play, so we suggest moving them to places away from housing, schools, businesses and recreational areas.

In the future we will try to push for the allowance of market urban farms to establish and maintain a farm stands for the sale of crops grown onsite. We want the city to make transportation less difficult for people of all ages and disabilities. Biking and schooling routes should be well lit and made to be safer. We want to encourage schools to provide healthy foods and corner stores to sell fresh produce but they need help to make that happen. There should be codes to reduce the sales of alcohol and tobacco near high-crime areas, schools and parks. We hope others will join us in talking about the importance of farmers markets, mobile markets, urban farms, and community gardens. We have a full list of what we have submitted to the Green Code Land Use Plan below so please take a look and if you support those things too visit www.buffalogreencode.com and say so! Really it’s important.

MAP/HKHC Green Code Community Health Priorities

Public Health

· Establish more protective housing, development and health codes that address Public Health Issues including mental health, fall prevention, obesity, indoor & outdoor air quality, water quality and environmental health; focus on housing, worksites and schools

· Require developers to provide a mix of housing and development types and affordability levels.

· Use conditional use permits and adopt “deemed approved ordinances” to improve community health through enhanced health standards

· Maintain buffer zones separating industrial or transportation corridors from sensitive areas

· Update building codes to incorporate green building principles, standards, etc.

· Promote increased public space suitable for active & passive recreation

· Restrict approvals for new retailers selling alcohol and tobacco for offsite consumption near high crime areas, schools and parks

· Create healthy school zones (inclusive of allowable uses and restricted uses that promote health habits –limit the amount of unhealthy food sources as a percentage of total commercial activity, provide permit/tax incentives for corner stores to carry healthy food, create districts for community gardens and urban agriculture sites to be centers for learning near schools

Active Living

· Adopt mixed-use residential, commercial and office zoning where appropriate

· Require walking, biking, wheelchair access facilities in all new developments; adopt pedestrian, bike and wheel chair accessible design codes for the city

· Establish parking maximum (vs. minimum) requirements, incentivize permeable parking materials used in new/existing construction

· Ensuring zoning appropriate for existing and potential bicycle and pedestrian routes, and comply with existing Complete Streets Ordinance

· Establish building design codes/guidelines that require parking in the rear of buildings; design codes should promote attractive and well lit store fronts that encourage pedestrian activity and public safety

· Require land setbacks and public access on all new waterfront development activities

Food Access

· Permit for the establishment of grocery stores (and other fresh food vendors) in underserved areas; provide fast track permitting for grocery stores (and other fresh food vendors) in underserved areas

· Identify sites for farmers markets, mobile markets, urban farms and community gardens

· Limit the number of unhealthy food outlets within all residential neighborhoods

· Permit community gardens and urban agriculture as an allowable use in residential and commercial zones

· Permit community gardens, small-scale farms around schools for educational and nutritional purposes

· Community gardens and urban farms should be considered permanent, viable land uses - not temporary land uses-in most zoning districts/categories—not just high vacancy areas

· Urban Farms should be permitted for educational, research and/or commercial crop production purposes

· Allow for market urban farms to establish and maintain farmstands for the sale of crops grown onsite

· Provide incentives to establish urban agriculture production as an option for vacant land and other properties in designated areas

As the youth representatives to the Advisory committee of Healthy Kids Healthy Communities Buffalo we will push to improve and enhance our city for healthy people and a greener future. If you would like to get involved with our groups please contact us at (716)882-5327 ext4 or email us at hkhcbuffaloyouth@gmail.com

I Am a Youth and I Am the Food Justice Movement

2011-09-05T11:10:00.006-04:00

I Am a Youth, I Am the Food Justice Movement:
Growing Green Youth in National Youth-Led Food Policy

Hello my name is Jordan Velasquez and I am the food justice movement. This July four youth from the Massachusetts Avenue Project and Growing Green, and our youth leader, Zoe Hollomon, went to Philadelphia to be part of the first youth-led National Food Policy Summit and declare the first ever Youth Food Bill of Rights. It was put on by Rooted In Community (RIC), a national group of young food justice leaders and organizations and the Urban Nutrition Initiative (UNI) urban agriculture program in Philly. Over 150 youth and adults came because we see what is happening in our communities to low income people, to farmer workers, to the environment, to animals and we DON’T accept it. We came to demand our Youth Food Bill of Rights and say that we need a better food system and we demand better from corporations and government. If you can read this then you can do something about injustice. I hope you read this and it inspires you to work for a better food system. We the youth, we are not just the future leaders, we are leaders today and we are making a change!

A lot of this started with RICs help, we had the Dignity Dialogues, where the youth spoke about how people should be treated regardless of their age, ethnicity or how much money they make. Youth are the future and so we should be included in what the future looks like. Right now we don’t like what we see: people in poor communities not being able to get healthy food , farmworkers working in unsafe conditions, big fast food companies make millions selling bad food to us, animals being abused and unclean factories that make our food, and so much pollution and waste, don’t we want a world to live in in the future? I do.

Over our time at the Youth Food Policy Summit we shared our stories, we talked about our struggles and we said what wanted for the future. We came together and made a list of rights to help our food system be fair, just and sustainable. At our Day of Action, we declared the Youth Food Bill of Rights, and we told our stories and used art and theater to make ourselves known in a way people couldn’t ignore. It was amazing and you could feel that it was something really big. People came in from the street and from around the park to see what it was about. I presented one of the Youth Food Rights and even though I was nervous I felt proud of myself and all of us there. We challenged adults to join with us to fight in the food justice movement and had people come and sign our Youth Food Bill of Rights.

After the Day of Action we got into regional groups and talked about how we could each take on a few of these rights to work on from our communities. It could be getting nutrition education in schools or making policy to help people grow food on vacant lots, or starting a workers rights campaign, all of our regional groups will decide which Youth Food Bill of Rights they want to work on and can get support from RIC to help us as we do it. Our group from Growing Green decided to host a Youth Food Policy Laboratory October 15th and 16th in Buffalo to agree on which rights we want to work on and look at different ways to take action together in food justice in our region. We also will do an action with our state food justice partners in New York City for World Food Day October 16th.

Going to the summit I felt proud of the work I do at MAP and Growing Green. I also felt part of something bigger too. There are so many people who want justice and so many youth who are making change in their communities. We the youth are doing it. We are fighting for healthier food in our communities, we are working on policy, we are make better ways to grow food and not hurt animals and the environment. We are the food justice movement and we are just getting started!

To see the Youth Food Bill of Rights and sign on in support please go to www.youthfoodbillofrights.com If you want more information about youth and the food justice movement please go to our Youth Food Bill of Rights facebook page or Twitter page. You can also get more info at www.rootedincommunity.org or email us at MAP and Growing Green to talk about the Youth Food Policy LAB in October 2011 at hollomon@mass-ave.org.

Growing Healthy

2011-08-17T14:16:00.003-04:00

Hi my name is Anabel Dieguez Ortega this is my first time working at Map. For the first couple of weeks we did alot of activities. During those we got to learn alot about each other and alot about the program. When we first worked at the farm we started our first compost piles for the farm. We harvested alot of fruits and veggtables and some eggs from our chickens.Wish we have sold them to restaurants and ate some at our fridat lounches. Some of the stuff we grow is sold at the farm stand in the neighborhood. I my self and others have worked for Lowes & Fishes wish is a soup kitchen that provides food for the less fortune. It felt really good to help others especially when they would say thank you. For the rest of the programs learned more about how to grow food and eat more local. So far this summer was a very good one and i hope to work here again sence I've learned alot. Growing Green it's a family that's one of the reasons why i would like to work here again. This has helped me to ear money to help my self and buy things that i really needed for school.

Hi my name is Josh

2011-07-27T14:59:00.007-04:00

Hi my name is Joshua Ellis and I've worked for map for two summers. There are three groups and I'm in the youth enterprise group. For the first two weeks I learned how to make a business call and how to set the table for customers buying our products. We also learned about the food system and the economy. We also learned about food justice and how everyone should have the right to healthy food. Zoe and some other employees of MAP are in Philadelphia discussing a food bill of rights for America.

Factory farming

2011-05-05T16:16:00.006-04:00

My name is Adriana Ragland. For school I wrote a thesis paper on factory farming. Factory farming is basically farming industrialized. These strong operations are able to produce food in high volume but they don't think about the environment, animal welfare, or food safety. Most of the animals in factory farms live in horrible conditions and are confined in dark over crowded facilities.
Factory farming started in the 1920s soon after the discovery of vitamins A and D, when these vitamins are added to their food, animals no longer require exercise and sunlight for growth. This allowed large numbers of animals to be raised indoors year round. One of the biggest problems that was faced in raising these animals indoors was the spread of disease, which was fixed in the 1940s with the development of antibiotics. Farmers found they could increase productivity and reduce the operating costs by using machinery and assembly line techniques. In Factory Farming animals are not considered animals at all, they are "food producing machines". For more information you can visit the website Meatrix.org. Animals are confined to small cages with metal bars, ammonia filled air and artificial lighting or no lighting at all. They suffer through horrible mutilations such as beak searing, tail docking, ear cutting and castration.The reason this happens is because the animals start fighting due to these horrible living conditions. The animals are forced to live in small spaces that they cant live naturally.
Factory farming also has a major affect on humans. Chemical, bacterial, and viral compounds of animal waste can runoff into our soil and water ways. After this happens it can immediately affect the people that use these resources. The main substances are ammonia, nitrogen, and phosphorus along with greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide that pollute air, land, and water. Animals on factory farms are given hormones and antibiotics to help with productivity. One example is recombinant bovine growth hormone, this is a genetically engineered hormone injected into dairy cows to artificially increase their milk production. Another concern is that injecting cows with bovine growth hormone may cause them to produce more of another hormone called insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1). Animal studies suggest that elevated levels of IGF-1 in the bloodstream could increase the risk for some cancers, particularly colon and breast cancers.
I chose this topic because i believe the food that we take into our body is important and we should know where it comes from. This can help build up a healthier body. When you buy local you are able to know who your farmer is and their methods in food production. Buying local fruits, vegetables, and meat products, you support your local economy. More of the money you spend goes directly to the farmers themselves because less goes to transportation and middlemen. Buying locally also means burning less fossil fuels to get food from the farm to table,which helps the environment. Help to save the planet and people within it buy local!

2011-04-20T16:58:00.008-04:00

Hi Bloggers its Anthony and Adriana here from Growing Green! Earth day is our blog topic this week. Earth day was established nationally by US Senator Garland Nelson to inspire and appreciate the earth's natural environment. We at Growing Green celebrate earth day every day-I mean really is there a day that we shouldn't appreciate the earth? The fact is that many people don't think about the environment, and how what we do has a huge impact on it. People should think of the environment and try to support its health, our future as inhabitants depends on it. We talked about how the earth is like a space ship, we all are on it and we cant go anywhere else if we trash it so we need to work together to think about how to make it healthy. How should we do that? Here are a couple things that we at Growing Green do to help support the environment.

We grow food in our community and work to get local food into our city as much as possible through our farm stands, mobile market and CSAs-thats where you can buy direct from a local farm--all these things = less transporting of food acorss long distances=uses more gas (non-renewble resource) and pollutes the atmosphere and adds to global warming.
We support local farms that are more diverse and chemical free. They often produce more per square foot than most industrial sized farms and care more about the quality of food and how its grown, plus they are businesses so if you want to support the economy dont forget to support local farms.
We grow organically and use creative ways to grow food that produces more on our half acre urban farm. We grow aquaponically, we compost and practice chemical free pest control methods so we arent poisoning our food or the land.
We talk to everyone about supporting fair food access, which is important because we have a lot of people who cant afford to eat healthy and dont have places to get it in their neighborhood. If they cant get healthy food its harder for them to have a fair chance to grow healthy and become tomorrows leaders.
Try to find connections between people who need healthy food and people who grow it-a smaller food system is more local is healthier for the planet. A healthy food system can help heal land that has been stripped and protects our water, soil and animals.

Our earth is important and we dont have to chose between having what we need and trashing the planet. Some people think that way--their kind of stuck in their minds. You can get involved and do the earth a big favor by BEING VOCAL & EATING LOCAL!!!
peace

Growing Green jobs for youth

2011-03-24T17:18:00.009-04:00

Urban farming can be used to create jobs for youth in the community. Growing Green is a great example, youth can come and learn about urban farming and food justice. One green job that GG has taught its youth is composting. We use scraps of food that we get from restaurants and the Erie County Culinary Department. We also grow fresh organic produce on our urban farm sell value added products to people in Buffalo and Western New York.
Growing Green spreads the idea of green jobs by hosting events such as our Spring Urban Agriculture training. This training allowed people from all across the country to come and learn about how to start there own Green Businesses, like aquaponics or niche market vegetables. Another way Growing Green spreads ideas of Green Jobs is by inviting people to our urban farm to learn about what were doing and why we are doing it. By spreading the idea of buying local we are helping to make the food system more sustainable.
Green jobs are the key to a better future for us all. They will help save our environment and boost our economy. The tools are avalibale to start alot a of green jobs everywhere we just have to be creative and provide the right education to the people.

Green Code Youth Ambassador Training

2011-02-28T10:19:00.008-05:00

HI Buffalo and WNY! This is Anthony and Adriana from Growing Green and we're reporting back on our Green Code Youth Ambassador Training with Healthy Kids Healthy Communities last Thursday at the BNMC--that's Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. It was important to have this training for youth leaders because youth need to have a voice in how our communities are planned. We have good ideas and we will be the ones growing up there right?? We had over 50 people attend, learn about how we can use zoning to create better communities. We were at the Innovation Center at the Medical Campus and its was cool to be in such a modern building-we felt like scientists.

What's up world? this is Anthony and I think it went great. We had youth from all different areas of Buffalo including East Side, Riverside, South Buffalo, North Buffalo and of course the West Side. We formed different groups and created our own cities and decided what we would use the land for and where we would have residential, commercial, public services, industrial and other uses. We talked about fun recreational ideas for youth, more parks on the waterfront, gardens and urban farms in every neighborhood, even businesses out on Lake Erie on boats. We played urban experience bingo and got to know eachother thru our Where the Wind Blows game. I think the best part was talking about our dream cities--I had a laugh attack but Iliana helped me talk about our perfect city to the big group.

We learned the difference between a program, policy and project and talked about what we wanted to say at our neighborhood meetings.

Well this is Adriana and I thought the best part was talking about what we would change about our neighborhood. We have some vacant lots near my house and I think they should be used to build a beautiful garden for the community, it would make the street prettier and we could grow fruit trees like cherry, peach or pears. I talked with some college students and teens from South Park Highschool and we are all going to call each other to remind us about going to the Green Code neighborhood meetings.

Well that's our report and If you are reading this make sure you go to the Green Code meetings and let them know what you think about how we use land in this city. If we dont they might do something we don't want and you could have to live or go to school next to a factory--What?!?! That's not right. SO dont forget to go and check out the map(http://www.buffalogreencode.com/february-community-meetings/) for when a meeting will be happening in your neighborhood

MAP & Growing Green-- a hit at the 2011 Good Jobs Green Jobs Conference

2011-02-28T01:04:00.005-05:00

Hello bloggers. Zoe here. Just back from presenting at the 2011 Good Jobs Green Jobs Conference with my fellow Green for All fellows. Hosted by the Blue Green Alliance, the conference brings together representatives from labor, environmental organizations and community non-profits to discuss a more sustainable future and green jobs. It was inspiring to see the combination of attendees, speakers and workshop topics all taking place at one event. For our panel, “Faces of the New Green: Models in Green Jobs Development Among Low-Income Communities & Communities of Color,” each of us described our work, our different projects and perspectives, keys to our progress, challenges and finally we shared critical questions with our audience about how to accomplish our shared goal –building a more sustainable economy for a future that we are proud to pass on to future generations.

As a youth development and food justice professional, I am proud to say that our issues related to food security and youth employment were echoed by people from communities in DC, NYC, Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, and beyond. In our breakout groups It was uplifting to hear peoples’ praises in support of our work at MAP and feel the solidarity of sharing similar struggles.

I was able to make connections with other groups and individuals and get to know better the work of my Green for All fellows. At one workshop, I met several youth leaders from Manhattan Comprehensive Day and Night School, a unique school where youth can obtain a highschool diploma in 2 years and get green job training and skills for their future. I felt an immediate connection with the teens through their presentations and hearing their stories. It reminded me of our Growing Green program and we made promises to get in touch and see if we could build a bridge between our two organizations. Getting closer to some of my Green for All fellows and hearing about some of their best practices and challenges helped build our existing relationships and opened some new possibilities to work together.

What I parted with from this experience was a sense of alignment with thousands of others in the movement, working for better choices for our communities. I feel proud to represent my community of Buffalo, our youth and our work at Growing Green. My fellowship with Green for All has been a wonderful opportunity to see how diverse our movement is and what can happen when diversity is cultivated. I'm recharged and glad to be back home

The Farm Bill: How Policy impacts Our Food, farms and how to get involved

2011-01-28T13:54:00.007-05:00

Hi Everyone! Abdi and Anthony Here from Growing Green. We have been talking about how policy can help us all have healthier food, healthier communities and a healthier planet. While we chose to write about the Farm Bill, a group of Federal policies that impact our food, our fellow Growing Greeners Adriana and Robert are writing about the Green Code, a local effort to make Buffalo’s land use policies more green and food friendly. Well we hop you enjoy and please vote for our blog entry if you think we’ve got good info.

What is the farm bill? The farm bill is the primary agricultural and food policy tool of the federal government. The comprehensive bill is passed every 5 years or so by the United States Congress and deals with both agriculture and all other affairs under the authority of the United States Department of Agriculture.

Some of the things that the food bill covers are:

The farm bill influences the federal food stamp program. The farm bill decides what food stamps can buy, how much they can buy, and were they can buy with the food products.

The farm bill covers policies that decide what food is in public school lunches.

The Farm Bill also impacts food and agricultural subsidies. A subsidy is a form of financial assistance paid to a business or economic sector. People who make high fructose corn syrups get more subsidies right now than the healthy food growers. The real prices of fruits and vegetables have increased greatly between 1985 and 2000 by 40%! Those healthy foods are now hard for the schools to afford and keep us in healthy shape. Due to big subsidies the healthy and necessary foods that we need are priced higher while the subsidized unhealthy foods, such as soft drinks, AKA liquid corn syrup, decline in prices by 23%! so even foods that are more processed and that require more labor to produce cost less. Take a look at your school lunches.

Why should we care about the farm bill? The Farm Bill covers a wide range of topics, including payments to farmers to support the prices for crops, nutrition programs such as food stamps, international trade, conservation, energy. So many different issues that it pretty much covers everything we eat, and grow! It is affecting because it is making it more difficult for people to get there hands on healthy food and is making it more difficult for farmers to grow the healthy food because they cant sell it. The Farm Bill isn’t the only legislation to address these issues, but it is one time when we have an opportunity to speak out on things that concern so many parts of our lives.

Who is responsible for deciding what is in the farm bill? Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Farm Service Agency, The U.S. Forest Service, Great Lakes Basin Program for Sediment and Erosion Control, National Watershed Coalition are the partners of the Farm Bill and are responsible for things such as funding and finding more resources.

How can we get involved? The first step in taking action on the farm bill is to learn more on what the farm bill is about. Finding something that you feel strongly about will motivate you to get involved.

You can become more aware of how the food and agricultural policies have affected your food: in schools, in stores, for farming practices and economically. Take a look at the following movies about food: King Corn, Life and Debt, or Food Inc., Supersize Me, The Future of Food, Global Banquet: Politics of Food, Prince Charles’ Harmony Documentary, The Garden, The Story of Food, The Meatrix-these last 3 are good for kids! Try these books about food: Fast Food Nation, Omnivores Dilemma, What to Eat, Let Them Eat Junk, Stolen Harvest, Diet for a Small Planet, Stuffed and Starved.
Some great websites to get more information are: Foodsecurity.org, Foodfirst.org, Greenforall.org, http://www.greenforall.org/resources/healthy-food-for-all-planthing-seeds-of-change/, Smallplanet.org. On these websites they will tell you how you can learn more about the food system and how to get more involved in food justice issues and food policy.
Take a look at your school lunch menu. You can get one from your principle. If the choices for food are mostly processed foods or foods with high fructose corn syrup ask your principle or local school board how to get more healthy food in your school.
Another way you can get involved is by contacting a member of Congress and telling them how the farm bill is affecting your city or town and how they can change the bill for the better. For help finding your local representative go to: www.lwv.org once your there you can to over the take action bar, and click on find your representative.
You can also help support local farms by joining a Community Supported Agriculture program-where you can get healthy food direct from a local farm, volunteering at an urban agriculture organization, buying locally produced food from a farmers market, food co-op or grocery store or growing organic food yourself!!

When should we act? The farm bill changes every 5 years and it affects all citizens in the U.S. Congress begins discussion of the new Farm Bill two years in advance, the next bill should be coming out on 2012. Just like when you have homework due in a month. Should you wait a month to start working on it??? Probably not. If you think about it this policy affects so much of our lives, our health and our communities and our world. What’s more important than that? So whether its something big or small find something you are passionate about and do something about it today!

Green our City with the Green Code

2011-01-27T17:30:00.010-05:00

Hello this is Adriana and Robert from Growing Green. We are a part of Healthy Kids Healthy Communities of Buffalo and we are excited to be part of the planning for buffalo's new Green Code. A zoning code is a series of rules that explain how and what land is used for. Buffalo's current zoning code was written in 1951 and is now very very outdated. A lot of things have changed since that era and it is time to write new rules. A new green code can help protect our neighborhood and our city. It can also can prevent land uses that do not fit in our neighborhoods, like polluting factories. It can also encourage uses that help make neighborhoods better , like urban farms, gardens,parks and more recreational sites. Do you want to be a part of this planning? Then come help us by participating in a workshop in your neighborhood. You'll have a chance to tell the city what your neighborhood is like now, how it is changing , and and what you would like it to become. The Locations are:

Riverside High school March 1st 6:30-9:00 P.M.

North Park Academy March 2nd 6:30-9:00 P.M.

Bennett High School March 1st 6:30-9:00 P.M.

Lafayette high school March 3rd 6:30-9:00 P.M.

South Park high school March 3rd 6:30-9:00 P.M.

Montessori School March 2nd 6:30-9:00 P.M.

East High school 9:00-11:30 A.M.

Col Matt Urban Center March 5th 1:00 P.M.-3:30 P.M.

Hutch Tech high school February 28 6:30 P.M.-9:00 P.M.

Come to one of these workshops in your community and help to make this effort a success. :)

GG Youth beginning Lois Gibbs Fellowship

2011-01-13T16:36:00.005-05:00

Hello and this is Adriana and Anthony from the youth enterprise group. Yesterday Anthony and Robert began their Lois Gibbs fellowship about environmental justice. The fellowship was inspired by Lois Gibbs, who led the fight to get children and families out of a toxic environment, the Love Canal. She told the story of her and her neighbors and how they organized for environmental justice. The Love Canal is in the northern area near Buffalo and there were many companies dumping a lot of toxic waste into a dump-site that had a school built and homes over it. The chemicals started leaking into the peoples basements who lived in the area and the toxic chemicals got into their heating systems. These chemicals were so poisonous that 56% of children born in the neighborhood were born with birth defects. Lois Gibbs was a mom whose young son became very sick from the exposure to the chemicals just by going to school and living in his neighborhood. Lois Gibbs was telling us about ways she and her neighbors fought to secure the safety of the residents in Love Canal. Food justice is related to environmental justice because they both affect people in my neighborhood. It's not right that people have to live without healthy food our without healthy neighborhoods, we all deserve better than that. Also we're connected to our land, which provides us with the food, water, animals, plants, and materials that we need to live. We have to protect these natural resources so that we can have a future. I want my grandchildren to be able to see the oceans, grass, and animals that i was able to see.We still have a chance to save the future. In fact we are the future.

Adressing our environment for the future!

2010-11-19T17:46:00.004-05:00

Today we discussed how not enough people realize whats going on with global warming and our Earth. We, the youth working for a greener planet, need to make our voices heard by getting the message out there. I feel like people are too focused on so many different things now that they are not focused on our Earth and the future. The atmosphere around our Earth is at 390 parts per million CO2 when were actually supposed to be below 350 parts per million CO2 just so that the Earth can support life on this planet!!!. This means that we as a world need to find a way to decrease carbon dioxide and pollution so we can have a future together--and how could we have one apart? We brianstormed ideas for building this cause in Buffalo. We can start Green teams in schools or find ways to recycle and conserve at school and more as a whole. Theirs only one Earth and we need to take care of it before we end it sooner than later. Recently on Saturday November 13 , 2010 we attended an Environmental Congress meeting. Where environmentalist Bill McKibben spoke about what we as a world need to do to help address global warming because it's THE ISSUE anda lot of people seem not to be aware about-some people in US Congress right now dont even believe in it! Now that's crazy. We got the opportunity to interview Bill McKibben and get more in depth with questions. Bill McKibben is one of the most successful activists on the planet about global warming and whats going on with it. He says that our government really doesn't seem to care about the issue so its up to us to rally together and make sure they know that if they arent for the environment then they aren't for us. Now lets go and get some things going, Youth its our future! -- Robert.

Calls

2010-11-10T17:29:00.005-05:00

Hi all! Today we had discussed outgoing and incoming business calls. The youth enterprise makes professional business calls to stores we provide products to, to set up product demos and to correspond with our suppliers and other vendors. We learned many tips for these calls like How to speak appropriately and clearly,To know your information about your products, delivery times and being direct since most people you'll be calling are busy and for most time is money. We learned not to call people during their most busy hours (early morning or just before closing) and to clarify the points of interest before you hang up.
Its important for everyone on our team to practice making calls to stores. It takes alot more than most people think to make a business call successfully. its all part of building our skills. They come in handy when it comes to job interview's or business presentations or even for school. It can be very good to have on hand some tools for making your communication happen in a pleasing and professional way . Some people are very happy to see you have manners and speak so well. Especially if youre a teen growing up today alot of people think we dont have any. . But I will continue to write again soon .
Until next time ..... Jordan

2010-10-29T16:03:00.005-04:00

Hi my name is Robert Moses and I am apart of the business group at Growing Green. We have recently been doing research on how to help address global warming through green technology. The things we have today we still want them but need to find ways to produce them that don't hurt the environment as much. One of these products is the Nissan Leaf. The Nissan leaf is the first mass- produced full used battery electric car from Nissan. Driving a car like the Nissan leaf helps prevent pollution to the environment because it does not depend on gasoline which is derived from a non renewable resource. Also because it runs on electricity so we can use solar, wind , or hydro power to run them. The Nissan leaf is supposed to come out in 2011. The estimated price for it is around $32,780. I think that its expensive I definitely can't afford that but hopefully like cell phones or computers they will be more affordable as time goes on.

The Chevrolet Volt is also propelled by electricity and you can plug it into the wall or there is a special garage charger to recharge it. This is the first Chevrolet you can plug into the wall. The cost for the Volt is roughly around $41,000. Once again something that I can afford lol. The lithium ion battery pack costs by its self costs half the price of a new 2011 Chevy cruze car. I honestly think that people with money are going to be able to buy them but if they don't know about these type of cars then they won't buy them. It's up to the companies and people who know about these products to tell people about them and figure out ways to make it affordable for people who aren't rich. OK that's all I have for today Ill be back another day.

2010-10-22T18:41:00.007-04:00

Hello Bloggers If you haven't read my Co-worker Abdi's blog here are some cool facts about Bill McKibben and ways to fight global warming. First off he organizes political actions on how you can help the climate crisis. Like you probably already read Bill has challenged the countries that pollute the most. Sadly enough America we, Yes we POLLUTE TO MUCH! But we are not alone in this crime. He has also challenged China and India too! He wants The Colleges and University's to participate in want he is calling "The Great Power Race"! Doesn't that sound fun? It's a great way to get our countries moving and our Governments focus on our survival. On his web Site you can put in your ideas on how we can STOP polluting. Here are a couple a ways you might already know but are important to DO!:

Car pool
try to STOP smoking
Use PUBLIC transportation
DON'T buy fruits or veggies that are sprayed with TOXIC chemicals AKA pesticides
and last but definitely not the least PLANT trees, plants, flowers and crops, grow your own food!

Bill Mckibben

2010-10-22T18:00:00.005-04:00

Hi my name is Abdi Sheikh. Growing Green is excited about the Environmental Congress coming up in Nov. 13th and so we are researching the featured speaker Bill Mckibben. He is an environmentalist and a writer who wants to localize economies. He has been described as the world biggest green journalist and has published books such as The End of Nature,The Age of Missing Information,and a lot more .I read a letter talking about his action plan for this year.The action plan is about trying to solve the climate crisis, so he has challenged the United States, China, and India with A Great Power Race, where college and university campuses will compete to see who can come up with the most creative solutions to global warming. He said hopefully it will catch our governments attention to help decrease our impact on the environment.

MAP Tour de Farms 2010!!!

2010-08-24T15:59:00.004-04:00

MAP Tour de Farms 2010 is coming your way. September 11, 2010 Please join us for our 2nd Annual MAP Tour de Farms cycle ride and Harvest Celebration. We take this ride each year to highlight the connection between urban and rural communities in the food system and celebrate the great local food we have in our region. We'll start out in Buffalo visiting different urban farms on the west and east sides of the city before we head out to the countryside. The ride starts at 8:30am and the Harvest Celebration at 230pm at the Oles Family Farm. Register soon for tickets at www.mass-ave.org. You don't want to miss this. Its a 30 mile ride through the greater Buffalo and Alden areas and when the race ends Outer Circle Orchestra will jam with us at the farm.

2010-08-24T15:48:00.004-04:00

AMAZING MAP FUNDRAISER-THANK YOU!!!

The Massachusetts Avenue Project and Growing Green would like to thank our great partners and sponsors for the amazing job at our Aquaponics fundraiser August 5th. With 5 different amazing chefs making our Tilapia into lipsmacking entrees, a huge white tent, great music and beverages, it was awesome. We were looking stylish in our professional chef gear. Our fearless leader, Diane gave a great speech talking about how the work that we do is changing not only our community but that we are models internationally for sustainable fish production and ways to train teens about green careers. Chef Rolin awarded us with fancy cook books and he was hilarious! well keep you eye out for us because we are officially on the national scene. Check out some cool video of the fundraiser!!! http://skunkpost.com/news.sp?newsId=2944

The Cookout

2010-08-10T15:56:00.002-04:00

The cookout was a hit. There was good music and great food. The skits were all funny and the audience seemed to think the same. After the cookout it turned into a live mini-dance contest. It was a lot of fun. Thanks to all the people that showed up and came to support.

P.S. -The M.C.'s were hilarious !!!

-DRAE

Growing Green Youth Lead Healthy Kids Healthy Communities Visioning Session

2010-08-04T16:42:00.004-04:00

Hi Everyone. Growing Green youth Jordan and Adriana led an community health visioning event yesterday at the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. It was part of the Healthy Kids Healthy Communities initiative to plan healthier communities. During the event we split up in groups of teen and adults to talk about what we thought healthier Buffalo would look like.The teen groups took pictures about the healthy things in our community and the unhealthy things in our community. We also talked about specific things to change or add to our communities to make a better place for our selves and for our little brothers and sisters. We talked about nutrition and how the healthy food and the unhealthy food that people can get to affects our health. We got to talk all about MAP and Growing Green too--you know we like to brag! lol. Well here's a picture from the event. Good job Adriana and Jordan!

activism week

2010-08-04T15:43:00.003-04:00

During activism week we watched hood diet, we watched a film about activists, wrote letters to people on the board, and discussed problems with our schools. Hood diet is a video about 2 guys rapping about local fast food restaurants and how they are bad for us. the film we watched was called "Viva la Causa," and that was about people trying to get human rights. We wrote letters to people on the board to tell them some problems and what we wanted to do about it.

Ole's Farm trip!

2010-08-04T15:24:00.003-04:00

Hey world its Polo and Jahon. We recently took a trip to Oles Family Farm. It was a great experience to work on an larger farm. We learned a lot beginning there, we weeded pepper fields and bean fields as well. We learned how to harvest garlic taking the dead skin off and loading it in crates.

Another Wegman's?

2010-07-27T15:08:00.007-04:00

Hello again blogger! It's me Natasha and I'm blogging about our Grand new Wegmans that G.G.W is selling at. Jordan and I were at the Wegmans on Losson rd. in cheektawaga, Saturday morning doing a Demo with Zoe. She had made the BEST stuff peppers I've ever tasted! I'm NOT the only one who thought so neither. We were getting comments like, "This is AMAZING" and "Do you have the recipe?". I love the fact that people love our product so much that we are in 7 Wegmans! Another great point from Saturday was that even the Kids liked the stuffed peppers (which had our Amazing Chili Starter in it). Even some of the employee's were excited to taste the peppers. Saturday was a lot of fun!

P.S: The Recipe for Zoe's Rocking Stuffed pepper recipe is on our web-site: WWW.mass-ave.org
Tell me how you like it!

Marketing

2010-07-27T14:23:00.004-04:00

Hi everybody it Jordan and Natasha. Today in the business group we learned about marketing & promotions-meaning how to let people know what your business is selling. We had to create our Marketing plan for next year so we had to think about who would buy our products and how we would communicate with them. We brain stormed about many different marketing techniques used today like direct mailing, public events, logos on clothing and packaging, Bill boards, T.V. Commercials, Brochures, News Paper Ads., movies, celebrity endorsements, cell phone texts, magazines and more. We learned about color theory, symbols and getting a message through to an audience--our customers. Next we had to think about who our audience is and what groups of people would most likely buy our products. Just to name a few we thought: People that support local food, youth-run businesses, urban agriculture, healthy food addicts. These are just some of the supporters we came up with. We can not wait to learn a whole lot more.

AND GUESS WHAT!!!!!
This Friday we will be going on a trip to one of Buffalo's LOCAL FARMS.

GOODBYE!!!!!:)

Plant Life and Ice Cream Sundae

2010-07-16T13:19:00.005-04:00

During the week there has been fun activities to do like cooking, eating, farming, learning about photography and learning how to make compost. Everybody participated in the activities and learning about teamwork, it took a lot to be able to keep the flow going and continue to accomplish our goal. We had learned about beginning and the end process of the plant life cycle. Starting from the seed to the full grown plant to become a flower with fruit growing on it. There were three different teams called the Dynamite Dinosaurs, Unbelievable Chupacabras, and the Thunder Hawks who are competing against each other making compost(grass, trees limbs, decomposed foods, horse and chicken manure). As a result of the competition the winning team gets and ice cream sundae yummmmm!!!!!!!!!! As the weeks go by we are challenging each other on our weakness and strength so each of us can become a better person and learn more about one another. After this is over we can have a better understanding of each other and grow from the lesson we have learned from participating in the activities we did. The picture of the flowers were one of the photos we took learning about different angles and positions.

new members of business

2010-07-13T14:33:00.003-04:00

Hello! We are the business group and we are ready to learn about the business. Our names are Adriana, Anthony, Robert, Abdi, Joshua, Ahmed, Jordan, and Natasha. We are excited and ready learn about the break even analyzes & business planning. :D
Love, Growing Green Business Group.

The Growing Process

2010-07-09T14:09:00.002-04:00

The growing green process has been a wonderful experience for Polo peace and Odessa learning the difference between right, privileges, and requirements. Its also been fun working on the farm and doing creative activities. but for elianys and dalitza our experience has been fun to grow plants and vegetables and drawing its been fun meeting new people and having our laughs here and there.Its cool learning new things in growing green its a plessure to be working here with all these great people.

beginning of the summer!

2010-07-09T13:03:00.002-04:00

So far the beginning of the summer has been going good. Growing Green has started the summer youth program with different youth. The group of youth seem very nice but they're very quiet. The new interns are fun and funny. I'm having fun so far with the beginning of this summer. Hopefully the new kids start opening up and start talking so we can get to know each other better and make new friends. I'm hoping this summer is gonna be a good one.!!

-Growing Green Outreach member
-Isis Rodriguez

Senator Gillibrand visits MAP

2010-07-06T16:25:00.005-04:00

Today was the first day of the program for all of the summer Youth! We played an exciting name game and got to look at some new faces. One of the more memorable parts of the day was the press conference with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. One of our veteran workers Jordan gave an awesome speech about the program. Diane Picard, The executive director of growing green and the Mayor of Buffalo both spoke at the conference, Which detailed the importance of small businesses in the struggling economy. We have a hot week ahead of us which is off to a great start

Food Security?

2010-05-07T10:50:00.003-04:00

Hello blogger viewers my name is Natasha and I am one of the youth that work in Growing Green. Yesterday my youth adviser Zoe was talking to our class about Food Security. What is food Security you ask? Well It is questions inside of a question and in order to get food security you have to ask this questions: 1) Is the food fresh? 2) Is the food Accessible to people? and 3) Is it culturally usable? To put it in a definition format Food security is a state of which all community residents is able to get a safe, culturally acceptable, nutritionally suitable, diet through a sustainable food system that helps bring community self-reliance and social justice. Does buffalo have food security? well not really there are to many corner stores that doesn't have fresh produce or our communities are not close enough to get to super markets that have better food choices.
Well thank you for reading Blog you next time... Bye! :)

WONDERFUL EARTH

2010-04-23T16:51:00.003-04:00

Hi everybody its me Jordan. On Wendesday April 21 we had a specail guest on our farm none the other Ed Cassano, The Senior Director Of the conservation Outreach for the Monterey Bay Aquarium.He came to visit to talk about the aquarium but also some info on the food system itself.He told us about the health hazards of seafood. He handed out pamphlets about sea food. He told us all bout how the fish our bad for us, like how certain fish have to much mercury and how it can be harmful especailly for women. Also how how the fish can be harmful because of the fact that only 14% of the fish that we eat comes from the United States itself. We ship in our fish from other places around the world. Its not like a pepper were you can figure out were it was sold and back even more to where its was grown. Since the fish are not from the U.S. it we have no way too trace it back, and that can be hazardous.But Yes thank you again Mr. Cassano for the wonderful time and i hope you enjoyed the chili stater, mug and shirt.Also yesterday April 22 was Earth Day. I hope all enjoyed it and did something GREEN.I did, I car-pooled,ride metro bus and rail. Yesterday was great, we need more days like this to get this wonderful earth the way it was before. HEALTHY.........LETS ALL GO GREEN AND REMEMBER A LIITLE DEED GOES A >>>>>>>>>>>>>LONG WAY...

Thanks again to all..
GO GREEN>>>> STAY GREEN

WHERE am I WEARING?

2010-04-06T16:17:00.004-04:00

Today in the youth business group we read and talked about the book "Where Am I Wearing". Today's section was about whether Americans should buy sweatshop made clothing and if we should jobs where people work for pennies an hour or a day and have bad working conditions. If we dont buy those clothes will that put people out of work for the low paying jobs? Is is worse to have a low paying job then no job at all? How can we support good wage jobs in other countries??

We in America dont really often have to deal with the reality of sweatshops. We get cheap clothes but dont have to see people working in terrible in human conditions. The author of this book went to countries to see people who make clothes for gap, bugle boy, and other companies and was faced with these questions. I thought this was a great part of the book because the writer really told us that we should all respect one another's living conditions. When we read more next week we'll find out more about how we can support better work conditions for people who make our clothes.

Earth Day

2010-04-06T16:02:00.003-04:00

Hey everyone Ashley here telling you about Earth Day. It is held on April 22nd to inspire awareness and appreciation for the earth's environment it is the day we put our earth in the limelight to see what the effects have been placed on it are and how we can change them for the better. It may only be one day a year but we need to open our eyes to the significance of the day. A lot of people celebrate Earth Day which consists of treating the earth like it should be treated everyday, we pick up trash, recycle and ride our bikes to work in stead of cars, these are just small steps that we can take to insure a beautiful and healthy place to live but they are not the only things we can do. You can also turn the water off when brushing ur teeth or lathering up in the shower, you can use energy efficient lightbulbs and appliances. There are many things to do and if all this seems overwhelming try to take a few things that you can do every week and keep doing them. Some people see this day as a day to start on the right path to helping sustain a green environment. SO EVEN IF YOU HAVEN'T STARTED RECYCLING OR BUYING LOCAL START IF NOT TODAY THEN ON APRIL 22nd 2010 because it will one day be to late.

Broadway Market

2010-04-02T09:03:00.003-04:00

Today has been a good day so far. My fellow employees are at the Broadway Market today for some Easter sales. We have some tasting today also , I am here at Map keeping things in check. and doing some labeling.Tomorrow we will also be at the Broadway Market if those who are interested would like to stop by. We will be having tasting then also.We have our Super Duper Salsa and our Amazing Chili Stater sampling.We will also be selling our products. Our products make wonderful Easter gifts . So come on down to the Broadway Market and explore.

April 2-3

PLEASE READ 3/27/2010 ....FLAPJACKS FOR THE FARM !!!!!

2010-03-26T18:10:00.004-04:00

Tomarrow is 2nd annual flap jacks for the farm.We wiil be serving pancakes,bacon and sausage.mmm sounds great.The fee is $10 per adult and $5 for kids under 14 at the door.We are looking foward to your presence..Times will be serving at 9:oo am , 10:30 am and 12:00 pm.It is going to be held at Trinity Episcopal church 371 Delaware ave Buffalo NY. We will selling our Growing Green merchandise.We will also be having a chicken naming raffle...We Hope to see you all there

THANK YOU

Where Am I Wearing/ Where Are You Wearing

2010-03-26T16:08:00.003-04:00

Hey everybody it's Ashley here I'm writing about the book we have been reading for our check in. Where Am I Wearing is a book by Kelsey Timmerman, it is written about Kelsey's experiences with his favorite clothes, his favorite clothes are all American made but made in Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, and in places like Honduras, these clothes that are supposed to be all American are the farthest from being American made. He then travels to the places that his clothes are made to see the sweat shops they are made in. Even though they make hardly any money they don't want us Americans to stop buying the clothes they make because they will no longer have any money or jobs. We have been discussing our opinions on what we think about how "sweat shops" work, I think that yes they get paid hardly any money for the work they do but its the only job that they have and if we don't buy the items that they make it'll be more costly for us to buy and they wont be able to buy food for there families. I think though that we should find a way to work with the companies so that they pay there workers more and give them better working conditions and benefits. Now I'm off to label some cases of our product for our Flapjacks For The Farm pancake breakfest in the morning (March 27, 2010).

abdi

2010-02-26T17:56:00.002-05:00

Hi my name is Abdi Sheikh, this past Monday i was challenged to not eat meat and that idea came from a movie that we watch the movies is called food inc .When i try not to eat meat for a day it was not very bad i mean that day the whole day i ate food like rice and beans and some other good and healthy food not involving meat . So basally my family were eating meat but when they tend to eat i just dont sit near them. That the kind of experience i had on not eating meat for a day.

my personal challage

2010-02-25T17:41:00.003-05:00

Hey its Jordan and I'm here today reporting about what we can do to help make a healthier world. Growing Greeners are taking on challenges to help support our bodies and mother earth by taking action in our every day lives. I'd like to talk about how my personal food system challenge has been going over the past week. WWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWW things have been hard...Now I love pop....I am so thirsty for my quenching Ginger Ale.I have been on my personal quest to help support a healthier me and better food system as part of the Food Inc. action challenge.I have been successful for a whole week.I have had some tempting experiences at school and at the dinner table but have pushed threw for myself, resisting the sparkling beverage and doing a little something to take a stand against High Fructose Corn Syrup for the food system.I've grown attached to helping not only myself but the nation and doing small things in my day to day life, as much as i can.But yes i will continue my quest in the battle to boycott non-local products and HFCS products.I say this with pride i will take all the steps necessary to follow out with my plans. If you feel like you'd like to take a step and challenge yourself, support organizations like MAP or go to this website for some tips (http://www.foodincmovie.com/get-involved.php) You can make a difference
Thank you Peace
Jordan

OUR GREEN BUSINESS PRESENTATION

2010-02-19T17:54:00.005-05:00

Hello everybody its me Jordan from Growing Green Works, the youth enterprise! This picture is from the summer but hey it's still of me! Anyways to day I'm blogging about our presentation . Yesterday we presented at Senator Antoine Tompson's Business Gets Green monthly Networking Event, in front of a lot of green business professionals and companies in Western New York.

It was so scary and we were so nervous. We learned a lot from other companies and about plans for going more green in Architecture, energy consumption and in our region in general . About the presentation. We went in there with courage and determination to show everyone that teens can go toe to toe with adults and tell them all about growing green and our enterprise. We were the only group to talk about the connection between food and the environment and why it is important to buy local and organic. At the end we there was a question and answer part where people came and talked to us about Growing Green, and we got some good offers from people about our upcoming plans for a new green house, field trips and Buffalo's first aquaponics system.

We were told we did a great job and was the first of all the presenters to get some applause.Even though we know people could tell we were a little nervous, we pulled through as a team and got our points across.Today we are learning more about how to give better presentations and to not be so nervous. A good lesson from this is that you've got to try your hardest in life and never give up under pressure, even if u are scared .Pull through and remember practice makes perfect..
There is this great event going on in April that we will be at.
It is called the BUFFALO NIAGARA GREEN EXPO.it is Saturday, April 17,2010 at the Waldin Galleria
All kinds of Green Businesses and companies will be there . . . including Growing Green Works. Hope to see you there.
well hope to right to you all again.

STeps TO Greatness

2010-01-22T17:50:00.003-05:00

hey everybody its natasha & jordan ....
today we learned a lot all thanks to one
of our own Growing GReen Business youth, Ashely.today she taught us
about the Scheduled Process for our products
and we had kitchen orientation. The scheduled process is the process that food business owners need to go through to make sure their products are safe, clean and made properly for the public to buy and eat. we learned cleaning and prep skills for a commercial kitchen, which means you can make food and it has been approved by the county health department and by NYS and federal standards of cleanliness and equipment. we have learned that our products be analysed by a food processing authority like Cornell Coop Ext NYS Small Food Ventures Center in Geneva NY. We would mail them a sample and a description of the ingredientas and houw we make our product and they would test it and let us know if it passes all the necessary tests for sale. We learned about danger zones for parishable foods & that it must be either cooler than 40 degrees farienhieht and hotter than 140 degrees farienhieht. well Tuesday we will do recipe dev and learn more about food safety. see u all again soon.thanks. bYE

2010-01-22T16:16:00.003-05:00

Hi my name is Omar I'm from Africa .The Part i am from is Kenya, Garissa . I live in u.s.a for five Years. Life were i came from and here is different .Here we get to go to school and get to go to college. If we were in Africa right know, we were playing sport. The sport we played was called football their. But in the united stated people call soccer. Anyway we well just going to play soccer because that what child do in Africa they dent go to school. They just wake up go outside play soccer come back in the house look for foods and look same were to sleep.That all they do same of them but same of them they school.

Political Corruption

2010-01-21T17:00:00.004-05:00

Hey everyone its Ashley and Esmeileen. What has the world come to when it's okay to give politicians mass amounts of money in favor of corporations . "Yesterday The Supreme court, in a 5-4 split, overturned two earlier decisions and threw out parts of a 63-year-old law that said companies and unions can be prohibited from using money from their general treasuries to produce and run their own campaign ads." As said from the huffingtonpost.com. Do you think it's okay to be able to buy your way into a vote? We here at growing green don't think just because corporations or individuals have money they should get their way, why should one bill get voted in or passed over because a corporation bought the politicians votes.? I, as a free opinion believer, believe that companies should be able to spend their money the way they want but it is not fair to give it to a politician for campaign use when it could affect policies and laws. Corporations usually look out for themselves not for the needy and I hope that it will be rethought of and changed back to the way it should be--corporate money out of elections, law-making and policy-making. think about it

written by
:Ashley McGuffin
and
Esmeileen Vazquez

2010-01-16T13:00:00.004-05:00

Hi Everyone this is Abdi Sheikh and I wanted to tell people about the terrible earthquake in Haiti and what Growing Green is going to do to help relief people there.
In Haiti a massive earthquake hit in Monday afternoon.the earthquake destroyed almost everything in the city.50thousands killed most suffered from major injuries. The presidents white house was also destroyed .Some people are still under the falling buildings.People from all around the world are trying to help the suffering once . The united states has sent many and many people to help,the unites states army and many more.People also donated millions of many.Some people don't even have food to eat, they have no houses not even shelter to live .This earthquake destroyed a lot of stuff in Haiti .recuse are trying to do everything they can to help the once that are under the building .About 1500 American live in Haiti but now they are refusing to live there because of what has happen in Haiti.
One thing that we need to do is that we will try to find some money so we can donate to the starving once and clothing or food .we will try to get help from people that live in the western new york area. So please friends and families try to help with what ever u can do or have to offer.

2010-01-13T16:27:00.005-05:00

On wednesday jan 13th 2010 Haitian citizens gathered bodies from the streets of their Capital city after a huge Earthquake that destroyed most of the homes, hospitals, schools,and whole neighborhoods. Local people made a parking lot of a hotel into a hospital, where people who were still alive were taken to get medical care.THE Earthquake killed tens of thousands and is the largest natural disasters to happen in Haiti in over 100 years. We hope this quake helps to bring people together around Haiti. Their country has been impoverished for a long time and we talked in the business group about how help is getting to haitians and whether all the money that is donated will be for the Haitians or for corporations to take advantage and make money off a tragedy. Well if you can please find a way to help. Make a basket of basic care items, canned food, have a fundraiser for a worthy organization, donate blood talk to others about what they can do.

2010-01-09T12:55:00.003-05:00

Today Growing Green And Candie Svek did yoga. She taught us a couple of streching excersises like, the cat and cow. Thats a pose that you do on the palms of your hands and knees. When you do the strech you bend your back up, Which makes the from of the cat and when your back is down you make a cow. We also did salutation to the sun, child's position, and downward facing dog.My experience with yoga was fun.my back hurts a little, but I'll survive.I'll get use to it because We'll start doing every Saturday.

Ethics and Business

2009-12-03T17:25:00.005-05:00

Hello friends it's Esmeileen here from the Youth Enterprise. Today we talked about how important it is for businesses to think about more than just how to make a profit. There are some really nasty things that businesses will do to make a profit. We only have one planet yall so we need to take care of it!!!! It is our job as a social enterprise to carry out our business in a way that doesnt hurt people, animals and the environment and in fact tries to help them. here are some ides from our conversation about ethics in business.

**Things businesses can do to be Socially Conscious**

*-Do more recycling...(paper, lables, use recyclable materials for packaging, ect.)
*-Make your products in a way that respects the air, soil, water, plant life and for all life to go on
*-Fund community activities like teach-ins, diversity training, scholarships, environmental clean ups, tree planting, and mentoring, etc.
*-find ways to help people and treat them as they might want to be treated
*-Use some profits to Donate to charities or promote socially responsible investing for your employees.
*-Do more composting.
*-Buy more local American Brand Clothing
*-Make products with local ingredients, use less fossil fuels in your production .
*-Do things to make sure that your workforce is happy and respected. Make sure that you have ways to promote diversity and teach how to overcome racism, sexism, bigotry, and other bad isms at the work place.

**Wayz GRowing Green Works tries to be socially conscious:

*-We buy as much of our materials as possible locally to bring money back to the community and help make less pollution, use less gas, and fresher veggies taste better!
*-Growing Green Works hires local youth and gives them skills to live more sustainable way and teach others to do it to.
*-We grow Organic Food on our urban farm.
*-We work Hard to bring awareness to the community about doing things in a sustainable way and how other youth can make a difference in your community and the world.
*-We bring fresh, Locally grown, Organic food to people in different neighborhoods who dont have easy access to grocery stores.
here's a good quote. Its from Chief Seattle He was a Native American leader in the and all around smart guy.
"You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of your grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves.”
Well peace people and please think about what you do.

2009-11-19T17:13:00.004-05:00

Hello my name is Esmeileen Vazquez, I am one of the new additions to the YOUTH ENTERPRISE group for M.A.P & Growing Green.
I am 15 years old and i am attending my Sophmore year at Riverside High .
-Working with M.A.P is fun and its helping me develope my social skills, i get to work with other youth my age and we chill and work but its fun.

So while iv been here iv made many friends,I do inventory,sales and this DA BLOG.I enjoy my job and the time i spend here.I learn many things and this gives me great future experiences.Today we talked about our up coming events.such as OUR TURKEY BASH.Even thought this is my first blog i am in the process of kinda... figuring out how this works.LOL...But hey I just did so.Good Bye for now.I hope to write again.With the help of my handy dandy notebook.Jordan.Thanks.

2009-11-05T16:17:00.011-05:00

Hey there Everybody its me Jordan.Here at growing green we had such a great time on Saturday. The Growing Green kids Ashly,Natasha, Esmeileen, Abdi, Omar and Zoe and Jesse made OUR WONDERFUL SUPER DUPER SALSA and AMAZING CHILI STARTER!!!!!!!

WE had our fun and had PLENTY of laughs.We cut, and chopped over 900 ponds of vegetables . The smell and aromas were crazy...LOL people crying and sniffling at the 124 pounds of onions.

WE also learned many things about the mixing. WE put them in Big steaming pots called Electric Steam Jacketed Kettles. They hold 40 gallons of liquids each.They have thermometers and electric mixers with various speed setting on them.
BUT
ALL TOGETHER THAT DAY WAS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWSOME.And in plus we all got to no each other a little better and hang out.
This is Jordan
BYE!!!!!!!!

2009-10-21T17:16:00.005-04:00

hi my name is Abdi sheikh. I am from Nairobi,Kenya. I am 15 years old, and I go to Bennett high school. This is my first year in Growing Green and i love it so far. today i was labelling jars of amazing chili starter so we can sell them at the Apple Festival on Saturday.

The Beginning GGYE fall 2009

2009-10-16T17:05:00.005-04:00

Hey everyone it's Ashley here to tell you about how things are going with our group. Were here for another school year, working hard getting ready for demos and a new product. Today in class we went over basic job orientation, like attendance and what is asked of us. We are also going over professional phone calls and professional emails. Here is Abdi and Michael showing off our products at Wegmans. Well I can't say to much cause not much has been happening yet but come and get a taste of our Amazing Chili Starter at Wegmans on Military Road in Niagara Falls Saturday, Oct. 17th. We're regional!!

Looking forward to seeing you there.
The Youth Enterprise

More pics of harvesting

2009-10-11T21:44:00.003-04:00

2009-10-11T21:03:00.004-04:00

Mobile market Goodies

2009-10-11T20:45:00.005-04:00

Hi folks. Here are some great lookin vegetables for our Mobile Market runs. The cool weather setting in tells us that the MM season's almost over. Keep your eye out for other great shots.

Summer program Coming to an End

2009-08-18T16:24:00.005-04:00

The summer is almost over, the program ends in two days...Today August 18 2009 we all worked to finish our apprentice cards as much as we could and spent most of our time to together..We made artwork to improve our growing green area..Also defined definitions that we were supposed to now,worked on our farm harvesting.We played fun games and had a great time.As this summer program is soon to end and everyone is sticking together.As these next to days go by we will bond and appreciate the time we have spent together.That's all for now but ill see you in to day..peace out..

Jordan V signing off

Trip to Camp Cherith

2009-08-18T14:56:00.003-04:00

On August 11, 2009, we went to Camp Cherith. While there we went swimming, canoeing. and we played games like Mission Impossible, Capture the Flag, and Guessers and Minions. We had sandwiches , personal pizzas, hamburgers, hotdogs for lunch and dinner. For breakfast we ate pancakes, eggs, and bacon with orange juice. My favorite part of the trip was canoeing and playing Mission Impossible. We made s'mores at night. Those were DELICIOUS!!!!!! The trip was fun and exciting!!!

Be Vocal Eat Local

2009-08-07T11:15:00.006-04:00

OMG...LOL....This week was so amazing.We all had a great time this week at the Growing Green Be Vocal Eat Local Cook Out. We had live music,face painting,BBQ, and skits and over 250 people!!!.The food we cooked was delicious. There was potatoes, mac & cheese, salsa, chips, grilled chicken, hot dogs and mmm my favorite sausage. All the guests kept coming up for seconds...OH and people really enjoyed our skits. There were laughs, giggles, and chuckles everywhere. Every team did an amazing job. They sent out the message clearly.

You should have seen all the little kids and their face painting. They all looked cute and funny. There were batman designs, tigers, cats, princess tiaras and much more. The kids enjoyed it. Smiles on their faces mad it all better. We were having such a good time the grown ups were even dancing. We had our official DJ LoPro come and hit us up with some oldies and new joints...But the through it all i think we got the real message across..(EAT LOCAL BUY LOCAL)...Help Save our earth...Compost Properly...and give our friendly earth a helping hand. WE here at Growing Green are happy with the outcome.....AWESOME>>>>>>>: )

Growing Green Works Products evreywhere!!!

2009-07-29T15:39:00.004-04:00

Hey everybody!!! Today the youth enterprise group went to a bunch of stores that carry our products. We looked at where our products were on the shelves and how that could add or take away from our future sales. We went to Wegmans, Guercios, lexington Coop Market and Globe Market. Take a look at our funny pics! ;?

Customer Service

2009-07-28T15:20:00.002-04:00

Today we learned the basics on customer service...and the presentation of our farm stand.We learned how to aide our customers and to make our stand seem more appealing to them in many ways.First we figured out what we could do to help us help them..Such as being honest, authentic and giving interesting information about our products.We made a set of Customer Service policies for Growing GReen Works including being positive when speaking with customers, building relationships with our customers and doing our business with a smile (not a corny one a real one) .We also learned tips in merchandising to increase our sales at the stand like making displays look abundant and handing people information relating to what we are talking about. What a great day...:) peace Jordan and Abdi

The Riverkeeper

2009-07-28T13:24:00.005-04:00

Yesterday we went on a field trip to see the Buffalo Niagra Riverkeeper. It was pretty awesome. I never knew what a riverkeeper was or that it even existed. We learned about a whole bunch of jobs that will be available to us in the near future that will help us to fix our water. We also learned about how we live on the great lakes and should take advantage of that by boating and fishing and stuff. There are a lot of problems with the water due to pollution from factories that used to exist in Buffalo and now we are starting to see the effects of that pollution on our water and fish. I found it interesting to learn about the water in Buffalo because it's something I usually don't think about and I found out a lot of information about it. Some things I learned that we can do in order to help clean water is to not throw stuff in it and to watch what I put in my body because it comes out in the water when we use the bathroom. In order to conserve water I learned that we can use rain barrels and do stuff like turn off the water when we're not using it and not wash clothes on rainy days because it contributes to the sewers getting blocked up. This was like the second field trip us growing green youth have been on and it was really FUN!

Growing Green at Roswell Park

2009-07-22T15:01:00.006-04:00

Today was fun...We went to roswell park.We met new people and had some good food..we sold amazing chili starter..we all spent time together to work as a team..we got to each other talk and get to now the people.We had great feed back from the news, artvoice, and videos and much more..Some were locals of the west side area and new us right off the back..i was so proud..i had learned much from my co workers rachel and james..they have given me an experience to remember..through it all me (jordan), rachel and james were satisfied with our outcome..Thank you to roswell park for their generosity .....peace....

what we have been up to

2009-07-22T13:45:00.002-04:00

We read our article that was recently in the buffalo news paper. It was a article about our mobile market. We have also been working on making posters for be vocal eat local week. This is a very important project because we want to get the word out to everyone. A quote that i found very cool is "If you give a man a fish he can eat for a day, but if you teach a man how to fish he can eat for ever" I found that quote cool because that's what Growing Green does for me and others also. Instead of just giving us fresh and organic food they teach us how to grow it and new interesting facts that I never knew before.

Growing Green Mobile Market is in the News!

2009-07-21T15:00:00.004-04:00

DeVonte Mull, left, and Prince Saysay entice passers-by to try kohlrabi and apple slaw at Jericho Road Ministries.">

Check out the article and video about Growing Greens Mobile Market!

http://video.buffalonews.com/player/?id=254#
http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/739627.html

Let us introduce ourselves...

2009-07-16T14:13:00.002-04:00

Hello everyone!
It's Michelle, Isis, Jon, Juan, and James here. With our combined superpowers we form the Be Vocal Eat Local week coordination team! We are in charge of planning multiple events that will take place during the first week of August. One event we are planning is a self-guided walk that will let participants get to know the urban farms and community gardens around Buffalo better. Also, we will be visiting the Roswell Farmers Market where we will be selling our Super Duper Salsa and Amazing Chili Starter, as well as passing out flyers for our community cookout which is the biggest event we are planning. The cookout will take place on Thursday August 6th at our urban farm on Massachusetts Avenue. Everyone is invited!!! That's all for now. Keep an eye out for more updates...

Activism

2009-07-16T11:39:00.002-04:00

Today we watched a movie called viva la causa. It was a documentary about the grape pickers of California and their struggle for workers rights.we had a discussion about different kind of activism and the positive and negative effects of each .

Art group

2009-07-15T14:43:00.004-04:00

Art Group

About us:
Our group in my expression is the only group that I know that can combine things and create it as a drawing to Growing Green to support Map and for me in this group I want to help and make this group more Creative and lots of team work.
Um the things that we do as an example today were making a poster for Be Vocal Eat Local and want the picture to look like a person would look at it as a place to bring others to or to hang out and have fun.This poster that were making its really not hard but have only a couple weeks to finish it and I think with me in this group I can figure out a faster way and Making this group very Artistic.

Why This Group Was What you wanted:

I wanted this group because the skill that I have and Learned threw out the years in many art classes and the way people and family/friends comment my pics and the way I create them.Art has follow threw me since 2nd grade.I picture me as a artist everyday and being with good people around me.When the time I heard Art I voted for this group,I made shore I can do anything to be in this group because I know this Job is for me and I wanted to show my group and my job you have a very talented Employee.

2009-07-15T14:27:00.004-04:00

Wow!!!!! Yesterday we all had a great day!!!it was our first day working there.We did canvassing..Went around to invite people to come buy local grown food from the urban farm. We had some great responses...We sold peaches,apples,lettuce,bean sprouts, cabbage and broccoli.We gave a tour of our urban farm to some out of state people.They enjoyed our farm....but through it all we enjoyed the new experience....Yay!!!:) <3

Declaration - Team Brillant Hawxx

2009-07-08T13:29:00.003-04:00

Today we talked about health, food and place. We also talked about what we think all people deserve. This is our (wo)manifesto(a) from Team Brilliant Hawxx. What do you think of our list? Do you agree?

MAP's Mobile Market Takes to the Streets

2009-06-23T00:29:00.003-04:00

Keep a look out for the Buffalo Grown Mobile Market now traveling to sites on the East and Westsides of Buffalo. It carries fresh locally grown produce and bulk rice and lentils, all organic and cheap too. We will also be offering seedlings for your own home garden for a limited time. Check back for updates about schedule and locations. And keep your eyes peeled and shop for yummy local veggies grown by youth on the Growing Green Youth Farm.

2009-06-17T18:16:00.002-04:00

Good News! Sanjoy stopped laser beaming the interns, so now we can get to work on the Mobile Market!
Woo!

As you can see, the Mobile Market is up and running after some set backs, and we're off to serve local neighborhoods with limited or no access to fresh, affordable foods.

2009-06-17T00:43:00.000-04:00

Howdy blogosphere!

This is LD, summer intern and Green Team extraordinaire! Along with my five friends, I will be helping out around the farm, the MAP offices, and in various aspects of Growing Green this summer!

Let's get to know some of the cool interns that'll be around this summer:

Becky Miller - Houghton College

Becky is our cook and will be assisting with snack preparation and helping the team that is in charge of lunch that week with recipes, shopping, and preparation.

Bryan Overland - Houghton College

Bryan is a farm hand and will be assisting Jesse with special projects on the farm including the new aquaponics system as well as working with a small group.

James O'Dea - Indiana University

James is helping coordinate our big event of the summer Be Vocal Eat Local as well as assist Diane, our executive director.

Jeff Andersen - Houghton College

Jeff is also a farm hand and will help Jesse and Bryan with the aquaponics system on the farm and also lead a small group.

Laura Day - Houghton College

That's ME! I'm in charge of the outreach group, documenting the summer and also taming the white board. I'll also work with a group of y'all to get growing green!

Rachel Pszonak - Gordon College

Rachel is helping organize the Mobile Market, making sure that we have fresh veggies to sell to our friends and neighbors. She will also be leading a small group.

I am super excited to be working with y'all on this summers projects, which are looking pretty awesome by the way. Any seafood lovers out there? Well you're in luck, because Jesse built us a fantastic aquaponic system with about 1,200 Tilapia fish in a 1,500 gallon tank, over which are two beds of water cress. Sounds weird, huh?

Check the sweet graphic below.

Basically, the fish eat algae, then the plants use nutrients from the fish waste and filter the water at the same time. Yummy! There will be more details on this project and others (think worms working and tall trellises) later on in the summer, when we'll have a chance to hear from YOU, the summer crew!

If you want to see other media related to Growing Green and MAP throughout the year, check out the links toolbar on the right -->

Thanks for visiting and I'm sure I'll see you again soon!

Shalom

2009-06-10T18:33:00.000-04:00

New Interns Blasted by Sanjoy's Laser Eyes During Orientation in the Greenhouse!

just kidding.. but really, it was intense. Now we're ready to go crazy this summer!

2009-06-10T18:32:00.000-04:00

New pergola in the garden for grapes, peas and beans to grow up. In the background, interns preparing the liner for the new aquaponics system in the greenhouse.

2009-05-11T18:03:00.000-04:00

In April25 2009 we had a big kick off at Wegmans at Alberta Drive. Both of our products are now available in two different Wegmans in Western New York. this means that more people will know about Growing Green and also more sales which is good for the organization. When we had the kick off it was the first day that we had our Salsa and Chili Starter at this Alberta Drive store, so we were letting people sample our products and we were getting the word out about Growing Green.
The event was a huge success. We sold about 65 and Growing Green Youth Enterprise was known by a lot of people in that area. Most of people were interested in hearing about our program and the great things that we do
Hodan Hussein - Growing Green Youth Worker

2009-03-09T17:56:00.000-04:00

Hi my friends, this is Hodan Hussein from Growing Green Business Group. On Saturday 03/07/09 we had a huge pancake breakfast for fund raising at Trinity Episcopal. We had over 250 people, like 4 different kinds of pancakes and local sausage, bacon, fruit and juice. The youth did a presentation and we featured our adopt a bed program where people can adopt a garden bed at our urban farm and sponsor the growth of food for a neighborhood. It was so successful and all the people worked very hard to make the event amazing as it urned out. We raise like beyond what we were expecting, almost $4,000, and we were so happy. More events will be coming up so we will keep you informed. talk to you later.
Hodan Hussein

2009-01-05T17:38:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone , this is Hodan. We just came back from winter break and we are working on pricing for our upcoming new product. Besides that we just got an opportunity for an end-cap at Lexington co-op on Elmwood. We are excited because this is the first opportunity to have a really big display of our products at a store, our product wont just be another jar on the shelf, we will have a big display of our salsa the end of an aisle (hence the term end-cap). Please feel free to stop by and grab a jar, they will be on sale this week.

2008-12-16T10:25:00.000-05:00

hi friends, this is Hodan Hussein from growing green works, the enterprise group. This past Saturday we had a sale promotion at Buffalo Seminary School and it really went well. We made over $300 and we had tastings of our upcoming salad dressing try outs. the feedback from people from people that it tasted very good; they want it in stores now.
Unfortunately we lost the water privatization debate against the outreach group (46 to 43) ;(. Too bad but there will be others . Now we are working on the costing for the salad dressing and we are looking for cheap prices of olive oil, dijon mustard, maple syrup, and cider vinegar.
peace

2008-11-24T17:34:00.000-05:00

Hello, this is Sammy and I am from the business group. Last Thursday, our group participated in the break even lesson teaching us the number side to business and for our new product. Our new product is going to be a new salad dressing-made with local apple cider. We learned how to calculate the fixed and variable costs and how to figure out how many units we have to sell to cover our costs and then to make a profit, which any business needs to run a successful business. This week our group learned about a way to teach eachother skills and information called "Each One Teach One". It was used by the civil rights groups, such as Black Panthers Party to teach people in neighborhoods about the history of Africans and how to organize for rights. Next week our group, along with two other groups are going to battle head to head in a debate about water privatization. Should water be privatized or not what do you think???

2008-11-19T17:50:00.000-05:00

Hello, this is Adrianna and i am in the business group. Today we did a practice debated about Buffalo Public Schools getting a half hour break during school. Next Thursday the outreach and business group are having a debate about water privatization.
We are finding prices of jars for our new coming salad dressing. Also the costs of the ingredients for our recipe. On Thursday, November 20th Tim from Lexington Coop Market and Tamar from push Buffalo is coming to tell the business group about start a business of our own.

2008-11-17T16:17:00.000-05:00

Hello friends this is Ashley sitting here with the business group writing our first blog together. We are going to talk about this weekends peace fair. Me and Hodan worked the peace fair we sold about 42 jars of our products. We met a lot of nice people who support the cause. Last Thursday we gave a survey on three potential salad dressings we had a maple cinnamon Dijon mustard blend, a apple cider balsamic vinegar blend and a black pepper honey mustard blend.The youth seemed to like the maple cinnamon Dijon mustard blend. Look for it soon in a store near you.

2008-08-11T15:16:00.000-04:00

Hi my name is Cory Williams and i and 17 and currently working for Growing Green. When i first started working here i thought i was gonna be working in a garden, basically playing in dirt all day. the sun was gonna be blazing on us and we were gonna be bored with this job. So far I have met some great people like Zowie. Zowie is my core group leader and is my greatest influence in being involved. I am usually involved but I am kinda seeing myself as being a leader. this is one of the best jobs i ever had. i have worked at a Bar dish washing and it was horrible. I wash enough dishes at home to try and wash dishes as a job. So far i really like this job and would like to continue working for Growing Green. Through this job i have found a great family and wonderful friends.

2008-08-11T14:27:00.000-04:00

Hey friends it's Ashley giving a shot out to growing green youth. This summer each group had to teach a weeks worth of lessons on a specific topic and we got the topic of environmental stewardship, sustainability, and the green economy. We are teaching our lessons through a movie ( thestoryofstuff.org ) , games and team based activities. We are having a personal challenge with recycling all the youth are to bring in their recyclable items and they will be weighed, and the person with the most stuff in weight will win a prize. we are also having an recycling egg hunt and even numbers dodge ball. So see you if i survive the week and the dodge ball.

Environmental Stewardship- is the process of taking care of the earth by not only talk but action

Sustainability- is a characteristic of a process or state that can be maintained at a certain level indefinitely (to be able to support oneself on ones own land)

Green Economy- is a rapidly growing billion-dollar sector that includes renewable energy sources, organic produce and products, green buildings, alternative fuel vehicles, and more.

2008-07-21T14:50:00.000-04:00

Whats up blogger this is Amanda and Tia we are new members of the growing green program.So far we have learned about growing green works business group. This summer we are making a new product. The new product we are making is going to be a salad dressing its going to be better then ever. We are having a famous chief come out on Wednesday the 23 and show us the procedure on how to make the salad dressing.

2008-07-21T14:47:00.000-04:00

What's up everyone? A couple of weeks ago we went to see MOS DEF talk about contemporary issues in popular culture. I think it was May 1st. We (Natasha and Uniqua, Jesse, Erin and Zoe) went to Buffalo State College to hear him speak and take questions from students and the community. Bakari Kitwana, from Rap Sessions, started off asking MOS questions about the influence of media on society, on youth and other issues that we face today. He was really comfortable talking in front of everyone and pretty funny. We were hoping to listen, maybe ask a question about youth leadership and give him a t-shirt. Zoe asked him a question about what books he thought were good reads for youth today. He said some good books were the Biography of Malcolm X, Biography of Assada Shakoor, and a few others. He gave some advice to people about how the media is too influential over the ideas people have and politics. It was a pretty decent talk. The best part is after he finished talking he took a picture with our T-shirt!!!!!! So everyone take a look and be jealous!!!! Peace

2008-06-11T17:42:00.000-04:00

whats up bloggers this is Angel from growing green works, the youth enterprise. I'm here to talk about our product launch at Wegman's Natures Market Place to promote our products the Amazing Chili Starter and Super Duper Salsa. This launch will be held on Saturday June 14, 2008 at the Wegman's on Amherst Street. At this event we will present our products to Wegmen's customers, offering samples and talking our program Growing Green. This event is a big deal for us because it is our first time working with a large scale distributor like Wegman's. Just to give you an idea they are the 3rd largest retailer in the United States. We worked for several mouths to get the approval to have the opportunity to sell our products and are so happy that the moment has finally come. Please come out and support us if you have the chance.

2008-04-30T16:08:00.000-04:00

Hello friends this is Ashley I'm here to give you some Great news!
WE WON $100,000.00!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Massachusetts Avenue Project won the 21st Century Fund $100,000 grant to help fund our up and coming Community Food Resource Center and Rise Up Cafe, which will be located In the Grant-W. Ferry area. The cafe will not only house Growing Green and Food Ventures but it will be where we store our mobile market. It will have a commercial kitchen and it will sell fresh vegetables at affordable prices. We'll be able to test making new products in our fabulous new commercial kitchen! We are so excited to have won this year. Last year we were the runners up and this year we WON Yay us!!!!!!!!!!

On another note we would like to congratulate the other finalists on their great project ideas.

To the people who voted for us thanks a million!!!!!!!!!!!
See you at the Rise Up Cafe,
Ashley

2008-04-24T17:38:00.000-04:00

Hey fellow bloggers, it's me Carisma. Today we went to the most wonderful place on earth. The place I'm talking about is Choco Logo down town. Yes you've guessed it, Chocho Logo is a chocolate factory. You have also found my weakness, I am in love with chocolate. If I could I would marry Chocolate.
Choco Logo has the best chocolate. We went there for a tour and had a taste test. First we tasted Hershey's chocolate. Compared to the chocolate we tasted afterwards the Hershey chocolate was no contest. The Hershey's is not a high grade chocolate. IT had a funny after taste that I had never tasted before. I grew up eating Hershey's Chocolate and now after going to Choco Logo I feel like I don't want to eat Hershey's again. The Chocolate at Choco Logo just melts in your mouth and is so good. It is rich and creamy and you can taste all of the flavors that is put into the chocolate. My favorite piece was the truffle. It had the most delicious inside, and this really thin outer layer of chocolate that melted in my mouth as soon as I put the truffle in my mouth. As we were leaving I asked the man who had given the tour about these chocolate bars I had seen. They had a pack of chocolate candy bars, one bar for each day of the week. I said I was going to go back and Buy that box, maybe four, one for every day of the month. I also happened to see candy bars that looked like greeting cards. I told Zoe, Ashley, Angel, and Travis to buy one of the candy bars that said Congratulations on it because I am graduating.

2008-04-21T17:13:00.000-04:00

Hey what's up peeps? Just wanted to give a shout out to all the growing green youth. Urban agriculture is not just a hobby its a way of life. The revolution will be cultivated.
peace

2008-04-09T17:53:00.000-04:00

Hello readers how's it going this is Ashley with the Business Group here to tell you what has been up with us. Growing Green is working on the Mobile Market we are trying to figure out which of the four groups with be doing which jobs including accounting, cleaning, cooking, the skits about healthy eating, and other stuff like inventory. We are deciding on prices.

WE MAY BE COMING TO A SITE NEAR YOU......................................

Thanks for reading and please stay toned!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-03-26T17:28:00.000-04:00

Hey fellow bloggers, it's Carisma. I know we always talk about business, but today I want to talk to you about something that is bothering me. The thing is right now I am a senior in high school. I should be happy, everyone is happy when they finally become a senior. When you're a senior people look up to you and you seem to have respect that you have never had before right? Well the problem isn't with high school, it's what happens after high school is over. When I graduate I have to either go to college or get a job or do both at the same time. All while I was in high school I didn't have to decide what I wanted to be when I grew up, because I was just a kid. I could dream as long as I wanted to and no one could tell me not to, after all I had a right to dream about the future. Now it seems like everyone is telling me to choose one of those dreams I used to have when I was a kid, and the problem is I can't. I can see myself doing all kinds of things. Now I see myself being a doctor or either owning my own business, but then a part of me wants to be an advertising executive. By tomorrow I'll probably want to be an astronaut and travel to Mars. I am so confused at what to do. Another thing is what people expect me to be, I don't want to let anyone down. When I was about ten my dad would tell me I was going to be a scientist when I got older, my teachers thought I was going to be a news Castor, and my mom told me I could be whatever I wanted to be. My mom was the only one telling to choose my career and not listen to others, although I wish she had have told me because, I would have listened and not be so mixed up as I am right now. I don't know what I want to do, which is why I applied to all of my colleges as undecided. I need help and a little more time wouldn't hurt.

Your fellow blogger,
Carisma

2008-03-13T15:56:00.000-04:00

Hello fellow bloggers I am Travis from the Growing Green youth enterprise group. Yesterday Ashley a fellow worker did her "Each One Teach One" where she taught the rest of the business group how to properly conduct research on the web. I think the 3 main things we learned are. 1) When your using a search engine use key words instead of whole sentences. 2) Make sure that the website you are researching is credible and has accurate information. Anyone with access to a server can put material on the web; there are no controls on what people choose to write. as a result, web pages should be viewed with even more caution than most print material. Here are some things you should look for, A) domain appropriate?(.edu .com . gov. ex.)
B) Any evidence of recent updating contents.
C) If the website has its own search engine.
3)Use the "cached" button located at the bottom of the webpage to see your search words highlighted in your search results.
We also learned more about accounting and keeping track of our own personal finances. We filled out monthly expenses sheets with our personal expenses, like food, cds clothes etc. I think that it is important to keep track of your finances closely. This way you know exactly what you are making and exactly what you are spending, saving you time instead of trying to do it all in your head or not do it at all.
Salutations,
Travis

2008-03-03T17:30:00.001-05:00

Hey fellow bloggers it's Carisma. I know I haven't been on in a while but I've been busy. Today I come to you for your help. The youth business group is doing research and development to find a new product. We started out with a whole list of potential products but our Determining aspects helped us to narrow our choices down to three. These three products are a salad dressing, an apple sauce, and a jam. These three products meet all of our requirements. Our requirements are the product has to be cost efficient, at least 20-40% local as well as organic, and of course it has to be a food. That's what we're all about here, food that tastes great and is great for you. Our other determining aspects are When are the ingredients in season , how frequently is it used, the shelf life/ storage, marketing/ nutrition, is it too much like our other products, will our target market buy it and what will they pay, where and when can it be sold, can we manufacture it, and our potential profit that will be made off of the product. The most important of the aspects is, is it in line with our philosophy. I know it's a lot to think about, and believe me our heads were hurting afterwards. The good thing is we now know more of what we would like to make, although we could use a little help. What we need from you is to help us decide what our new product should be. If you could tell us what you think that would really help us out a lot, and if you could think of a better product that meets our determining aspects please let us know. We would really appreciate it.

Your fellow blogger,
Carisma

2008-02-26T11:57:00.000-05:00

HI Everybody Zoe here. Just wanted to let you know that we are going on a best practice tour in mid-March to look at other urban agriculture programs and get some ideas for our Mobile Market and Rise Up Cafe. We are going to Logan Square, in Chicago and Growing Power, in Milwaukee. We took a visit to Growing Power a few years ago and they are amazing! They grow Talapia fish and plants in harmony. The fish waste feeds the plants and the plants filter fresh water for the fish. They also have gotten into the business of farming worm castings. Its some of the best compost around and sells and a premium price. Here are some pics from our last trip.
We'll see you guys when we get back . . with pictures.
Zo

2008-02-11T17:23:00.000-05:00

hey what's up this is Ashley writing to you. We have just got our nutrition facts label and our UPC label so we are coming up with a new label to put on our jars. We have to get these labels because some stores, the big ones, won't sell your products with out them. We're tryin to get in the big time, like sellin at Wegmans and Tops, here we come! They might look different but there still the same product you have come to know and love. We also sell our products at the winter market every other Sunday from 1pm-4pm. we are doing great!
thanks for listening
Ash

2008-02-01T16:41:00.000-05:00

Hey this is Angel from Growing Green Works.I'm here to tell you about our new product, they are Chico Bags. We sell them for $5 each and are colorful, collapsible and they are good for the environment. The Chico Bags better the environment because instead of using plastic bags and they don't break down, you can just use your Chico Bag when you go shopping or you just need a bag. We also will be selling them with our other products at the winter market and other places. the money we make on these bags goes to pay for our Mobile Market, which is a produce store on wheels that will go all over Buffalo. It's a supermarket that comes to you kinda like an ice cream truck. We are doing this because some of the neighborhoods that don't have a supermarket near them could buy the fresh produce that we have to offer. It also has another propose and that is to educate the people on how to eat healthy and how food effects our lives.
peace Angel

2008-01-11T17:47:00.000-05:00

hey what up? this is Ashley sitting down to write whats going on. we have 2 new recruits joining the business group at Growing Green, Travis and Chanell. Here is one now to write how is first day was.
Travis: "The first day was good, i had fun. We played a game and it was mostly about the rules, you know the basic orientation. I learned about "Each One Teach Ones," where we teach for a day, and that we had points to earn by working cooperatively in order to get to go onto "trips". We need 35 points in order to go on a trip. We can go sledding or to Lasertron or some other place. I'm game."

2007-12-18T16:11:00.000-05:00

My name is Sarah Powell and I have been working here at Growing Green Works for almost a month. I like my job with the business group so far and we get along pretty well. I like to be in a challenged environment, which I why I chose the business group. I like my decision for the most part. Everyone here is kind and fun to be around, so I feel comfortable. Right now, we have a list of tasks, so..........Bye until time!

* Sarah Powell*