Re: [sg] Federal Agency Support of Community & School Gardens

T* W* B*


>In a message dated 99-10-21 00:35:41 EDT, you write:
>
>Greetings!
>
> I have an opportunity tomorrow to meet with representatives of United
> States Department of Agriculture, the Department of Education, and Housing
> and Urban Development to discuss how they might more effectively support
> community and school gardens. What suggestions to you have about how they
> might help?
>
> Lucy Bradley >>
>
Hello Lucy,
Ann English had some good ideas about the question at hand, however, though
I don't want to sound like a party pooper, I think getting any kind of
funding out of the anti-education Republican government for community and
school gardens when we can't even get decent salaries for teachers and when
the school system is weighted down by administrators and red tape, is
"wishful thinking".  Instead, perhaps grass roots community organizations
and PTA groups might think about encouraging these types of projects.  One
of the problems we had when I lived in Oregon was that the kids at the
schools would plant the gardens, then during the summer break when no one
was there they never got to see them grow to fruition.  Perhaps a combined
group of community and parents and teachers could do some grant searches
(gardens don't cost much and give SO much) and come up with some cooperative
efforts.  Thanks for doing this and good luck.  K. Wright
>Lucy --
>
>How exciting!  I hope they will look at the whole country and support the
>concepts. I think they should provide funding to support hands on education
>(ie community and school gardens) that is available at the individual
school
>level. They have offered opportunities at the system level, but in our
town,
>the system is not as willing to pursue garden programs as official
>curriculum, but they will "look the other way" if a school is developing
such
>programs individually. The larger agencies could also provide grant
>incentives to systems to support community and school garden programs, much
>like they do for Title 1 reading. As the farm base in this country shrinks,
I
>think it is in USDA's interest to support gardening programs on all levels.
>It could also come through the established 4-H network, rather than
inventing
>all new funding mechanisms. By this, they could increase 4-H funding, with
>garden programs  given an administrative priority/ mandated increase. It
>seems to me that HUD has ample access to housing sites that would benefit
>from funding for "Victory Garden" type plots. They could tie into research
to
>long-term effects by looking at NYC's community garden efforts, among
others.
>This could be a "millenium baseline year" with the thought of multi-year
>funding. Such funding would seem to provide program stability and increase
>the likelyhood of program success. Much like the 1 % arts set asides, they
>could mandate a 1% garden set aside when they do HUD project renovations to
>provide an urban source of garden capitol.
>Just my morning's 2 cents.
>
>Ann English
>
>_______________________________________________
>community_garden maillist  -  community_garden@mallorn.com
>https://secure.mallorn.com/mailman/listinfo/community_garden
>


_______________________________________________
community_garden maillist  -  community_garden@mallorn.com
https://secure.mallorn.com/mailman/listinfo/community_garden