Some New Ideas
11/30/12
Hi all,
I'd like to give everyone an update on Sustainable Girdwood and the gardening project meeting we held last night.
Thanks to Ben, Craig, Jamie, and Selita for coming and sharing their enthusiasm!
First of all, I would like to share my vision of our summer. We have had some amazing input about the energy side of our organization, but I feel like our movement to "plant a seed" within the community will be best realized by moving towards the goal of our town having the ability to feed ourselves. I would like to start small with attainable goals and achieve them, giving our organization credibility to the visions we have been trying to attain for the last several years.
This is what we talked about:
First of all...small things...Jamie is willing to take over our Facebook page and get us some much needed support from the cyber world! Keep an eye out for our Sustainable Girdwood Fan page here on Facebook. Jamie is working with our good Hope friend Dave Scanlin to get a sustainable ski area built in the Turnagain pass! Go Jamie...I don't have time ;) Thanks to Selita for educating us on the rain-garden project and how that is coming along at the School. There is much more potential for water-cleaning rain-gardens in our community. Please check with her to get more information.
We also discussed what we could do to help make the community gardens more accessible and fruitful for our community members who want to grow their own veggies. We decided that an effort spearheaded by SG to clear the cottonwood trees currently shading the gardens would be a great example of how we want to see our organization helping the community. The cleared lumber will be used to build new, raised beds for our community gardens, and there have been greenhouses and gardening centers outside of our little Valley that have offered to donate soil for this project.
We also discussed the old Church building that has been so generously donated to us by Pastor Jim at the Girdwood Chapel, and what the feasible uses of this building could be. It was agreed that moving the building is an un-reachable fiscal goal for us at the moment, and the materials that the building is constructed of are mighty toxic in cases (lead paint and such on the siding...mold and such due to the leaky roof). With Ben Kohler's trustworthy advice we have decided that the materials that are salvageable are: the interior cedar siding, the large beams holding the whole thing up, and the windows. It doesn't seem like much, but the way those materials with some supplemental stuff can create a greenhouse and some cold frame boxes is awesome! The potential is amazing!
So...Ben is going to discuss the possibility of fixing up the community gardens, and whether or not the Chapel would be willing to let us tear down the building, dispose of what is not usable, salvage what is, and use the footprint of the old Chapel building for our greenhouse project.
This is a lot of logistics and a lot of work, but I have confidence that we can garner the community support to make both of these projects happen, and create accountability and trust for our effort.
I'm really excited to be helping to shape the next steps of Sustainable Girdwood. This is a project that is close to my heart, and I'm willing to make the effort to help all of us cross the barrier of lofty goals to laudable ones...one step at a time :)
Let's plant a garden!
-julia
I'd like to give everyone an update on Sustainable Girdwood and the gardening project meeting we held last night.
Thanks to Ben, Craig, Jamie, and Selita for coming and sharing their enthusiasm!
First of all, I would like to share my vision of our summer. We have had some amazing input about the energy side of our organization, but I feel like our movement to "plant a seed" within the community will be best realized by moving towards the goal of our town having the ability to feed ourselves. I would like to start small with attainable goals and achieve them, giving our organization credibility to the visions we have been trying to attain for the last several years.
This is what we talked about:
First of all...small things...Jamie is willing to take over our Facebook page and get us some much needed support from the cyber world! Keep an eye out for our Sustainable Girdwood Fan page here on Facebook. Jamie is working with our good Hope friend Dave Scanlin to get a sustainable ski area built in the Turnagain pass! Go Jamie...I don't have time ;) Thanks to Selita for educating us on the rain-garden project and how that is coming along at the School. There is much more potential for water-cleaning rain-gardens in our community. Please check with her to get more information.
We also discussed what we could do to help make the community gardens more accessible and fruitful for our community members who want to grow their own veggies. We decided that an effort spearheaded by SG to clear the cottonwood trees currently shading the gardens would be a great example of how we want to see our organization helping the community. The cleared lumber will be used to build new, raised beds for our community gardens, and there have been greenhouses and gardening centers outside of our little Valley that have offered to donate soil for this project.
We also discussed the old Church building that has been so generously donated to us by Pastor Jim at the Girdwood Chapel, and what the feasible uses of this building could be. It was agreed that moving the building is an un-reachable fiscal goal for us at the moment, and the materials that the building is constructed of are mighty toxic in cases (lead paint and such on the siding...mold and such due to the leaky roof). With Ben Kohler's trustworthy advice we have decided that the materials that are salvageable are: the interior cedar siding, the large beams holding the whole thing up, and the windows. It doesn't seem like much, but the way those materials with some supplemental stuff can create a greenhouse and some cold frame boxes is awesome! The potential is amazing!
So...Ben is going to discuss the possibility of fixing up the community gardens, and whether or not the Chapel would be willing to let us tear down the building, dispose of what is not usable, salvage what is, and use the footprint of the old Chapel building for our greenhouse project.
This is a lot of logistics and a lot of work, but I have confidence that we can garner the community support to make both of these projects happen, and create accountability and trust for our effort.
I'm really excited to be helping to shape the next steps of Sustainable Girdwood. This is a project that is close to my heart, and I'm willing to make the effort to help all of us cross the barrier of lofty goals to laudable ones...one step at a time :)
Let's plant a garden!
-julia
Change of Guard
5/15/12
Evan has been working hard on his endeavors to promote sustainable economics and politics and has found he does not have the time or energy to give Sustainable Girdwood what it deserves. I have worked closely with him spearheading this endeavor for over 3 years, and together we decided that he would take a step back from the front line of SG in an effort to garner support in Juneau and Washington for the benefit of our State's interests including sustainable energy and food production, and I would take the step forward into the facilitator position for SG.
This being said, there are a lot of new ideas for community gardening projects, and the prospect of re-purposing the old Chapel building into a year-round greenhouse. I have had the opportunity to speak to some new friends of SG who are willing to help with these projects and would like to have a meeting to see what the community thinks about changing gears just a bit to re-purpose rather than move the building that was generously donated to us by Pastor Jim.
I would like to call an open meeting to discuss these gardening projects on Tuesday, May 29th @ 7pm at the Silvertip (can we save the beer till we're done?).
Unfortunately Evan won't be able to join us but I feel confident we can continue in his spirit of progress.
I look forward to seeing you all there!