Food Peace & Communication

[slideshow] Last night, RootDown Youth Leader, Ana Torres responded on FaceBook with the following suggestion when we asked - How could we use the Ralph Bunche house if it becomes our new home base this year? Her words speak best to what RootDown LA would wish for everyone this coming year: Healthy Food, Peace, and Communion among all our family, friends and neighbors across Los Angeles!   Happy Holidays from all of us at RootDown LA!

You know There's A lot Of kids Out There In the Streets God Knows Doing What. We could Persuade them to join a club, where they'll learn about food peace & communication. Then we could go out around the community spreading the msg to parents , teens , kids, that if they are involved in something there are less chances of their kids being out there doing maybe bad things or being influenced by bad people. That way we get them involved, we spread our info about healthy food and they learn some cooking techniques.

Collaboration Yields an Orchard for Jefferson High!

[slideshow] Thanks so much to TreePeople’s secondary education team who turned Jefferson High teacher, Anthony Pagan, onto a grant from the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation (and their sponsor, Fruitabu) to plant 25 fruit trees in the Community Garden space integrated in the New Tech campus.  Special thanks also to Rico Montenegro from the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation, who came to instruct us how to plant and care for these trees.  And TONS of thanks to the kids who stayed to get their hands dirty and plant those little trees!

RootDown LA was there with FRESH FRUIT to remind the students what awaits them at the end of a fruit tree's growing season!  Warren's masterful fruit creatures amused the kids...

...that is, before they devoured his persimmon, apple, pear and, grapes fruit oddities.

Together, two schools and three non-profits have launched and will oversee this NEW FRUIT ORCHARD in South Los Angeles!  We see our part in this as another step in RootDown LA's new SUPPLY-side efforts to improve the food environment at Jefferson by connecting kids to a source of the local, nutrient rich produce that can help keep their bodies and brains healthy!

A new home? Yes HOUSE & YARD for RootDown?!

We were given permission to talk about the POTENTIAL for this unbelievable GIFT! [slideshow]

Hey everyone!  Please help us as we HOLD this vision - RootDown LA may very well have a new home next year (yes we mean a HOUSE and a GARDEN, and even neighboring ROOSTERS!)  just one block from Jefferson High School where we currently base our operations - getting kids to eat their nasty veggies before we train them to be advocates for healthy food in their communities.

For YEARS! RootDown LA has been scrapping for a place to operate.  Kelley Budding, our most amazing Title One Coordinator at Jefferson High has made it INFINITELY easier to get a foothold in a public high school, where classroom space is at a premium and folks get a wee bit territorial once they've finally been given a place to teach.  We've been kicked (kindly) out of classrooms and shuffled about with our portable stoves and lightweight cutting boards - just hoping we might have proximity to a sink to wash our dishes.  Heck, we were SO happy this year, just to receive a cupboard for storage, and some tables to cook on... What kind of world do we live in, we sometime wonder, where people who do good, have to fight people who do good, for space to do good things?

Well TODAY we regained faith... that others value the good work we do when we met with the Community Redevelopment Association of Los Angeles, to tour the Ralph Bunche house, just one block from Jefferson High.  The house has been left in a trust to the community; the owner hoped the community would find good use for the house.  Our conversations today lead us to believe - we will VERY LIKELY get to design (well, our architect friend, Michael Pinto will design) a home base for RootDown LA in this house.  We envision - students and neighbors dropping in to eat, and learn to cook and grow healthy food, gain skills to design and grow their own gardens, and even create ART to make this space one that supports healthier brains, bodies and hearts!

We are so ready to GO!  We have our RootDown LA board member, Mark Stambler, and entrepreneurial trainer, Ledette Gambini (both pro bakers), as well as our RootDown Youth Leaders with their mad culinary skills - all  just waiting to COOK food in what will likely be a COMMERCIAL kitchen.  Watch out neighbors!  Very soon we may be producing local foods, from local crops - in our ongoing effort to build demand for and now create the SUPPLY of local healthy food in South LA.

Of special note - when we got back to school today after our meeting, we were THRILLED to see Jefferson's basketball and football coaches grilling chicken hot dogs for their players who need "a balanced meal" as they put it, before they hit the fields today.  We told them, "Soon guys!  We'll ALL dine together just down the road. Healthy food for all!"

Woo to the Nth time HOO!  is what we say.

We'll keep you posted.  In the meantime, we KNOW there are people out there who are just ITCHING to donate time, commercial kitchen equipment, and funds to such a cause.  Drop us a line, come eat with us.  We'll talk!