Newest articles on The Sacramento Press tagged as "ubuntu green"

Permaculture Liberation in Sacramento.

2011-09-26T20:41:29Z

What is Liberation Permaculture?

When posed this question, creative organizer Rafael Aguilera’s answer is amazing pasta sauce.

“It’s not all about gardening. It’s about village alchemy. How do we identify who has needs or skills in our own neighborhoods and work together? Is some guy growing tomatoes and has too many while another guy down the street has an incredible recipe for pasta sauce?”

And as simply as that, the concept of permaculture is boiled down.

Bill Mollison, who is credited with helping develop permaculture as a systematic process in the 1970s defined it as “a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single project system."

Rafael hosts a monthly discussion group called Liberation Permaculture at Sol Collective. The group started with a discussion he led on the permaculture lifestyle. So much community interest was generated that Rafael and Sol Collective decided to host the community meetings once a month.

In the last year the Liberation Permaculture group, along with Ubuntu Green, Soil Born Farms, and a long list of community sponsors, has built community gardens, gleaned unpicked fruit from downtown community homes, started a local NGO seed bank, and planted trees all over the city.

One shining example of their work is the community garden at Southside park located at 7th and V street. The community garden has already involved the youth at the neighboring Met Charter school. “The next generation is built right into the community garden at Southside,” said Aguilera. Students from The Met will be tending the garden as part of their environmental education and internships.

More than just gardening, Rafael Aguilera and everyone involved with Liberation Permaculture are working to plant the seed of community-centered sustainability in Sacramento. Liberation Permaculture meets every first Tuesday at 6 p.m. at Sol Collective, located at 2574 21st Street.

Garden boxes in South Sacramento grow community, healthy food

2011-07-26T04:26:35Z

The nonprofit organization Ubuntu Green is literally planting seeds of change within the Sacramento community, nearing completion of the first year of its Home and Community Gardens Project.

The project seeks to provide low-income families in the Building Healthy Communities target area with healthier access to food and to create a greater sense of community in the selected neighborhoods.

For more information on BHC, click here.

Building Healthy Communities is a coalition comprised of many different community-driven organizations that are all funded by California’s largest foundation--The California Endowment. The BHC seeks to implement a ten-year plan to renew the health in children and families in fourteen communities throughout California, and South Sacramento is one of them.

The Building Healthy Communities target area encompasses much of South Sacramento, including sections of Oak Park, Tahoe Park, Lemon Hill and Colonial and Fruitridge Manor.

For a map of the BHC targeted area, click here.

With 26 completed to date, the project is set to install four more gardens by the end of September, two of which will add to the four existing gardens at Sacramento High School in late August, and is seeking to establish 30 more by September 2012.

The project began in 2009 as a campaign for the development of community gardens in Sacramento and evolved into a system of private home and community gardens with the partnership of multiple community organizations including Alchemist CDC and Rafael Aguilera of Sacramento Yard Farmer.

Feb. 26 marked the beginning of the project upon which six gardens were built at four sites in the initial effort to “create a community of folks who grow their own food,” said Charles Mason, the founder of Ubuntu Green.

The way the system works

After receiving contact from families living in the BHC-targeted area, Ubuntu Green chooses recipients of the gardens, prioritized on a greatest-need basis. This need is assessed from the area of the household, whether or not it is in the target BHC area, and from their website, "families that are already receiving or have received services from green and sustainable organizations in the area."

If approved for the project, Mason or Sacramento Yard Farmer Rafael Aguilera begin with a site assessment in which they decide the best placement for the garden box in the recipients’ yard, taking into consideration how much sun an area receives daily as well as the space allotted for the garden.

The recipient of the box then decides on the plants to begin the bed with based on the season and a date for the build.

A raised bed, typically 3 feet by 8 feet, is built by the yard farmer and a crew of volunteers. The bed is made of redwood to avoid contamination in the soil. Drip irrigation and a timer are installed and local farms and nurseries provide the organic soil and compost, plant starts and seeds.

The recipients are given a tutorial on gardening and quarterly packets complete with healthy food recipes and a list of places where families can access healthy foods including local stores and farmers markets. The packets are distributed in English, Hmong, Spanish and Vietnamese but are available in other languages on request.

After the build, residents care for their own gardens and can contact Ubuntu Green at any time with questions or concerns. When the next planting season comes around, residents again choose what they want to grow based on the season.

According to Mercado whose family owns two beds, the first bed has no cost for families in the BHC-targeted area, and some homes have purchased a second.

Community Feedback

Many homes and businesses have received the garden boxes to date, including the Boys and Girls Club, Sacramento High School and Old Soul Co.

Alberto Mercado, project coordinator for Building Healthy Communities and resident of Oak Park, was one of the first to receive a garden box in his front yard. The project suggests the placement of the garden in one’s front yard since it will have more visibility to the community than if it were installed elsewhere.

“Each person can affect at least five people,” Mason said.

Mercado and Mason agree. Both have front yard gardens that have influenced neighbors to join the program.

“I never really gardened, and it was from seeing what he grew that inspired me,” said Steve Gonzalez, an Oak Park resident and Mason’s neighbor. Gonzalez received a garden box about six months ago but installed it in his back yard due to the amount of shade in his front yard.

One aim of the program is to install the garden boxes in clusters in small neighborhoods, a method of creating community and meeting the people who live in your area, Mason said.

Duggan Irish, chef operator at Old Soul Co., called it “urban renewal … projects centered around building a type of community,” he said, “It’s the physicality of the labor – know what you’re cooking with because you grew it.” Duggan said he will use ingredients from the garden in the Old Soul kitchen if it produces enough.

The type of community that is slowly growing throughout Oak Park and South Sacramento “brings you back to your roots,” Gonzalez said.

The program has yielded significant changes throughout the many households it has become a part of.

“As adults, we take for granted where the food comes from and who grew it,” Mercado said, we’re “always looking for places to find healthy food but we have to go far. . . you grow it in your own home you’re reducing your Carbon Footprint.”

The program ultimately seeks to build at least 300 home and community gardens by 2013, half of which will be given to low-income households.

“To understand the sustainability behind the food you grow,” Irish said.

To summarize, with more home and community gardens, there will be less of a need to travel far for food in Sacramento.

“People think they are defenseless against this thing called climate change. People don’t think they can impact the environment. Yes you can,” said Mason.

Anyone who is interested in participating in the Home Garden Project or in volunteering may contact Ubuntu Green by visiting its website.

New group to focus on gardening, health

2011-05-20T17:50:25Z

Local organizations focused on healthy communities are hosting an event in Oak Park on Saturday to educate the public about gardening and fresh food.

The new coalition, Grow Together Sacramento, will create a few small gardens and teach the public how to set up gardens at the event.

Paul Towers, state director of the environmental group Pesticide Watch, said the coalition will build gardens and focus on the question: “How do we get as much healthy food as possible into the hands and bellies of Sacramentans?”

The Pesticide Watch Education Fund is a partner in the coalition, along with City Councilman Jay Schenirer’s office, Sacramento environmental group Ubuntu Green, the Sacramento Area Community Garden Coalition and others.

Towers said Saturday’s event will be the first of many centered around building gardens.

Making healthy food more accessible to the public through gardening will be a key part of the coalition’s work, according to Towers and Schenirer.

“We find that Sacramento is a heart of some of the richest agricultural land in the country, if not world,” Towers said.

But many Sacramento residents don’t have access to healthy, fresh and local food, he said.

While Schenirer’s office is playing a role in the coalition, Schenirer said it will not be run by the city.

“We want ownership (of the gardening campaign) to be in the community,” Schenirer said. “Ownership doesn’t necessarily need to be the city or city bureaucracy.”

At Saturday’s event, residents can also talk to Bill Maynard, the city’s community gardening director, about the upcoming Martin Luther King Jr. community garden.

There will be a lottery for people interested in plots at that garden, which will open in June at 3668 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Maynard said. Residents who would like to be in the lottery should contact Maynard at the event or by phone at 808-4943. The garden will have 38 plots.

A small number of plots have been reserved for people with disabilities, he said. Those plots will be higher than the other plots, and people won’t have to bend down, he said.

“They can stand up and garden,” Maynard said. Or, they can garden alongside their plot in a wheelchair, he said.

Gardening is a hot topic right now at City Hall. Ramping up the number of community gardens in the city is the subject of a proposed ordinance. It’s unclear when the City Council will consider the proposal – Schenirer said he did not know when the council would examine it.

If you go:

Where:

40 Acres Complex at 3434 Broadway

When:

10 a.m.: Garden training

11 a.m.: Remarks by speakers including Mayor Kevin Johnson and press conference

A second garden training will follow the press conference.

The event is free to the public.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Ubuntu Green Launches Home Garden Project!

2011-03-16T19:35:06Z

The weekend of Saturday, February 26th marked the kick-off of Ubuntu Green’s Home Garden Project. With the help of volunteers from the Sierra Service Project; Alternative Spring Break students from Loyola Marymount University; and the expertise of Soil Born Farms and Sacramento Yard Farmer, Ubuntu Green built 6 home gardens at 4 homes, which will allow residents to grow their own fruits and vegetables and lead to healthier lifestyles. To date, 9 home gardens have been built at 6 households with more applications coming every day.

Over the next two years, with support from The California Endowment, Ubuntu Green and its partners will build 60 home gardens in 12 South Sacramento neighborhoods and provide education to households on the health aspects of locally grown foods. For more information and eligibility requirements for the Home Garden Project, visit www.UbuntuGreen.org/Programs.

Environmental group works with neighborhoods

2010-12-23T01:42:33Z

Wooden boxes of chard, kale and collard greens on Charles Mason’s front yard in Oak Park are likely to be installed at dozens of spots in Sacramento next year and into 2012.

Mason, the founder of environmental nonprofit group Ubuntu Green, is organizing a project to place up to 60 small gardens in an area that includes the neighborhoods of Oak Park, Tahoe Park, Lemon Hill and Fruitridge Manor.

The home gardens project, funded by the California Endowment, is one of three programs Ubuntu Green will focus on in 2011. Ubuntu Green will work next year on a land-use environmental project with eight neighborhoods as well as host an annual event in September on environmentally friendly living.

The group, which Mason founded in January 2009, is working with several organizations on the land-use program, including WALKSacramento, the UC Davis Center for Regional Change and the Youth Development Network.

“Ubuntu” is a term traced to Africa’s Bantu languages that refers to a “humanist philosophy emphasizing community, sharing and generosity,” according to the environmental group’s website.

Mason sat down with The Sacramento Press in Oak Park on Wednesday to discuss the group’s upcoming work.

SP: What is the purpose of Ubuntu Green?

CM: “Green” for us is ... removing environmental health and justice problems within our communities, improving our access to transit and improving our access to healthy foods, among other things. But (it also means) changing how land-use decisions are made in our communities so they are done in a way that promotes health, and that indirectly and directly, has no impact, or less of an impact, on the environment. We took the land-use approach to greening an urban environment.

(In a low-income community), you’ve got a much larger percentage of people who are transit-walk-bike dependent. These people have no access to resources, or limited access to resources, unless they have access to transit – especially if you’re talking about seniors and very low-income people. So, if you increase transit access in those communities, you promote the use of the transit. You (also) give them better access to all the different services and amenities they need day to day.

The Sacramento Press pointed at two wooden boxes filled with plants on Mason’s front yard.

SP: What is going on here?

CM: Under our current grant with the California Endowment, and we’re working in partnership with Soil Born Farms, we have been funded to do 60 of these home gardens in the Sacramento Building Healthy Communities area.

SP: What are these plants?

CM: These two rows are different types of chard … These are different types of cabbage. Over here, we have mustards – very spicy. And these are collard greens, and about two different varieties of kale.

SP: What are a few of the group’s goals for 2011?

CM: We’ve got tons. One is obviously to get the (installation of the garden boxes) out of the way. We’ve got to get that program up and out. We’re doing our Green Oak Park and South Sacramento (event).

And then we’ll (continue) with our healthy land-use engagement project. So, that’s our major project where we’re engaging local residents around how to address land-use issues in their communities. We’re working with eight neighborhoods in the Sacramento Building Healthy Communities area.

SP: Is it an environmental focus?

CM: We’re going to be asking them to look at transportation issues in the sense of – look at your sidewalks. Look at your ability to walk and bike and drive around this community. Talk about your access to transit. Talk about where you go to get your food. Is it healthy? Is there a community garden nearby?

Read more about the healthy land-use engagement project here.

Learn more about the home gardens project here.

Photo of Charles Mason and his box gardens by Kathleen Haley.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Sacramento Building Healthy Communities

2009-12-01T20:19:49Z

On November 21, 2009, the Sacramento Building Healthy Communities collaborative hosted two events in Oak Park and South Sacramento, designed to educate communities on the 10-year Building Healthy Communities (BHC) process. Earlier this year, the California Endowment awarded funding to 14 communities over ten years as part of their Building Healthy Communities program. This effort was designed to infuse at least $10 million into each community to bring about systemic change. The efforts are to be driven by four goals:

• Health systems are family-centered and prioritize prevention.
• Schools anchor communities, promote healthy behaviors and are a gateway for resources and services.
• Human services systems are family-centered, prioritize prevention and promote opportunities for children, young adults and their families.
• Improved physical, social and economic environments in local communities.

South Sacramento was chosen by the Endowment as one of the target communities. The area includes all of Oak Park, Fruitridge Manor, Elder Creek, and parts of Curtis Park, Tahoe Park and both incorporated and unincorporated areas of South Sacramento.

Since March 2009, the collaborative has been working to put together the 10 year strategic plan for the area. Initial outreach has targeted 5,000 residents through community events, talking circles and surveys to gauge the communities’ views about their neighborhoods. Other activities have included several working groups that are focused on Infrastructure and Assets, Health Access and Youth Development..

In an industry where foundations often change funding focus every 5 years or so, the Endowment’s 10 year commitment marks an opportunity for communities to pull together long-term comprehensive planning and corresponding actions that can improve public environmental quality and health, as well as, the built environment and healthy food access to traditionally underserved communities.

This process provides a unique opportunity for this highly diverse and vibrant area that has been plagued by crime, obesity, foreclosures and disinvestment for decades. It allows the target communities to leverage the Endowment’s resources to attract additional private and public sector funding and technical assistance. In addition, the BHC initiative will help to increase civic pride and build bridges across ethnic, cultural and economic divides that have been historically difficult to create and sustain.

However, the greatest opportunity of this process will be achieved by deep and meaningful involvement of the residents, local business owners and community-based organizations themselves. As this process moves forward, outreach and resources need to continue to have significant and long term impact on these groups that ensures public safety, generates jobs, minimizes displacement, increases access to public transportation, makes streets safer for walking and biking, improves energy efficiency and rehabilitates and creates affordable housing that is of high quality.

Finally, my 5 year old son Miles attended the November 21st gathering in Oak Park with me and told the all adult working group that he wanted safer parks. Many comments had been made to that point, but none discussed the safety of our parks. Many of us take for granted the fact that our children lack safe areas in the community for recreation that they can access at all times. We must foster these activities and make them safe, clean, accessible and with many eyes on the parks and streets to ensure security.

In the end, it is all about our children. As we lay the building blocks for the future we must ensure that what we build today creates a path toward a greater quality of life for the next generation.

This selection originally appeared on the Ubuntu Green blog. http://blog.ubuntugreen.org/

Built Environment/Green Space Presentation

2009-11-09T22:16:27Z

Built Environment/Green Space Presentation

November 10, 2009
5:30pm-7:30pm

Sacramento Food Bank
3333 3rd Avenue, Sacramento, CA

AGENDA

Moderator: Charles L. Mason, Jr., Ubuntu Green

Confirmed Panelists:

Anya Lawler, Consultant, California State Assembly Committee on Housing

Graham Brownstein, ECOS

Davida Douglas, Alchemist CDC

Brandon Kitagawa, Regional Asthma Management and Prevention, Statewide Coordinator of Community Action to Fight Asthma (CAFA)

Constance Slider, Coalition on Regional Equity

Invited Panelists:

Paul Zykofsky, Director of Land Use and Transportation, Local Government Commission

Randy Rosalex, Green Sacramento Builders

Darnell Robinson, Clearinghouse CDFI

• Overview of Built Environment and Green Space

• Built Environment and Green Space and the Sacramento Building Healthy Communities target area

• Connectivity to other priority areas (Food Access, Multi-Modal Transportation Network, Access to Doctors, Economic Well-Being)

• What types of systems and policy changes are needed?

Arson Vigil in Oak Park

2009-10-02T21:07:49Z

Dear Friends-

As you may know, a arson fire was set at my home in the early morning on September 21st. My family and I are safe, and all necessary repairs and clean up, and replacements are being handled by our insurance company. We have had a great response from our neighbors and community leaders, who have organized a vigil tonight in front of our home to signify community strength and unity. If you are in the Northern CA area, we hope you can join us.

Vigil Information - 2614 36th Street, Sacramento CA (between 1st and 2nd Avenue). 6:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.

http://www.inmycommunity.com/imc_joomla/index.php?option=com_jevents&task=icalrepeat.detail&evid=1243&Itemid=0&year=2009&month=10&day=02&uid=b95d207209c10d465088f7c3f1d33d9a

http://www.SacFire.org/indexSub.cfm?page=1003

We are working closely working with the fire and police departments to find the individual(s) that committed the crime. I have attached the copies of the press release sent out by the Oak Park Neighborhood Association and by my organization, Ubuntu Green.

Also, there was a fire bombing that occurred early this morning in another section of Oak Park. The home was vacant, and no one was hurt. A link to this incident is below.

http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/crime/archives/2009/10/arsonist-sought.html

Thank you in advance for all your kind works and support! We are all doing fine and plan to continue to be strong members of our community through our individual work and through our non-profit Ubuntu Green.

Charles

Where Is My Green?

2009-09-23T22:47:01Z

The green movement is in full swing these days. President Obama and his Administration are talking green jobs every day. The environmental movement is enjoying its day in the sun as the nation embraces green principles. Businesses such as Wal-Mart and Starbucks have implemented some sort of green practices. And, we even have Planet Green, the television station dedicated to teaching America how to live and build green.

Earlier this year, I launched Ubuntu Green www.ubuntugreen.org, a non-profit focused on building sustainable and equitable communities. I was particularly concerned with the impact of the green movement on urban centers, low income families and communities of color. It became very clear to me during my 20 years of public policy work that many of the progressive environmental, land use and transportation movements had often overlooked these constituencies. I was also concerned about how federal resources dedicated to green projects would impact these communities. Were companies that receive green job funds reaching out to underserved communities? Were we requiring that infill, redevelopment and new development in urban communities use the highest LEED standards, in order to not only lower energy cost and usage, but to also build healthy homes and other buildings? Were we helping to promote green lifestyles in communities that would include promotion of community gardens, farmers markets, and access to healthy foods?

As the green movement enjoys its day in the sun, we must take a moment and pause to ensure that all Americans are sharing the ample benefits. Government, foundation, business, non-profit and other entities must dedicate educational, technical and financial resources to ensure that the greening of our society is part of a long range commitment that does not end with the next election or shift in policy priorities.

I choose Ubuntu Green as a name of our organization, because I believe deeply in the South African term Ubuntu, which speaks to the common humanity and interdependence of all of humanity. The green movement will not be successful unless its goals are firmly rooted in ensuring green justice through the improving of the daily lives of all the world’s citizens.

This Blog originally appeared at blog.ubuntugreen.org

Green the Block Comes to Oak Park

2009-09-03T23:52:31Z

For Immediate Release

Contacts:
Charles L. Mason, Jr.

(916) 475-4290 cell

cmasonjr@yahoo.com

Alvin Vaughn

(510) 909-2347 celladvaughn@hotmail.com

“Ubuntu Green Sponsors “Green the Block” Activities For Oak Park Neighborhood”

September 1, 2009—Sacramento, CA—Ubuntu Green, a Sacramento community-based organization, is the lead sponsor of this year’s Green the Block event. Green the Block is part of a nationwide effort to give communities of color a voice in the emerging clean-energy economy. The event will coincide with the National Day of Service on September 11, 2009, where volunteers nationwide will take part in improving their communities.

The Oak Park United Methodist Church at 3600 Broadway will be the site of Green the Block from 5 to 8 pm. Friday, September 11, 2009. Attendees will receive materials on green living, healthy lifestyles, green job opportunities and community service projects. There will also be a green community art project, and showing of the documentary Fresh. The event will also include music, healthy refreshments and fun family activities.

“We have been looking forward to Green the Block for some time,” said Ubuntu Green’s President, Charles L. Mason, Jr. “It will be an opportunity for members of the community to get involved in greening their communities in a family friendly, fun and relaxed atmosphere.”
Ubuntu Green is partnering with the following fine organizations to bring Green the Block: The Oak Park Neighborhood Association, Oak Park Weed and Seed, The Oak Park Business Association and Oak Park United Methodist Church.

About Ubuntu Green
Ubuntu Green is a community-based organization that supports and develops green activities through community gardens, neighborhood clean-up programs, community arts programs and public health and education outreach.