Transformation: Reaching New Heights

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How will DeWitt Clinton look in 50 years?  What kind of school will greet our descendants and those of our students, past and present? How will our school meet the needs of those striving to succeed in a changing world?  How will it model sustainability? Will it be a green model school oasis in the city?  Will it be a place where students prepare for the changes that climate is bringing?

Our school facility must lean towards the future and what better way than through eco-design that is sustainable, community friendly, and that promotes health and well-being.  We need to continue to design our building for the future and begin to represent the change we see happening all around us.  I propose that we start with the heart of our sustainability efforts, The Clinton Garden.

The James Baldwin Memorial Outdoor Learning Center will be in proximity to The Clinton Garden to serve as a multi-purpose community/school gathering space dedicated to Baldwin’s memory and his commitment to social justice.  Today, we recognize that social justice includes environmental justice.  Just as James Baldwin shaped his own learning through self-determination, The Baldwin Center will further the idea that learning is immersive, connected to the community, and transformative.

Architect Linda Pollak, Sarah Wolf (Active Design Manager at the New York City Department of Health & Mental Hygiene), and I toured The Clinton Garden and the grounds of our school on a bright and beautiful October day.  We even went to the roof to look down on our school garden, share ideas for the Baldwin Center, observe, imagine and dream. 

Linda Pollak has designed outdoor classrooms on Staten Island and Queens that beautifully integrate the existing landscape and make use of eco-design principles.  Sarah Wolf introduced me to the mission of the Center for Active Design: “to reduce the risk of obesity and chronic diseases by promoting physical activity and healthy food access through the design of buildings, streets, and neighborhoods.”  From the spot where our local hawks and falcons perch we could start to see future possibilities, a “new face” for our building as seen from Paul Avenue.

Our next steps are clear: a timeline/schedule for the project and a plan or framework that will allow the shape of the project to emerge.  We can then enlist our shareholders to create a space for input by students, teachers, parents and our community partners. I’ve never wanted to impose an idea or a space as much as contribute towards a shared vision. 

So, where do we go from here?  Help us close out this IOBY campaign.  We’ve come a long way and with less than $700 more, we can start the new year ready to make our next move with design plans in hand.

To give, even a little, please follow the link below:

https://ioby.org/project/james-baldwin-memorial-outdoor-learning-center-clinton-garden

Thank You, Happy Holiday Season and Happy New Year!

The Welcome Table

The Welcome Table

first thing to meet the eye and

greet the guests of the garden.

Set to say ‘Welcome,’

and as if to say,

‘This first we MUST agree upon:

to sit, to share, to talk.

For to not agree  

would turn this table over

becomes a shield

the table turned against:

hatred, intolerance,

waste, and greed.

The Welcome Table

a place of gathering of all people

to share food, poetry, music, laughter, ideas, lessons

a place apart and in connection to what goes on inside our school

to remind us of what we learn outside of the classroom

a sanctuary here on the campus of our busy public high school

a safe place for difference and sameness

The garden will remind us of the earth outside and in us –

The Welcome Table

James Baldwin’s story, for one, could be told here

since he went here- amidst the throng - across

the lengths of these halls, the same stairs, and library –

Jimmy must have been in Mr. Meeropol’s class

at least heard Abel banging on a piano

somewhere hammering away at librettos 

or the crystal moment that bore Strange Fruit

on some piano in the building somewhere

like summertime –

From the depths of Harlem he rode a breadth of New York City,   

to the Castle on the Parkway, Norwood of the Bronx

And The Welcome Table, open and large, was in his life, was his life,

his last play, last easing of tension into brotherhood and love.

This poem has been generating over the last few weeks, but its history in me runs much deeper.  One of the highlights of my over twenty years of teaching English at DeWitt Clinton High School was having the opportunity to teach a James Baldwin elective for several semesters from 2002 to 2004.  The experience culminated in my class discussingThe Fire Next Time while being filmed and subsequently televised onC-SPAN. I was also able to attend the 80 year celebration of Baldwin’s birth in conjunction with the publication of Sol’s Stein’s Native Sons: A Friendship That Created One of the Greatest Works of the Twentieth Century, an event held at the DeWitt Clinton High School library with esteemed guests including Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Sol Stein and biographer David Leeming (who happened to be my college professor at UCONN).  The reference to songwriter and lyricist Abel Meeropol, who wrote the song “Strange Fruit” that Billie Holiday made famous, stems from years of teaching the song in my Advanced Literary Criticism course at Clinton.  Three of these class sessions were featured in Joel Katz’ 2004 film, Strange Fruit.  I have long been captivated by the likelihood that James Baldwin and Abel Meeropol were acquainted at least to the extent that Abel Meeropol taught English at Clinton during the years that James Baldwin attended.  I like to think of myself as a collector of such convergences. 

I’m advocating The Welcome Table as a key design feature of the James Baldwin Memorial Outdoor LearningCenter, a site that I propose being constructed in proximity to The Clinton Garden and that will serve as a multi-purpose community/school gathering space dedicated to Baldwin’s memory and the idea that learning, especially about the environment, sustainability, gardening and food, needs to also take place outside of the classroom.  For more information, or to donate, please visit our IOBY page.

Futuring The Clinton Garden

Humble beginnings, early Spring 2010

Summer bounty 2014

We're dreamers with big ideas and big plans and from what we've experienced so far, we know that dreams do become real.  In just five years, we've succeeded in transforming our campus and now we're dreaming from a whole different space.  Where there was drab there is color.  Where there was tawny grass there are bright red cherry tomatoes to pluck and eat and share. Where there was little to stimulate the senses there is the humming and fragrance of a radiant garden and wildlife habitat. 

Our efforts at beautifying the DeWitt Clinton High School campus have not gone unnoticed. On June 27, we were awarded the 2014 Golden Apple by the New York City Department of Sanitation Bureau of Waste Prevention, Reuse and Recycling.  Not only were we Bronx Borough Winners in the TrashMasters, Team Up to Clean Up! Category, we were City Wide Winners. Is ours the most lush, beautiful and productive school garden in all of New York City? So I've been told.

The DeWitt Clinton High School Community receiving the Golden Apple and Golden Shovel Awards, June 2014

We've always grown a wide variety of vegetables and have learned that certain crops do consistently well.  Kale, tomato, varieties of lettuce, pepper, basil, parsley, sunflowers, corn and beans have flourished in our garden but we have not stopped experimenting with new varieties.  This year our stands of turnip and okra look outstanding.   We introduced grapes last year and this year we have started gooseberry, raspberry, blackberry, blueberry and more grapes.  Our native plant garden attracts bees and butterflies and our reluctance to mow has enabled the spread of Swamp Milkweed, Blue Mist Flower, Black-eyed Susans and Mint in random spots throughout the garden. Gym classes leaving the building for the field walk past festive Zinnia, Marigold, Balsam and Calliopsis.

This summer our garden is even more beautiful than ever primarily because we have initiated The Clinton Garden Summer Internship Program.  Whereas in previous summers, student volunteers from the Environmental Affairs Club would ascend on the garden periodically in response to my requests on our Facebook page, this summer we have a dedicated team of five interns who are each spending a minimum of 30 hours caring for, watering and maintaining the garden.  With the success of this summer's program we are sure to make this a lasting offering to our students in the years to come. We are especially proud to provide our interns with a modest stipend thanks to funding provided by a Grow to Learn Grant we received back in January.

From left, Summer Interns Maribel Vitagliani, Clarissa Recamier and Stephanie M. Reyes working the worm bin.

During the hottest afternoons, a make-shift sprinkler does the trick...

...and no one is spared!

And where would our garden be without compost?  The growth of our completely organic garden has depended upon our ability to expand our ability to create the rich, dense, moisture retaining and nutritious (AND FREE !!!!) soil amendment known as compost. Along with the Golden Apple, we were awarded The Golden Shovel in June for our exemplary composting system already in place. But even before this award, we received a Compost Grant from Citizens Committee for New York City. Starting in the fall, we will expand our operation by purchasing additional EnviroCycle Tumblers to finally begin composting cafeteria vegetable kitchen scraps and coffee grounds from at least six offices.

Good compost means good volunteers, like this butternut squash! 

We presently boast seventeen beds (we started with five) perhaps finally reaching capacity for the narrow 96' x 21' space we presently occupy.  But our campus is built upon a 23 acre piece of land and while a substantial amount of this land is occupied by our school building, track and playing fields we have the space to expand.  Our most ambitious future plans for the garden involve the construction of The James Baldwin Memorial Outdoor Learning Center. This multipurpose outdoor classroom facility will memorialize the great American writer and civil rights hero who graduated from DeWitt Clinton in 1942 and whose life and career best exemplifies to us the idea that learning and education also take place outside of the classroom.

                        

And so, this fall, we know what we will be striving towards.  We'll continue to develop our plans for the expansion of the garden and the construction of our outdoor learning center, we'll continue to work with our numerous partner organizations, we'll continue to bring programming about food, health, gardening, composting and sustainability into The Clinton Garden and onto our school campus, we'll continue to recruit our own faculty and students to take part in growing the garden and we'll continue to build our dreams from where we presently stand.  

DWC faculty members Amneris Rasuk Garcia and Allison Burke-Soall driving in the final screw in what might be the last raised bed in The Clinton Garden, Spring 2014 - we're out of room in our present space!

DWC faculty member Franklyn Myal has adopted the role of weed-wacker at The Clinton Garden, Spring 2014.

From left, AmeriCorp Vista Service Member Augie, School Gardener Ray Pultinas, Clinton Garden Summer Interns Andrew Madero, Maribel Vitigliani, Clarissa Recamier, Stephanie M. Reyes and Americorp Vista Service Member Ellen Winston join forces to construct supports for black raspberry, Summer 2014.  

Golden Apple (Borough and City Wide Winners) and Golden Shovel Awards, Spring 2014

   

Convergence: 2013 Year End Report

This fall we found the papilio polyxenes that becomes the Black Swallowtail Butterfly.

Converge: to move toward one point and join together: to come together and meet. [www.merriam-webster.com]

What do you call it when things come together?  What makes a garden work and prosper?  These are questions I’m dwelling on as I reflect on our Environmental Affairs Club and activities surrounding The Clinton Garden in this year-end report.  We’ve been able to meet many of our ambitious goals announced this past summer.  But how can I explain how we were able to do this?  

Convergence is a term that comes to mind when I need to explain that magical feeling of being in the right place at the right time with others there to help.  It is this joining together in a united cause that has thrilled me since I can remember.  As I think back to the numerous activities and events that have happened this past fall the term reminds me that success is always a combined effort.  And while it is essential that people come together to make a school garden happen, the coming together must also happen at the right time.  Success is therefore a coordinated effort!  I hope that the following examples illustrate how we managed to converge this past year to help improve the soil, the health, the nutrition, and the appearance of DeWitt Clinton Campus! 

Convergence # 1 The Clinton Garden becomes an Official Compost Demonstration Site

The sign makes it official! Left to right Richard Perez, Shahana Suma, Junior Shouten of New York City Compost Project, Hirra Zafar, Maribel Vitagliani, Ray Pultinas, Ngoc Tran, Francisco Pizarro, Myranda Ramos, Ghislain Cohen and Mike Zamm of Grow NYC.  

On September 26, 2013, The Clinton Garden was honored to become an official demonstration site through the New York City Compost Project. Our first demonstration was a Compost Made Easy Workshop. Twenty-six students and community members, New York Compost Project in the Bronx team leaders Jodie Colon and Junior Schouten along with several Master Composters in training and The Riverdale Press converged in the garden to see how our compost operation is maintained and to educate each other about the basic fundamentals of composting.

After some tool safety instructions from Ray Pultinas, Tiffany was ready to use loppers to cut up and break down some of the bigger sticks to enable faster decomposition.  

From a sustainability perspective, composting redistributes organic waste into essential nourishment for the landscape and the human body and spirit.  It is a recycling of the material upon which our living bodies function that would otherwise be wasted in putrid landfills. Because it involves a process of decomposition in which countless macro and microorganisms, fungi, and bacteria are invited to participate, it is a communal digestion of discarded organic matter for the sake of our mutual well-being. There is no future without composting.  We can only improve our methods and our outreach so that no organic waste is wasted. 

Hirra and Mr. Pultinas demonstrate what to do when you have compost - sift it!

Composting happens naturally.  Throw an apple core into the bushes and it will be broken down by a variety of organisms and reenter the soil.  Some of it will be picked at by birds and insects, some of it will be overtaken by the bacteria on the apple itself and some of it will interact with the organisms present in the soil.  Some of it may dry up and be blown by the wind, but inevitably it will be broken down into increasingly smaller pieces containing nutrients that will become available to plants. 

Our Compost Made Easy Workshop included work with our worm bins.  Worms are fascinating!

Humans can augment this natural process by creating the conditions whereby decomposition occurs more rapidly. We're fortunate to be able to compost at DeWitt Clinton High School and contribute to this vital and basic natural process. 

Convergence # 2 Fall Harvest Events

Richard Perez, Ngoc Tran, Hirra Zafar, Maribel Vitagliani, Ghislain Cohen and Shahana Suma bask in the sun that helped make food for all of us!  

We named October Harvest Celebration Month with good reason.  The Environmental Affairs Club had events happening throughout the month and extending into November. 

We harvested a record amount of produce.  In total we harvested at least 155.5 lbs. of food during this second part of our growing season from July through November.  Our highest yielding crops were tomatoes (52 lbs.), kale (48 lbs.), cucumbers (17 lbs.) and parsley (16.5 lbs.).   

We collaborated with GrowNYC’s Greenmarket to host two harvest sales.  During our sales in October and again in November we sold $1,430 of fresh local vegetables to the DeWitt Clinton community.  Some of it was grown in our own garden!  We made close to $600 profit on these sales that will go towards our annual overnight trip.  

We partnered with Grow to Learn's Garden to Café to help prepare two meals served in our school cafeteria.  

Garden to Cafe Chef George Edward's created kale chips with pesto dipping sauce and Roasted  Eggplant Salad from our own veggies.  In November, his sweet potato fries were also a hit! 

We also set up a sample display of our harvest and gave out recruitment forms and kale chips out during Teacher Parent Conferences. We participated in the Big Apple Crunch (see Convergence # 3). Finally, we hosted a Bronx Green-Up event to divide our native plants and extend our native plant garden. 

Hirra, Jasely and Ghislain brave the chill of early November to divide native perennials and help prepare our raised beds for winter.

Andrew helped plant winter rye as a cover crop to keep beds happy.

Sara Katz of Bronx Green Up made plant dividing seen very easy.

In each of these events our EAC students converged and planned and enacted the kind of leadership at just the right time in order to help grow, harvest, and distribute food for our community and take care of The Clinton Garden.  

Convergence # 3 Big Apple Crunch

 Apples for the taking at Big Apple Crunch.

October ended with a crunch!  A Big Apple Crunch that is. Back in September we had been invited by Mike Zamm to participate in the Grow NYC sponsored city-wide event called The Big Apple Crunch as part of our Fall Harvest Celebration month of October.  The idea was to get millions of New Yorkers to bite into an apple at the very same time.

Our Principal, Santi, brought his considerable presence to the event.

Less than 24 hours before the designated 12 o'clock noon bite-time on October 24 I was in my weekly meeting with Susanna Banks, the new Montefiore Medical Center's Community Health Organizer. I finally shared the idea of Big Apple Crunch and Susanna suggested that we just try it.  We marched down to Santi's office and he happened to be available and we pitched the idea to him.  He gave a tentative agreement to come down the next day to lend his support even though it was during a cabinet meeting.  But our minds were already “made up.” We would do our Big Apple Crunch ceremony after all in the student cafeteria!

The moment finally arrives!

The next day when 5th period rolled around Susanna and I got right to work. We secured the loudspeaker from Mr. Dubin's office, wheeled it past Mr. Jackson's office to enlist his help setting up this formidable transformer-like microphone and speaker system. We were to meet up at 11:50 with EAC President Marii Vitagliani who had just persuaded Andrew, a bass player, to play the marching drums!  This is what I mean about convergence.  Think about it; Ms. Banks, Mr. Jackson, Mr. Dubin, Mr. Zamm, Santi, Marii, Andrew and still others came together at the right time to make something happen.

We checked in the kitchen and saw that Ms. Peterkin and Chef Larry had already set out five trays of delicious looking apples on a cart. We pushed them to the spot where Chris Jackson had finished assembling the loudspeaker just as Marii and Andrew arrived.   Andrew started to bang away and I got on the mike to encourage students to grab an apple, and sure enough, about 3 minutes before noon, in comes Santi with the entire cabinet of assistant principals.  The moment, 12 o’clock nears and there is genuine excitement and I'm especially happy that everything just fell into place.  Convergence!

Where there's a crowd, there's a way!

As Andrew set the beat and the students chewed down their apples we were treated to an unplanned, spontaneous and fully improvised apple dance performance. 

Nothing could beat the Apple Dance!

Convergence doesn't just invite participation!  Convergence is participation!

Convergence # 4 The Osborne Association donates and installs a new green house for The Clinton Garden.

Some of the crew from Osborne Association that built our new greenhouse in just two days.

Ursula Chance and Sara Katz, the horticulturalists at Bronx Green-Up, first contacted me about the possibility of our garden receiving a green house for free. This was easy, I thought to myself, all I have to do is nothing!  

I have learned that once a garden is started, the rest comes easy and things start to happen even if we do nothing.  Let me try to explain. First, we succeeded in setting aside a disregarded piece of land and began to grow and nurture plants.  Sure, we invested some hard labor and good intentions but over time we began to establish a successful garden.  For the birds, the squirrels, and the butterflies and countless other creatures, of course, the garden became an opportunity from the very start.  And just as birds, and bees, and plants - wild and the domesticated - have converged on our garden so too have opportunities arrived to keep our garden growing as a resource for our community and our school.  And here is where the Osborne Association fits in. 

Our new greenhouse promises to extend our growing season by allowing us to get started earlier in the spring and keep going later into the autumn.  

The Osborne Association is a non-profit organization that offers young people who have had conflict with the law opportunities and programs to help transform their lives. Sara and Ursula recommended us and The Clinton Garden as a site for a community benefit project that would also provide on the job skills training for its members.  We were delighted to be chosen and working with Team Leader Barbara Marengo, Instructor Alvin Banks, community volunteers like Mike Young and the entire crew of young people who converged on our garden for two days this fall. 

One young man told me he was a former student of mine who I could not remember because he was a truant and said he would get into trouble rather than go to class. The Osborne Association provided him the opportunity to return to his community for a second chance, a chance to be positive and help give back to a place he knew and I believe still cherishes. 

Convergence # 5 Beginning our Recycling Campaign

Our Green Team assembled, ready for action, poised to be Champions!  From left to right: Teacher and EAC advisor Ray Pultinas, Shahana Suma, Edison Sanchez, Ghislain Cohen, Catherine Cabrera, Cristeen Sathu, EAC Vice-President Hirra Zafar, Theodore Silver, EAC President Maribel Vitagliani, Deborah Agosto, Myranda Ramos, Francisco Pizarro, Grow NYC Environmental Educator and EAC Advisor Mike Zamm.  

Now to work towards the next and biggest convergence of all – improving recycling in our school! We are planning to make DeWitt Clinton a school that cares enough about the environment and the planet to become Bronx Recycling Champions.  We need to do a much better job than we presently do at recycling. Our goal is to double our recycling of paper waste for the entire building and begin recycling in our school's cafeteria.  Perhaps we can place some faith in the fact that we have already accomplished so much and a new year is just beginning.  

And while our garden quietly fills up with snow...

We know that the Black Swallowtail Butterfly will return in the Spring!

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