Mark the date! October 27th for the 8th Annual Harvest Celebration on the lawn near Meg's Garden and our newly planted edible forest. Invitations are on the way! Start up time will most likely be at 2:00 pm and we'll at least witness the sunset, so stop by and spend as much time as you like. This year we are especially grateful to one of our 90 + year old oak trees that is providing us with an abundance of timber for future use for various outdoor purposes
but especially as the building material for what will become the centerpiece of
the James Baldwin Outdoor Learning Center, the Welcome Table. The huge pin oak that
split this past summer and was then taken down completely was planted when
Calvin Coolidge was president and has served our school marvelously throughout
its life. Of course it should be studied, honored and continue to be
revered. I can't think of a better use for this grand old tree than as
building material for the Welcome Table and other features at the community school hub we are creating for gathering
community members, students, family, friends, teachers and learners of all
ages.
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| A gift to the Garden and The James Baldwin Outdoor Learning Center. |
Our plan is to store the timber (and allow it to cure) at
two locations. A stack will be brought to the swing space on the lower
parking lot (site of the future Baldwin Center) and the rest will remain
stacked in an out of the way area near Meg's Garden (the community garden) and
newly planted edible forest on the Goulden Avenue side of the building. I
am grateful for the assistance and cooperation of our Custodial Engineer Tom
Esposito and Adam's European Construction for helping us secure this valuable
resource.
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| Clockwise from upper left: new compost system made from repurposed pallet courtesy of Adam's European; one of many harvests of serrano peppers for Bronx Hot Sauce; cockscomb or brain celosia (in Meg's Garden); Blueberry and Native Plant Bed (recently mulched by beloved oak tree woodchips). |
Our DeWitt Clinton High School building is
presently being oppressed by an overwhelming amount of scaffolding and tarps
but just outside this construction zone the natural potential of our beautiful
surrounding campus continues to flourish. If given the right conditions
of sunlight, good soil and caring hands, even in proximity to the worst
conditions, a garden will grow. While school construction is expected to
be complete in 2019, the growing and sustainability initiatives at our school
are well under way and thriving.
| PLENTITUDE !! : Clockwise from upper left: Ray Pultinas next to the actress Jennie Garth; Principal Orbe; Tools of the Tree Planting Trade; Vitafusion sponsored Fruit Tree Planting Foundation (FTPF) donation; FTPF Arborist Rico Montenegro demonstrating proper tree planting before a crowd of students and community member volunteers. |
This past spring, we were honored with a grant
of 35 fruit trees and 10 blueberry bushes from the Fruit Tree Planting
Foundation (FTPF) and supported by the makers of Vitafusion Gummy
Vitamins. The grant enables us to establish an edible forest on the north
lawn of our campus. Our application was chosen to kick off the United States
leg of a campaign to plant 10,000 fruit trees throughout the world in
2017. The incredible staff of arborists and experts from the foundation
had just finished planting trees in Uganda when they helped us start our own
orchard at a ceremony and planting day on June 6. Celebrity and actress
Jennie Garth flew in from Los Angeles to help kick off our event that we dubbed
“Plentitude” because our gardens have literally multiplied each year since we
started our 5 raised bed Clinton Garden in 2010. Despite the rain, all
the trees were planted and are now being well maintained and nurtured.
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| About 4 weeks after the planting, a total of 9 fruit trees including apple, cherry, and plum were stolen from the site. A police report has been filed. The foundation is sending us replacement trees in November and we have received a private donation of $200 to make our edible forest even more plentiful. |
At a ceremony on June 8, the new DeWitt Clinton
High School Community Garden (built over the past 2 years from a United Way
seed grant) was named Meg’s Garden in honor of the late Megan Charlop whose
care and love for the environment and for the health of our Bronx community
residents will never be forgotten. It was Megan’s suggestion that we
start a school garden back in 2009 as a class project in my Witt Seminar on
Activism elective. Tragically, Megan suffered a fatal bike accident
before getting to see the garden’s first harvest in the spring of 2010.
Remembrances were shared and plans for a Meg’s Garden sign are in development.
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| Herb pallet at Meg's Garden. |
The event took place on Montefiore’s annual Day of Service
and volunteers joined us as they have every year to help us in the
garden. In this case it meant fence painting, spreading compost,
harvesting chamomile and planting vegetable seedlings and seeds. The success of
our new community gardening initiative at this point can also be measured by
the number of neighbors who might just stop by to say hello or introduce themselves
or the responses over this past summer to my email invitations for
volunteering. Presently we have a contact list of almost 300 community
members who have volunteered their labor or support in some way to our garden
projects. But we still need your help!
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On left DWHS Parent Coordinator Inés Cariño and
Super Parent Volunteer Santia Gonzalez-Cancel
|
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| Community volunteers Laura Chenven and Kevin Nipal '12. |
Since being awarded an NEA (National Endowment for the Arts)
design grant in 2016, we have been working with Linda Pollak and her team of
architects and designers at Marpillero Pollak Architects as well as Jessie Kerr
Vanderslice, director of Grow to Learn, Deborah Pannell of Project Mavens and
other artists, community leaders and their organizations to begin planning the
James Baldwin Center and Trail. Imagine,
as we do, a gathering space for community and students featuring a Welcome
Table built in memory and honor of the great American writer and DeWitt Clinton
alumnus. Imagine what is typically done
around a table – sharing of food, conversation, stories, performance and
informal learning. Imagine further a
campus that is unified in its connectivity and accessibility through a walking
trail augmented with installations and exhibits, gardens and edible forests,
lookouts and works of art and sculpture.
Each turn of the trail might be met with opportunities for discovery,
inquiry, and exploratory learning and all to supplement a rich academic
education that we will be offered indoors.
Principal Orbe is continuing Sustainability programming and has
expressed support for each of our initiatives. Our Baldwin Center and Trail Coalition is presently pursuing additional
grants and funding.
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| The Baldwin Center and Trail Coalition is hopeful that our application is approved for the New York City Department of Transportation's Plaza Program to make the underutilized traffic triangle and abandoned turn off on Goulden Avenue the Gateway for James Baldwin Outdoor Learning Center and Trail, Meg's Garden, our new Edible Forest, and our other Sustainability Initiatives on our campus. This is the potential site for our DeWitt Clinton High School green/youth market. |
Finally, this fall we will also witness the
opening of our hydroponics farm that will grow enough greens and vine crops
indoors to supply the needs of our student cafeteria as well as surplus for our
food pantry organized by Good Shepherd and newly conceived youth market.
The indoor farm will be located in room 330, the former Chemistry lab and the
last DeWitt Clinton High School classroom on the 3rd floor. Growing out
of a unique partnership with Kathy Soll of Teens For Food Justice, City Council Member Andrew Cohen's Office, Montefiore
School Health, New York City Department of Education, and Green Mountain Energy
Sun Club the garden will begin operations this coming school term. At the
same time we will begin planning a DeWitt Clinton High School green/youth
market, a student led business initiative with support from an Iris & B.
Gerald Cantor Foundation Grant and the DeWitt Clinton High School Alumni
Association.
| The hydroponic farm is now ready for growing systems to be installed by students in Sustainability classes at DeWitt Clinton High School, another space that has been transformed at our school. |
I’d like to use this opportunity to thank all of
our friends, partners and contributors who have continued to support and
encourage our growing team. Together we are building a DeWitt Clinton
High School for the future. If you want to be added to our contacts and
be invited to this fall’s special happenings including our annual free
Harvest/Gratitude Celebration with our award winning Garden to Table Chef Noah
Sheetz, and the DWC Chorus and Band as
well as be in the know about future volunteer events, please email me at raypultinas@gmail.com
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