Gratitude: This Year's Harvest Celebration and the Love of a 90 Year Old Oak

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. 

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.

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.

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.
 

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!

On left DWHS Parent Coordinator Inés Cariño and Super Parent Volunteer Santia Gonzalez-Cancel

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. 

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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