by Ray Pultinas
This past July marks one year of my quasi-retirement after
teaching at DeWitt Clinton High School for 25 consecutive years – a quarter of
a century - and wouldn’t you know it, I’ve grown not only roots, but stems,
fruits and flowers. And I try to take good care of them too. I’m learning to be ever more mindful of what
plants might need – compost or mulch or moisture or light or less light, if
possible, and so much more. You might say that the plants, the buds, the flowers, and
by extension, the bees, the butterflies and turquoise colored dragon flies, the
worms, (especially) the mosquitos, even the rabbits (most annoyingly) are using
me. I have become their tool, but I don’t mind. It gives me
great joy to be of use and delightfully coincides with my transition from
having been a formal educator to becoming a non-formal educator.
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| First graders from PS 4, The Duke Ellington School who visited Meg's Garden in May. |
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| butterfly balm |
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| Becoming an informal educator |
We are now in the third growing season at Meg’s Garden and
slowly and surely the garden has attracted countless regal pollinators, beautiful
monarchs and black swallowtails, golden and purple finches, squirrels, bats,
opossum, rabbits (most regrettably) - to name those we’ve personally witnessed.
But it has also attracted community: Sung Kim, fellow passionist of permaculture
and gardening, has helped us increase both diversity and productivity in the
garden; Laura Chevnon has donated numerous beloved plants and shares with us her
gardening wisdom and skills; former Environmental Affairs Club members and DeWitt
Clinton High School graduates Clarissa Reclaimier, Jocelyn Bautista, Yelissa
Vasquez, Maribel Vitagliani have been studying gardening while helping to
plant, water, mulch, weed, and harvest now for 6 years and are introducing the
next generation, their little nieces, nephews and siblings Kylie, Seth and Paul
to the garden experience. There are so many others in our community who
are helping me to learn and we are teaching each other.
We witness pedestrians stopping to admire the
garden, some venture in to ask questions or sign up and some I know are about
to. We are adding to our contact list of nearly 300 community
members, volunteers, supporters, guests, visitors and admirers.
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| Yelissa and Jocelyn with Daikon Radishes |
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| Yelissa and Seth |
This past spring, we witnessed the fulfillment of what first seemed to many, a
far-fetched idea: the transition of a former chemistry lab at DeWitt Clinton
High School, room 332, into a state of the art hydroponic farm.
The Sun Club Teens For Food Justice
Hydroponic Farm is a reality and history was made on March 22 when Sustainability
students brought the first two lugs of butter crunch lettuce to the student
cafeteria making healthy, fresh, local grown produce available to all students
who attend the DeWitt Clinton campus.
Students from Ms. Sun’s three sustainability
classes, an ELL class called Human Impact from Bronx Collaborative that I
co-taught with Ariel Nadelstern, and Work Study/TOP Program students that I
supervised helped construct the systems that will now grow over 25,000 lbs. of
leafy green vegetables and 9,000 lbs. of vine crops on the farm per year. The
Sun Club Teens for Food Justice Hydroponic Farm is the bold fruition of our
partnership with Kathy Soll, CEO and director of Teens For Food Justice.
To have witnessed a new, state of the art
hydroponic farm in our nearly century old building is a dream come true.
The farm not only produces fresh produce to
serve to students, but distributes its surplus to our site based Good Shepherd
Food Pantry, City Harvest and directly engages students with site based,
hands-on sustainability, science, nutrition, career and work training.
Many other educational, teaching and learning
opportunities and are yet to be realized but have now become possible.
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| First delivery to student cafeteria |
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| Harvesting on the hydroponics farm |
Inspired by
the continued success and expansion of our school and community gardens, the
establishment of our edible forest, our successful partnerships with Teens For
Food Justice and numerous other community organizations, our being awarded an
National Endowment for the Arts Work Grant and, perhaps most especially, our
continued willingness and freedom to dream and commit ourselves to “making it
better” we incorporated as a non profit named the James Baldwin Outdoor
Learning Center on March 23, 2018. Our
mission: to strive for inquiry-based solutions at the juncture of food,
environmental and social justice. Our organization utilizes existing and planned school resources, grounds and
gardens to develop programs in outdoor environmental education for sustainable
living and food preparation/service. Our
goal is to build a healthier community by integrating, educating and serving
students and community members, especially low income and marginalized people,
in collaboration with numerous partner organizations with common interests.
The James Baldwin Outdoor
Learning Center will be comprised of two hubs connected by an accessible trail
with a series of program spaces that run along the trail between them. Accessibility is essential to guarantee equal
access for all students and community members presently thwarted by steep
stairs and narrow automobile ramps in surroundings marked overall by
prohibitively dangerous highway intersections and barriers to surrounding green
spaces. Our Community Hub will be the
welcoming gateway, a destination for healthy and sustainable living, a place
where neighbors can meet and learn with each other about sustainable practices
that support the health and future of the earth while sharing good food and
community spirit. The School Hub will be a versatile and intimate
conference, classroom, and garden space guided by an ethos of social justice,
environmental justice and food justice.
Here will be the Welcome Table to memorialize the celebrated American
writer and DeWitt Clinton High School graduate, class of 1942 and to promote
dialogue, sharing, responsibility, and unity.
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| SYEP in action! |
This past summer, in collaboration with Teens
For Food Justice and the Transition and College Access Center, whose Bronx
headquarters is now based at DeWitt Clinton High School, we hosted our first
Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) and it was a great success. Fifteen students rotated through three interrelated
work programs either working outside in the gardens, inside on the hydroponics
farm or within our community doing food justice advocacy. We also suceeded at establishing our
youthmarket in which we sold produce grown right on our campus. We are expecting to continue the operation
of our market this fall.
Could it be that we have found Another Country?
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