Progress on Many Fronts as Sustainability Projects Continue to Flourish at DeWitt Clinton High School

 

Introduction and photo captions by Ray Pultinas.

We didn't count to see whether all 1100 bulbs we planted last fall blossomed,

 Photo: Nathanial Gary

We suspect that most of them did.  (photo: Ahna Pultinas)

Introduction: It all started with the daffodils blossoming in April from light and warmth as earth reawakened after hardly a slumber and everything since then is growing, expanding, stretching - almost too fast to keep track of.  Here are major initiatives we have taken on and that are underway:

The heart of our school’s sustainability initiative continues to be The Clinton Garden.  With our recent award of an NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) Artworks Grant (one of only 62 grants awarded in design, nationwide) and in partnership with GrowNYC, planning is underway for the garden’s expansion and the creation of the James Baldwin Memorial Outdoor Learning Center.  Particularly during this time, the legacy of James Baldwin (’42) as well as his writing, his voice and spirit might inspire in our students awareness and desire to be active, global and critical American citizens.

Leading the task of design are Linda Pollak and Matt Saacke of Marpillero Pollak Architects who are presently incorporating ideas, elements and suggestions from two community-planning events held in 2015.  The Baldwin Center and its signature Welcome Table, based on a motif in Baldwin’s later writings, will serve as a gathering place for students and community to learn about urban farming, sustainability, and food justice; to witness a reading or performance; or, to discuss science and literature. It will be an outdoor classroom, urban oasis as well as a hub for connecting students and community to surrounding natural areas like Van Cortlandt Park, the Jerome Park Reservoir and the Mosholu Pelham Bike Path.  

We are already improvising on our recent designation by the chancellor as a Community School by actually building a new community garden.  With sponsorship from our Good Shepard partners, we were awarded a seed grant from the United Way of New York.  Twelve raised beds have been built and are already growing tomatoes, peppers, corn, okra, black turtle beans, cucumbers and squash to name just a few of the crops that will be donated to the community and especially the needy during this first year.  Thereafter, the garden will be cared for and tended by members of the community.  The United Way grant has enabled us to hire a supervisor and five student interns to work the garden this summer.  A fence is being installed and a harvest celebration is being planned for this fall. 

If we are destined to become a school that not only educates but literally feeds our students and the community, then our biggest achievement towards this end might be in our plans to build a hydroponics farm that will grow leafy vegetables and vine crops throughout the year.   In collaboration with Kathy Soll and her team at Teens for Food Justice and Susanna Banks, Community Health Organizer of Montefiore School Health Program along with the School Construction Authority and capital funding provided by the office of Council Member Andrew Cohen, the work is already underway to transform a 1,200 square foot former chemistry lab into a state of the art, high efficiency hydroponics lab.  With the capacity to grow over 15,000 lbs of leafy vegetables annually, we will not only be able to feed our students in the cafeteria but bring the excess to market in order to help fund the farm’s continuous operation.  Students will not only gain the technical skills and know how to build and grow hydroponically they will also become healthy food advocates and educate peers and community about the value of growing and consuming one’s own local vegetables. 

Finally, a proposal to establish an Edible Food Forest on the campus of DeWitt Clinton High School has been selected by City as Learning Laboratory (CALL) in collaboration with Mary Miss, Founder and Artistic Director, Mary Mattingly, a New York-based visual artist who has focused on environmental themes, and Ursula Chance, director of Bronx Green-Up and Community Horticulture at the New York Botanical Garden.  The mission of CALL is to combine “the skills and perspectives of artists and designers with those of scientists and citizens to create public programs and projects that increase awareness and potential for action around key environmental issues.”  Funding is now being sought for this project that would make our school campus the first of its kind to use permaculture practices for creating edible landscapes to directly feed our students and the community.

Desmond with Kadeesha and Ursula from Bronx Green-Up who have supported the building of the new community garden by sponsoring three workdays. Photo: Ray Pultinas

Desmond and Community Volunteer Carlos using precision to assemble raised beds, April 30. 
Photo: Ray Pultinas

Yelissa, Maribel, Jozii and Clarissa (all DWC graduates and EAC members returned to help on April 30 Photo: Ray Pultinas.

Sustainability Students Austin, Amonique, Tatyana, Adamma and Edward prepare for June 4 build by hauling lumber.
Photo: Ray Pultinas

On June 4, Unity in the Community Day, volunteers included Principal Santiago Taveras moving soil and Assistant Principal Margaret Glendis assisting with the shovel. Photo: Ray Pultinas

On our third workday, June 9, volunteers from Montefiore Health Center planted in twelve recently built beds. Their volunteer day was in memory of Megan Charlop, whose inspiration helped create The Clinton Garden. Photo: Ahna Pultinas

Montefiore Volunteers planting in new butterfly garden. Photo: Ahna Pultinas

On June 9 Montefiore Volunteers worked alongside students and community members in what turned out to be the biggest turnout of volunteers ever. Photo: Ahna Pultinas

On June 15 Ursula Chanse and Bronx Green-Up volunteers joined our own student interns to begin the work of spreading wood chips in between the new beds and staking tomatoes. From left: David, Yostin, Aesha (DWC grad), Mr. P, Ahnika, Amonique, Bill, Rosa and Ursula.  Photo taken by Alanna Bergstrom, Summer Intern Supervisor.

Back in March, students from Sustainability helped to present the case for a hydroponics lab at DeWitt Clinton at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine at the Value of Food exhibit. Photo: Henry O.

 

The idea for a hydroponics lab at DeWitt Clinton was first presented by DeWitt Clinton students at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan during the Value of Food Exhibit at an event organized by Kathy Soll of Teens for Food Justice. From left, Principal Taveras, Brianna, Alejandra, Amonique and Amanda Photo: Henry O.

Look for the release this September of a new promotional video about sustainability initiatives at DeWitt Clinton High School being directed and produced by Pamela Peeters (center), here with sustainability students at the Annual Sustainability and Research Expo held in the library this past June, 2016.

Birds eye view of the area of expansion and location of the James Baldwin Memorial Outdoor Learning Center.  Image courtesy of Marpillero Pollak Architects.

Plan diagram for the James Baldwin Memorial Outdoor Learning Center, courtesy of Marpillero Pollak Architects.

Sustainability Student Speak

By Adamma Ogbennaya, a student of Sustainability at DeWitt Clinton High School.

Materials Recovery Center

Have you been to the lunchroom recently? I’m sure you noticed the new Materials Recovery Center.  This finely crafted sorting area was conceived of by Mr. Pultinas, sketched out and planned by Principal Taveras and built with precision and skill by Sargent Govia.  The Materials Recovery Center is the place where we can bring our trays, plastic cups, milk cartons plastic forks, aluminum cans and glass bottles so that it can be separated out and recycled properly.  Although we are not yet separating out food waste as part of the city’s Organics Collection Program it is likely that we will be in the next year or two and we will be ready.  Sargent Govia even equipped the Recovery Center with a liquid bin for when you don’t finish your milk, water or any other liquid.  When you pour, listen for the pump that is activated to bring your liquid spill to the drain.

It's really not that hard! Mr. Milton Roman, Amanda Tillie and Amonique Perry struggle with joy in helping get the job done.  Photo: Nathaniel Gary.

Won’t you help us recycle? Help the environment. Save birds and sea animals from dying because of consumption of plastic.  All you have to do is take responsibility for cleaning up after yourselves and bringing your leftovers and plastics to the Center.  If you really want to help, you could also volunteer to collect recyclables from the tables using our convenient bussing trays.  And don’t think you get nothing for your hard work. You could win……..A 

BRAND

NEW

CAR! 

Okay, I lied, but you can earn a free bag of Simply 7 all natural and healthy snacks and some Clinton Bucks to spend at the G.O store.  You can earn Clinton Bucks by doing many things, such as recycling, coming to school before a certain time, participating in clubs and activities and lots more.  Trust me, you will be thankful when you are thirsty that day and you forget your wallet at home.  But finally, don’t recycle only so you get something in return.  Recycle not only at school and at home but everywhere.  It’s no joke and every bit of recycling adds up.  We should know.  We set a goal to collect 1 ton of metal glass and plastic by the end of this school year and collected over 1,600 lbs.  Though we didn’t reach our goal we did set a new standard for recycling at Clinton (to be bettered every year!)

Amanda Tillie working on our recycling goals chart.  Hard plastic water and juice bottles, milk and juice cartons, sporks, forks and spoons all are valuable materials for our recycling efforts.  A little bit of everyone caring and making sure their plastic makes it to recycling before we choke on it!  Photo: Ray Pultinas

James Baldwin Outdoor Learning Center

James Baldwin is known as “one of the fiercest critics of the American race problem who has ever put pen to paper.” His works fictionalize fundamental personal questions and social and psychological pressures. He lived his life as a novelist, essayist, playwright, poet AND social critic, and guess what? He also attended DeWitt Clinton and graduated with the class of 1942.  To honor James Baldwin, we have begun plans to construct the James Baldwin Memorial Outdoor Learning Center.  The Baldwin Center (for short) will be a community learning space that invites not only students and faculty from our school and building but also people throughout the community.  The new site will also be an outdoor classroom to be used for everything from studying the garden and running experiments to preforming music and drama. This site will also include “The Welcome Table,” a table that will sit approximately 35 -40 students or guests.  The Welcome Table honors Baldwin’s last play and signifies a place to gather, greet friends around a table and share stories and food. 

Spring means filling trays with soil and seeds to begin the garden indoors. Photo: Nathaniel Gary.

 Hydroponics Farm

Did you think that plants could only grow in soil? Well the good news is that you can use a fairly easy medium to grow plants in: water.  Hydroponics is a method of growing plants using nutrient solutions in water without soil. We are planning the development of an indoor hydroponics farm in a presently unused chemistry lab in the school. This will potentially grow enough food to serve many people year-round. Teens for Food Justice will be programming to engage students in helping to constructing the farm. Montefiore’s Real Estate Facility Development Department has committed to assessing the classroom space for the hydroponics farm. We hope to convert the former lab to 1,200 square foot space to able produce a minimum of 100 pounds of fresh produce per month. With the way things are going it will be a successful hydroponics farm.

Planting seeds is focused work:  counting, feeling each seed with your fingers and distributing each seed so it has its own space to grow.  Photo: Nathaniel Gary.

New Seedlings

What do you do when you don’t have a garden outside to plant new food? You plant seedlings inside. Any type of container that will hold the growing medium. You just need to be able to sterilize them. We have started growing many types of food in the classroom. We have started growing Summer Crisp lettuce, romaine lettuce, Red Russian kale, Antirrhinum Malus, Simpson lettuce Oak leaf lettuce, Hybrid snapdragon, hot peppers, DWC Bell Peppers heirloom tomatoes and plenty more. That’s quite a lot and we only plants a week ago. And they are already growing. With the help pf gentle warmth and artificial lighting for a certain amount of hours. With the help of students they able to grow healthy with the right amount of water, light warmth and love.

Green life, like these kale seedlings, is joyous to behold. Photo: Nathaniel Gary

Doesn't Room 332 look like it's being made ready for growing thousands of pounds of fresh, local, healthy vegetables? Photo: Ray Pultinas

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This Is How We Practice Sustainability at DeWitt Clinton High School

By Ray Pultinas (with Alejandra Garcia, Bintou Jalebi, Hannah Kimerling and Amonique Perry)

Awesome Garden Extension Project started with the help of Grow to Learn's Che'Von Cooper and completed by the fabulous students in our 9th period Sustainability class!  From left to right, Alejandra Garcia, Maria Rodriguez, Amanda Tillie, Adamma Ogbennaya and Amonique Perry (All photos by Ray Pultinas).

Dewitt Clinton’s Sustainability classes, led by Sustainability Coordinator and English teacher Ray Pultinas, have been undertaking the task of improving the school grounds, local environment and the flourishing Clinton Garden.  Now in its second year, the main focus of this class is for students to get a better understanding of the Earth and how to help the environment. The students in Sustainability are perhaps the most active on campus and already this year have participated in National Kale Day, built and tested solar ovens, planted hundreds of daffodil bulbs, celebrated the fall harvest with a Native Taino Ceremony, held a Fall Harvest Sale, toured the watersheds of Van Courtlandt Park, helped remove invasive plants from the banks of the Bronx River, toured the Farmer's Market at Poe Park, and built three hoop houses to extend the growing season in The Clinton Garden. 

What would National Kale Day be without a Kale Dinosaur who loves Dinosaur Kale? (here played by Zoraida Dejesus.)

Kale Goddess Dania De Leon and National Kale Day Co-Founder, Dr. Drew Ramsey.

And on the mike, the indomitable Joshua Vega preaching the gospel of Kale!

Who doesn’t love kale?  If there were any doubts of our school’s response to this question, they were dispelled as DeWitt Clinton found itself at the forefront of the celebration of National Kale Day on October 7.  The founder of National Kale Day, Dr. Drew Ramsey, who arrived on the scene in the student cafeteria, witnessed a kale celebration in all its glory.  Garden to Café Coordinator George Edwards, and Wellness in the School’s Ellen Emerson along with Sustainability students were sharing kale chips and other delicacies prepared for the event against a backdrop of colorful student made posters.  Students took the open mike to share poems and stories they had written in praise of kale and there was a Kale Dinosaur (named after Dinosaur Kale) parading around the cafeteria.  Bintou Jalebi exclaimed, “It was so epic and funny, we got to present funny posters, poems and raps about kale!”

The best designs had the best results!

On October 8, Sustainability students began building solar ovens in class workshops led by Mike Zamm, Director of the Environmental Education Program at Grow NYC.  Mr. Zamm then took students out to test their ovens on a chilly late October morning.  Despite the temperature, students were still able to melt at least the chocolate on their smores and sample the results.   

Sustainability students spent at least 10 hours planting 1,100 daffodil bulbs that will grace our beautiful campus this coming spring! 

When it comes to adding beauty to our school grounds, some of the things that Sustainability students do require a bit of patience.  For instance, after receiving a donation of over 1000 daffodil bulbs from New Yorkers for Parks and the Daffodil Project students set to work on  planting bulbs that will only emerge next Spring.  
 

Roman Guaraguaorix (Redhawk) Perez officiating at a ceremony that honored all who have helped The Clinton Garden.

Students, parents, teachers and community members gathered on the site of the future Clinton Orchard to give thanks for past and future abundance.

Perhaps the most unique and powerful activity in Sustainability this fall happened on the first day of our Harvest Week Celebration on October 27, a Native American Harvest Ceremony led by Roman Guaraguaorix (Redhawk) Perez, Kacike (chief) for Maisiti Yukayeke Taino; a tribe of the Taino Nation.  Chief Redhawk led an enthusiastic group of about 40 students, parents, faculty and community members in a variety of Taino and Native American rituals to both thank the earth for its abundant harvest as well as bless the spot on the West lawn of our campus that will be the site of our fruit orchard.  Students in particular enjoyed participating in a “snake dance” that ended up in the formation of a community circle.  There was chanting, drumming, a purification ritual and storytelling.  The ceremony ended in a celebration of the birthday of Milton Roman, who assists in the Clinton Library.  At least five students present were able to claim Native ancestry and for them the ceremony was especially significant as it seems a rare event to take place in public high schools.  Sustainability student Mirza Baig put it this way, “the funnest part was when I put the tobacco in the fire, it felt cool!”

John Butler of Friends of Van Cortlandt Park led a tour of the Tibbett's Brook Watershed and explained plans to daylight the brook that presently empties into the New York City sewer system wasting millions of dollars each year. 

Sustainability class in the field, from left, John Butler (Friends of Van Cortlandt Park, Izabella Muratovic, TJ Silver, Zoraida DeJesus, Santia Gonzalez-Cancel, Jack Gambino, Jessica Davila, Jasmely Torres, Mike Zamm, Ariana Thompson, Ansil Stephen, Milton Roman, Ray Pultinas.

Our Annual Harvest Sale this year took place during the last week of October and we raised nearly $300 for The Clinton Garden and the Environmental Affairs Club by selling local and organic fruits and vegetables including peppers, basil and kale from our own Clinton Garden.  On Thursday, October 29, sustainability students were led on a hike to see Tibbets Brook as it flows into and out of Van Cortlandt Lake.  Trails Project Manager John Butler and Director of Programs Sara Kempton both of Friends of Van Cortlandt Park led the trip and explained a proposed project to daylight a large section of Tibbets Brook that has been channeled underground for many years that will result in a new Bronx greenbelt in New York City. 

Mike Zamm, who has been educating DeWitt Clinton students on the environment for over 30 years calls our school’s Sustainability program one of the most comprehensive in all of New York City.  On any given day this fall you might see students starting seedlings for a season extension experiment, or sewing winter cover crops on some of the twenty raised beds in The Clinton Garden or composting food scraps mixed with fallen oak leaves.  Mr. Zamm is being  honored as Friend of the Month by the Friends of Van Cortlandt Park but in reality Mr. Zamm has become a Friend for Life for his tireless contributions to environmental programming at DeWitt Clinton High School.
 

Mike Zamm, second from left, along with Bronx River Alliance and Sustainability students from DeWitt Clinton near the scene of intense invasive removal.

The small team of Sustainability students from left Alejandra Garcia, Bintou Jabbi and Juan Saavedra Vidals cleared an immense zone of Japanese Knotweed from the banks of the Bronx River!

On November 9, Mr. Zamm led a small contingent of Sustainability students to assist the Bronx River Alliance by removing Japanese Knotweed, an invasive species that threatens the biodiversity of our local watershed.   Our final field trip of the year brought us to Poe Park where we met the farmers and sampled foods prepared at GrowNYC's Farmer’s Market. 

As Sustainability student Theodore Brailsford remarks, “so far I believe we have made an even bigger scene this year than we had last year” and “I am very proud when I hear random people talk about Sustainability, which rarely happened last year.”  As Sustainability student Amonique Perry tells it, “this class helps me to improve my leadership skills, collaborate with team members and be responsible.”  As anybody concerned about the future of our Earth will tell you, we need leadership on issues of the environment precisely because we are responsible for the planet that we all need to live on.  

Fall sunset on The Clinton Garden: the greenhouse is replaced by three new beds increasing our number of raised beds to 17.

The three new beds will be growing winter greens into the winter!

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Community Planning Process for the Design of the James Baldwin Memorial Outdoor Learning Center Begins!

By Raymond Pultinas

On June 4, Future Abundance, the first community-envisioning workshop for the expansion of The Clinton Garden and the creation of the James Baldwin Memorial Outdoor Learning Center took place in the DeWitt Clinton Library.  The idea was to initiate a process for including ideas and voices of those community members who will most benefit from the creation of this space.  The late afternoon event was begun with a performance by the DeWitt Clinton High School Chorus under the direction of Dawn Sotello and accompanied by Tim Bayless.  Their rendition of “Homeward Bound” was beautiful and poignant.  Here is the chorus:  “Bind me not to the pasture;/ Chain me not to the plow./ Set me free to find my calling/ And I’ll return to you somehow.” (Lyrics by Marta Keen Thompson) The idea in these lyrics of giving someone the gift of freedom in exchange for their potential loyalty reminds me of what The Welcome Table, the key feature of the James Baldwin Memorial, can and will enable.  A place to return to, yes, alumni included! A beautiful and productive garden: a source of subsistence, food prepared from abundant growth.  The Baldwin Center will be a gathering place, a place to return to and a place to belong to.  This is why we are proposing The James Baldwin Memorial Outdoor Learning Center.   

The area of expansion including outline of The Welcome Table [photo Marpillero Pollak Architects]

The James Baldwin Memorial Outdoor Learning Center is being named after the American writer who graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in 1942.  The time seems right to honor James Baldwin. This past year has marked what would have been his 90^th birthday and throughout the city there were a number of public programs and events to mark the occasion.  When I published a post about our project on the James Baldwin Facebook page in April, I promptly received 581 “likes” and 137 “shares.”  In the context of recent events that remind us that racism has not departed from the American scene, the prophetic voice of James Baldwin is relevant once again.           

 

James Baldwin [Photograph by Dmitri Kasterine, www.kasterine.com]

James Baldwin models for young people what it might mean to be outspoken, truthful, honest, and relentless in one’s profession and in one’s life.  He encouraged intra-racial dialogue and personal introspection and would often defy genres and expectations to achieve unique and lasting literature.  As Kalil G. Muhammad, director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture put it in a recent New York Times article, James Baldwin was “one of the fiercest critics of the American race problem who ever put pen to paper.”  When one of our guests at a recent planning event heard that we were naming our project after James Baldwin she used the word sassy to describe him. Yes, James Baldwin was sassy.  He wasn’t afraid to speak his mind and say things that people were not yet ready to hear.  James Baldwin insisted that “all men are brothers."
 

Architect Linda Pollak

Project Leader Ray Pultinas

After greetings by Principal Taveras and presentations by Project Director, Raymond Pultinas, and Architect Linda Pollak about present space, need for expansion, an architectural review of the present conditions and argument for creating an outdoor learning spaces, four groups were formed among the over forty attendees.  Each group represented one of the four seasons.  Each group was provided a brainstorming worksheet and given the task to imagine what could happen in the garden during that season.  The results were amazing.  Why couldn’t we sponsor cross country skiing instruction in the Winter and host "a spoken word event centered around the axis of power or agency - stories told through poetry…all Stories All Narratives shared from voices that might not usually be heard" in the Autumn?  These are both fabulous ideas for activities and functions that the James Baldwin Center will enable.   Our first Future Abundance was an amazing success and yielded numerous suggestions about what we could do in the space we are creating. These ideas will be considered throughout our planning phase. 

Sharing group generated ideas at Future Abundance.

Clinton Garden Summer Interns and DWC Chorus members at Future Abundance.

 A follow-up event, Future Abundance II, was held on July 20 in The Clinton Garden on what might have been the hottest, most humid and intolerable evenings of the summer.  Still we had a crowd of over thirty community partners, parents, students, teachers enjoying the wonderful culinary offerings of Chef Noah Sheetz, of Chef’s Consortium, and a partner in our project.  Project partners Susanna Banks, Community Health Organizer for our school’s Montefiore School Health Program and Monica Ortiz Rossi Active Design Coordinator from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene shared some of their background and involvement in the project.  More ideas were gathered.  One that particularly intrigued me was from friend and former parent coordinator at DeWitt Clinton High School, Milton Roman.  His idea was to invite Native peoples “to connect” with us.  James Baldwin himself claimed Indian heritage.  Might The Clinton Garden be the site of Native American ceremony?  I love this idea. 

Susanna Banks, Community Health Organizer for our school’s Montefiore School Health Program

Monica Ortiz Rossi Active Design Coordinator from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
[photos Marpillero Pollak Architects]

This fall we will continue to host events and programming that will showcase our present and our potential as a Learning Center while continuing to invite suggestions and ideas from our community.  We plan to host a bioblitz to survey and map the plant species that could be found on the Clinton campus and compare our results with the 1927 Landscape and Planting Plan that we have recently obtained.  We also hope to entice the Tracy Towers community in particular to participate in our Harvest GreenMarket Sale in September.  

Tracey Towers

For more information and to stay connected, please email me at raypultinas@gmail.com and if you are looking to support our effort, look us up on IOBY where we will soon be launching a new fundraising campaign.  Search for “The James Baldwin Memorial Outdoor Learning Center” or “The Clinton Garden.”

Clinton Garden tomatoes 2015. [photo Ahna Pultinas]

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