[Garden] Growing up Organic Project

Thu May 29 12:15:49 EDT 2008

Please see below job posting and volunteer request for those interested.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Krista Long <kristalong at rogers.com>
Date: Wed, May 28, 2008 at 2:41 PM
Subject: Re: Community Garden Focus Groups at Diversity Gardens
To: candace wormsbecker <cwormsbe at gmail.com>
Cc: Theresa Schumilas <tschumilas at rogers.com>

 Hi Candace,

Great to hear from you. I was planning on emailing you today to share some
information with you as well!

I am the Administration and Marketing Coordinator for the local chapter. I
play a central coordination role, primarily with the Growing Up Organic
project. COG PWW is one of the pilot areas for this national project, which
connects producers with consumers in an effort to convert more acres in
Perth, Waterloo and Wellington to certified organic production and provide
organic food to child care centres and other local institutions. It is a win
win for everyone - kids get healthy, local, organic food, local farmers get
stable markets - one of the big challenges of organic production.
The project is in its second year. We have hired two outreach workers for
Wellington and Perth counties, but we are in need of a third person for
Waterloo Region. The role of the outreach worker is to contact producers and
institutions in their area, promote the project, determine the local
capacity for producers to supply institutions (including supporting the
development of a distribution model), and facilitate the farm to institution
food network. This is a paid position for approximately 15 hours/week until
the end of Sept.

If you know of anyone who might be interested in this position, would you
please have them get in touch with me or Theresa. Thanks!

We have three other volunteer opportunities that might be of interest to
your network.

1. Diversity Gardens - we are looking for volunteer gardeners and farm
labourers to help 10-20 hours/week on a flexible schedule. Anyone interested
can contact Theresa.
2. PWW Steering Committee - we are looking for more members for our steering
committee. Meetings are monthly, and we are developing sub-committees so
there would be opportunity to focus on an area of interest - i.e. outreach,
event displays, workshops etc.
3. Growing Up Organic volunteers - anyone interested in supporting our
current outreach workers in Guelph and Stratford (and some outreach in KW)
with administration, farmers markets displays, event organization can
contact me at kristalong at rogers.com or 519-885-9584.

Thanks Candace!

Krista

----- Original Message -----
*From:* candace wormsbecker <cwormsbe at gmail.com>
*To:* Krista Long <kristalong at rogers.com>
*Sent:* Wednesday, May 28, 2008 11:32 AM
*Subject:* Community Garden Focus Groups at Diversity Gardens

Hello Krista,

I guess you were cc'ed on my correspondence with Theresa so you may be aware
of the upcoming focus groups I was planning for the Community Gardens in the
townships.  Theresa has offered to host the event at Diversity Gardens
Thursday, June 5 from 5:30-9pm and it would be great if you, as garden
coordinator could be there to participate and give a short tour of the
garden.

The goal of the focus group is multiple:

·         It is to introduce myself to the gardeners as the new Community
Garden Capacity Builder,

·         To find out what strengths the gardens have already,

·         To find out where they need help, and

·         How I can be of service to them.

>From 5:30-7:30pm will be the session for all the garden coordinators in the
townships (there are 4 of them).  At 7pm we will close with a brief tour of
the garden open to both Garden Coordinators and Gardeners (it would be great
if you could show people around and explain a bit about the how the garden
works, the history, etc.).

The following session would be from 7:00-9:00pm and would be for the
gardeners (other than the coordinator).  We will meet at 7:00pm at the
garden for a brief tour (with the coordinators) before beginning.  If you
could find a garden representative other than yourself to attend this
session that would be greatly appreciated.  Since the gardeners and garden
coordinators have different roles and responsibilities I would like to hear
from both.
If you could let me know by Friday if possible if you would be able to
attend, and as well provide me the name and contact of a garden
representative that would be wonderful.  You can reach me during the office
at 519-883-2353 ext. 5982 or in the evening at home at 519-886-4185.

If you also have a telephone number you could leave for yourself, I will
have it for future reference.

Thanks,

Candace Wormsbecker

Community Garden Capacity Builder
Opportunities Waterloo Region

On Fri, May 23, 2008 at 12:16 PM, Theresa Schumilas <tschumilas at rogers.com>
wrote:

>  Hi Candace
>
> Glad to hear you got the job locally re: community gardens.  I think it
> would be good if you were in touch with Krista Long -  she is cog's new
> administration and marketing coordinator and is just orienting herself to
> partners and partnerships and developing workplans for the chapter.  We have
> briefly discussed ways cog -  through our Diversity Gardens demonstration
> farm can help urban gardeners move more towards organic growing.  We'd be
> happy to explore this.   I've been disappointed in the past that the
> gardeners in the community gardening network don't really embrace organics
> as much as I'd like to see.    I'm not sure they are very aware of what
> growing organically would mean.  Krista and I have talked about offering
> something lke an "organic backyard" program that outlines what organic
> growing would mean if backyard gardeners were basically following the
> national organic standards.
>
>
>
> Unfortunately,  now that we are focusing on "demonstration gardens" ,  we
> are not able to run a CSA   (due to competing time pressures)  so that means
> we don't have a source of revenue for garden labour.  We are trying to find
> granters who would be interested in funding organic demonstration gardens -
> but for now,  we are trying to do this on a shoestring.
>
>
>
> I've attached our workshop series for this season -  which as you see is
> focused on backyard gardeners -  perhaps you can promote it in the network.
>
>
>
> In terms of a June focus group -  yes of course you could host that
> here.    June 5 -  from 5-9 would work,  but the following week, June 12
> would not.
>
>
>
> Theresa
>
>
>
> *From:* stheresa at region.waterloo.on.ca [mailto:
> stheresa at region.waterloo.on.ca]
> *Sent:* May-23-08 11:53 AM
> *To:* Home
> *Subject:* Fw: Community Garden Focus Groups at Diversity Gardens
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------
> Theresa Schumilas
> Region of Waterloo Public Health
>  ------------------------------
>
>  ----- Original Message -----
> *  From: *"candace wormsbecker" [cwormsbe at gmail.com]
> *  Sent: *05/23/2008 09:48 AM AST
> *  To: *Theresa Schumilas
> *  Subject: *Community Garden Focus Groups at Diversity Gardens
>
>
> Hello Theresa,
>
> I don't know if you heard but I was recently hired on as the Community
> Garden Capacity Builder as part of the Diggable Communities Collaborative
> (yet another new job which brings me to you:)  As part of this new role I am
> in the process of setting up focus groups for garden coordinators and the
> gardeners themselves to determine their needs and how I can best support
> them.  We were going to break these focus groups down by municipality to see
> if any difference come up between the municipalities and townships.  Carol
> Popovic had suggested that since Diversity Gardens has a community garden
> that we may be able to host the 2 focus groups (one for the garden
> coordinators and one for the gardeners) for the townships there (it would be
> a total of 3 people at each session).  I am looking at Thursday June 5th or
> early the following week from 5-9pm.  If you could let me know if this is
> something you would be willing to host it would be much appreciated.  As
> part of the the focus groups we would do a short tour of the garden which
> hopefully the garden coordinator would give a little explanation of the
> garden and also participate in the focus group.
>
> If you could let me know if this would work as soon as possible it would be
> appreciated.  Once I confirm the venue I will start contacting the
> gardeners.  My phone number here at Opportunities is 519-883-2353 ext. 5982.
>
> All the best,
> Candace
>
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