We’ve Missed You!
Hello, Friends —
How is your garden growing? It’s been a very long time since we’ve shared. We’ve missed you.
As long overdue updates: We had an incredible BLITZ, with over 80 gardens installed. This brings total BLITZ gardens numbers which YOU, the community, have constructed and installed since March 2020 to 250 across Butte County!
Thanks, again, to all who volunteered for those installations. Thanks to Achieve Charter School in Chico, Ridgeview in Magalia and Prospect in Oroville for constructing the boxes and to Valley Contractor’s Exchange for partnering with the schools for the build. Thanks to Jessica McKenzie, Dede Doung and the Paradise Community Guilds for partnering to provide the staging areas in Chico, Oroville and Paradise. So many thanks to the funders of the Scholarship boxes listed in the image.
As you can see, it takes a whole community to pull this off this event and you did it! So loving this community.
Thanks to community partners that keep our projects fueled.
Farmers Marketmobile- Thanks, again, to the ongoing support of the North Valley Community Foundation, Butte Strong Fund and United Way. We cannot thank them enough for keeping the wheels rolling and providing the support to, hopefully, expand the stops this year. More on that in the next email.
GROWN- And we got a grant from the Butte County COVID Stabilization fund to start our new project called “GROWN” (Growing Resilient Optimism With Nature.” It is all about supporting youth to be food literate while providing a space for the healing powers of community and soil. We are very excited to have Wendy McCall as the Project Director. She’s already hit the ground running! Check out the events section below for upcoming Kid events at Kentfield Gardens. Watch GROWN grow over the coming months. Such an exciting community partnership with schools, From The Ground Up, farmers, healers and more wonderful folks who care.
Events
Lots of great Events going on this weekend into next month. Be sure and submit your upcoming garden, and local food events to our website (upgrade coming soon).
May 21- The AAFCC Community Garden will be hosting an education work day on May 21st from 8am – 12pm. We will provide FREE LUNCH to all who help. The garden is located at 2733 Wyandotte Avenue. For more information, call the center at 530 532-1205.
May 2 1- Chico Leaf A Plant will host a special pop-up stand this Saturday, May 21, from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm at 3rd Street and Flume (next to Discovery Shoppe). Please bring anything garden-related to trade. Join their private Facebook group here. BCLFN note- cool concept. We need more of these and will include an article on this in our next email.
May 21- and every Saturday at Kentfield Garden, 1125 Kentfield Rd in Chico. Kentfield Kids Program- A GROWN Project will be held each Saturday from 11am-2pm (weather permitting)
11-1pm (Teen Time – ages 12 – 18) Parents may drop off teens, but need to be signed in and out and picked up at designated time.
12-2pm (Young Buds – ages Preschool – 12 years old, babies always welcome) Parents must be present.
1 hour of garden instruction and activities specific for teens in addition to 1 hour of mentorship opportunity with our Young Buds. In turn this provides our young buds an opportunity to have a mentor and develop strong bonds with them, while learning valuable skills taught by our teens. This strengthens the connections with all our kids while building a sense of purpose and community connections. After working with their mentors, our Young Buds get to enjoy a full hour of fun activities as well. And as always we welcome families to “Come Grow With Us”.
June 2- Composting Workshop by Master Gardeners. Find out more about this workshop and their other educational workshops here.
June 9- Zoom. 3:00-4:30PM: Community Food Connections
One message from the Local Food Assessment is the need for more connecting with people and groups involved in all the amazing work around food in our county and provide an opportunity for us to collaborate and do more good work more efficiently. We’ll be holding these talks every other month leading up to a conference in October. Stay tuned!
This first meeting, our speakers will be Ali Meders-Knight, Master Traditional Ecological
Practitioner and Mel Figueroa, both of the Chico Traditional Ecological Stewardship Program. They will be talking about ultimate food security, their dreams of a local seed bank and their other projects. See more about their work at TEKchico.org Sign up to join us here.
June 26- Navigating Conflict in Relationships – Vecino Garden is hosting a FREE, 90 minute, communication workshop taught by professional life coach and Chico local, Anika Hillin. As we are keen on community, we know that healthy communication is the foundation for healthy relationships with ourselves and others, which creates a more healthy and resilient community. Find out more about Annika, the event and RSVP here as spaces are limited. Such an amazing offering to the community! Don’t miss this rare offering by one of our favorite personal coaches (and vegan chefs).
Ongoing opportunities you’ll just LOVE to join:
Sundays from 8-11. Vecino Garden’s hours are changing as we move into the intense heat. So come on down earlier and stay cooler. Lots of good stuff growing, lots of fun community. Don’t’ forget to bring your compost if you don’t have the room to do it at your home. If you want to get started but need a bucket, we’ve got you covered. Just contact Amy at 530-828-0676. Drop by 1535 Laburnum Ave in Chico go through the front gate, steer right and go through another. We’ll be around back.
Fridays at Verbena Fields – Join Ali-Meders-Knight from 10AM to 1PM at the park and learn TEK (Traditional Ecological Knowledge). Tend the land, tend your heart. Find out more here.
That’s it for now. Glad to be back in touch with the whole community!
The BCLFN Team
Our ongoing partners for varying projects are:
