The Edible Schoolyard Project recently sent out another email that echoed a lot of what our team has been feeling over the past few weeks.

Families may be wanting to talk about racism and the issues surrounding it, but aren’t sure how or where to start — this link will take you to the full message from Edible Schoolyard Project, which includes some questions and ideas for engaging in conversations with the young people in our lives. Even if you aren’t having conversations about racial injustice and the protests happening all over the world, the young people in your life are almost certainly aware of what’s going on to some degree, through social media and their friends.

“Instead, we are offering prompts for engaging your young people in processing and reflecting. The act of preparing and sharing a meal together creates the opportunity to engage organically in difficult or emotional conversations. Cooking for and with others can be an act of care, and holding space and time to eat together can bring comfort and deepen connections. If you are a parent or guardian, call a family meal. If you are an educator, hold a virtual meal/table discussion.

These prompts are in no way exhaustive or comprehensive. Rather, they are meant to provide a starting place for conversations and create openings for processing.”

https://mailchi.mp/edibleschoolyard/prompts-for-mealtime-conversations

Juneteenth (today) marks the anniversary of the day in 1865 when federal officials arrived in Texas to inform approximately 250,000 previously enslaved people there that they were finally free and to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation, even though Emancipation had been declared more than two years prior to that day.

There are ongoing efforts to have the day designated as a federal holiday, and yet there are still so very many in this nation who are not familiar with it or have never heard of it at all.

The 13th Amendment may have been ratified more than a century ago, but it did not put an end to the oppression of Black people in many different forms, or to the systemic supremacy of whiteness.

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/juneteenth-celebration-meaning-explainer

Racism doesn’t just impact our food system in the U.S. — our entire food economy was designed to perpetuate racial inequities, and continues to do so. Even though our food system was built through the labor of enslaved Black people on land stolen from Indigenous people groups, white Americans have always been — and continue to be — more likely to own land and to benefit from the wealth that land generates.

There is a long legacy of unfair laws that have prohibited non-white people from owning land. According to the USDA 2012 Census of Agriculture, of the 2.1 million farmers in the U.S., only 8% are farmers of color and only half of that 8% own land. As Leah Penniman of Soul Fire Farm pointed out in a Civil Eats article from 2018, “If African-American people [had been] paid $20 per week for our agricultural labor rather than being enslaved, we would have trillions in the bank today.”

Most U.S. farm-workers and food production workers are people of color; the average hourly pay for the people who physically grow and harvest a majority of our food in the U.S. is below $12/hr. Poverty leads to food insecurity, which is tied to a whole host of health disparities and chronic diseases. Ironically, a majority of those who work directly with food in the fields or in restaurants also experience some of the highest rates of food insecurity.

Our team has been learning together about the history and present day issues of racism within our country’s food system. We are also looking for tangible ways we can support Black farmers and other farmers of color, and organizations that champion a just and equitable food system.

It is a drop in the bucket of actions we still need to take, and learning that we still want and need to do, but proceeds from this week’s LCSG Produce Sale will go to the Black Food Sovereignty Council & Coalition.
From their donation page: “The Black Food Sovereignty Coalition (BFSC) serves as a collaboration hub for Black and Brown communities to confront the systemic barriers that make food, place, and economic opportunities inaccessible to us.” One of their projects is ‘Grandma’s Hands’, and it “seeks to pass on Black cultural food traditions to the next generation”. Please read more about BFSC’s work by visiting their website, and if you are able please give: https://blackfoodnw.org/donate/

Would you like to do more learning on this subject, or find more Black-led food organizations in the U.S. to support? Check out these articles from Civil Eats:

New Research Explores the Ongoing Impact of Racism on the U.S. Farming Landscape

Want to See Food and Land Justice for Black Americans? Support These Groups.

Black Lives Matter

We don’t believe it’s a controversial thing to say. It’s not a way of saying that other people or lives matter less, it’s a way to say out loud what we want to see: for Black lives TO matter, to everyone. And in our world, that is not yet a reality.

Posting this now could come across as “jumping on the bandwagon”. We share here as a way to make it clear where we stand as an organization – we want to see an end to violence being enacted on Black people by an unjust system, an end to police brutality, and we want to actively participate in ending those things. There is also a great deal of systemic racism and inequity within the food system and farming, and if we value the work we already do in School Gardens, we need to make those issues a more intentional part.

We’re not as far along as we ought to be; we should have said it out loud years ago, instead of waiting until after David McAtee, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, Nina Pop, Sean Reed, and far too many precious lives were violently ended.

It’s not enough anymore to just NOT be racist; we’re working on what it actually means to be an organization and people who are actively anti-racist.

We know this work of learning and unlearning is difficult, uncomfortable and sometimes painful. We also know that it is deeply important and those challenging feelings are so small compared to the actual pain and suffering that racism causes.
Here are just a few of the resources we’ve been learning from lately:

https://www.drronbell.com/post/do-not-look-away

https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/2017/investigations/florida-police-shootings/if-youre-black/

https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/fall-2018/what-is-white-privilege-really

Walking While Black

We can’t wait for Spring to arrive – to see new green growth emerging in the gardens, reconnect with students in their outdoor classrooms, and work alongside our amazing team of volunteers.

Our ​S​pring ​Garden Season is going to look ​a little different this year – it is split into two 5-week sessions, with a week-long break in between:

• Session One: March 19 – April 27 (Spring Break also falls within this first session)​
• Garden Break: April 30 – May 4
• Session Two: May 7 – June 8

As you may already know, one day a week schools have After School Garden Clubs and/or School Day Garden Programs (during recess or scheduled class time).
In general, here’s the plan for the Spring Season:

• After School Garden Clubs that are facilitated primarily by LCSG staff will take place during ONE of the 5-week sessions.
• School Day Garden Programs will take place during BOTH 5​-​week sessions.

And yet one more way to say it: After School Garden Clubs are 5 weeks long, and School Day Garden Programs are 10 weeks long. There are some exceptions to this model, mostly involving schools where volunteer or teacher garden coordinators have stepped​ ​up and are facilitating garden programs without regular assistance from LCSG staff.

Take a look at the Spring Schedule below…

We are humbled and grateful for the ongoing support of this community. Our small staff is continually “building the plane as we are flying it”- ​always ​learning how to​ better ​distribute our time and resources more equitably in order to reach kids at all 18 School Gardens in Longview and Kelso. Your feedback and patience is appreciated and helpful as we make changes and try new things.

The School Gardens in this community are a result of many people saying, “yes!” to spaces for our kids to learn about real food, the natural world, and to practice being healthy, kind humans.

Please stay tuned for information specific to your students’ School Garden as the season approaches.

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Kids teamed up with a local restaurant to provide the meal; heath agencies dished on school gardens, healthy eating at school and at home. If you weren’t able to attend the Healthy Child Growing Mind workshop at Northlake in September, check out the Daily News article with some great photos and back story on Lower Columbia School Gardens.  http://tdn.com/lifestyles/article_77dc1e02-ec99-11e0-8847-001cc4c002e0.html