Photos from this past Saturday’s screening of Who Controls Your Food? Stories from Venezuela to Brooklyn, hosted by 2013 Change by Us NYC grant recipient Crown Heights-Prospect Heights Food Allies. Through the documentary and following discussion, residents learned about food justice and how to take more ownership of their food supply by participating in community gardens, joining local farm shares, or growing food at home.
(Photo credit: Ben Cherner)
Turtles take a moment to say “hello” at M’Finda Kalunga Community Garden in Manhattan’s Sara Roosevelt Park neighborhood. (Source: www.mkgarden.org/discussion)
This past Sunday was such a gorgeous spring day in NYC that the turtles at M’Finda Kalunga Community Garden came out to socialize with visitors!
From the garden’s website:
Two very handsome red eared slider turtles are the latest “critters” to have joined the garden. If you sit quietly on the bench near the pond, and you are very lucky, you might see their heads poking out for just a moment. Red-eared sliders get their name from the red line around their ears. The “slider” part of their name comes from their ability to slide off rocks into the water quickly.
For more information on the turtle gang, open hours for visiting the garden, and how to become a member, be sure to check out the M’Finda Kalunga Community Garden website or stop by their Change by Us page.
The Mayor’s Community Affairs Unit announced that Change by Us NYC, an online platform for residents to develop volunteer-driven initiatives in their neighborhoods, has awarded grants to 17 community groups to pursue projects that will improve their surrounding communities. The awardees are selected in partnership with the Office of Food Policy, Citizen Committee for NYC and the Department of Education’s Office of School Wellness Program and Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
The grant projects include improving healthy food access and awareness, promoting food security and improving food system sustainability and infrastructure.
For a full list of groups and projects receiving Change by Us grants, visit nyc.gov.
“Who Controls Your Food? Stories from Venezuela to Brooklyn”
Saturday, June 15th, 3:30pm - 6pm. LaunchPad, 721 Franklin Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
Welcome to the Brooklyn food movement: we shop locally, grow vegetables, raise chickens, and pickle everything. As we strive to take control of our…
Sprout Farms used their 2011 Change by Us grant to build a compost system at The Green School. Check out their cool time-lapse video of the build day:
Source: Sprout Farms
Want to make your child’s school food options more nutritious? ”School Food Starts with You” provides detailed, step-by-step information showing parents how to work with their school so that school meals become a nurturing and satisfying part of every school day.
The handbook was created through collaboration between Brooklyn Food Coalition, City Harvest, Food Bank for New York City, NYC Health, NYC Hunger Free Communities Consortium and other organizations.
Big thanks to Bronx Health REACH for sharing this!
It’s one of the city’s many vacant lots, but a group of Harlem residents hopes to transform a St. Nicholas Ave. space into a sparkling garden where vegetables will grow, flowers will bloom and residents will become educated in some of the finer points of health living.
A Change by Us project in the news! To learn more about St. Nicholas Miracle Garden’s efforts or to help out, you can visit their project page. You can donate here.
Forget Mr. Softee in the South Bronx, meet Ms. Veggie (PIX11 News Story)
Awesome project by Tanya Fields, executive director of the BLK Projek, who aims to bring healthy, local produce to the South Bronx by taking the farmers market concept mobile.
The full story also features a brief interview with an organizer from Brook Park chicken coop, a Change by Us project. We sense an opportunity for collaboration here!
We had a blast at Grow Our Grassroots last Saturday at Brooklyn Borough Hall! Check out some of our favorite photos from the day (Birdie NYC may or may not appear more than once).
Making Social Media Work For You
This past Saturday at Grow Our Grassroots, Change by Us spoke to attendees about “Making Social Media Work For You.” Using social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr in an effective way can help your neighborhood initiative increase participation, gain visibility, raise funds, build community, and a whole lot more!
To view our presentation, click here.
Change by Us NYC is a place to share ideas, create projects, discover resources, and make our city better.
http://nyc.changeby.us
