Posts filed under ‘Community Gardens’
UHMC SLIM Community Garden Blessing Invitation
The Sustainable Living Institute of Maui (SLIM) at UH Maui College invites you to join us this Thursday for the blessing of our groundbreaking UHMC community garden, supported by Community Work Day (CWD) and the Ulupono Initiative.
The garden blessing will be at 11:00 followed by a community work day of native planting. Participants will have the opportunity to take home vegetable or herb plant starts from Community Work Day’s nursery sponsored by Bioponic Phytoceuticals, the makers of Kona Red beverage.
Date: Thursday, May 10
Time: 11:00 (arrive at least 15 minutes early to secure a parking spot)
Location: Upper, North-West side of the main parking lot and the UHMC educational fields, directly across from the Maui Arts and Cultural Center
The community garden will be available to all students, faculty and staff members along with members of our community who enjoy growing their own food while socializing and interacting with others who share the same interests. Participants will be able to sign up for their own garden plot this coming fall semester through SLIM and EdVenture.
For more information about the garden or the May 10 work day and blessing, please contact Tracy Tarlow via email at tracytarlow@gmail.com.
Seattle Building Massive Edible Forest Filled with Free Food
Taking the urban garden to the next level, Seattle, Washington has officially broken ground on a dedicated seven acre area of city land set to be converted into an “edible forest” that will produce free food for the city’s residents and visitors, human or otherwise.
PERMABLITZ- Restoring Hawaii’s Food Security
7:30 p.m.–9:00 p.m.
January 9, 2012
Pukalani Community Center’s Poolroom.
Matthew Lynch will introduce PERMABLITZ– a grassroots movement restoring Hawaii’s food security, one backyard at a time – to Maui residents.
Matt is a local boy who has spent the last two years wandering the planet in search of people, places, and projects making a positive contribution to our world. His work in Sustainability, Regenerative Agriculture, and Regenerative Enterprise has taken him (so far) to Australia, New Zealand, Mongolia, Germany, and now to Maui.
Permablitz was recently featured on Hawaii News Now, and Matt recently shared the stage at TEDxHonolulu with some of Hawaii’s leading innovators.
Come and learn more about how the simple act of helping each other grow our own food can help build resilience, enrich lives, and move us beyond sustainability towards building communities which restore and enhance the world around us.
The event will be held at the Pukalani Community Center’s Poolroom (across from Foodland, connected to the swimming pool complex). It is free and open to the public. Questions, call Melanie at 573-9260
A Deliciously Resourceful Town Aims For Total Food Self-Sufficiency in 7 Years
An amazing plan: to make Todmorden the first town in the country that is self-sufficient in food.
‘And we want to do it by 2018,’ says Mary Clear, 56, a grandmother of ten and co-founder of Incredible Edible, as the scheme is called.
Everyone plants vegetables everywhere in town – like on the police station grounds and by the train station. Surplus vegetables grown at the high school go on sale, with all proceeds going directly back to the school.
New University of Hawai’i Maui Campus Garden
SLIM (The Sustainable Living Institute of Maui at UHMC) is partnering with a number of local community organizations to design a educational, culinary and community garden on the Maui campus.
The garden will feature:
- Movies in the Garden
- A learning center showcasing innovative gardening techniques
- Culinary, educational and community plots
- On-site composting
- Student-run farm stand
- Green building structures
You can get involved by contacting SLIM or donating gardening or building materials or monetary donations.
Maui Community Garden Initiative
Want to start a community or neighborhood garden?
Need experienced advice?
Maui Community Garden Initiative (MCGI) is a nonprofit organization formed to proactively engage Maui communities in growing food. Through strategic collaborations and public advocacy, they provide educational and technical support for cultivating and sustaining community based gardens. Two of the principles, Nio Kindla and Kirk Surrey, are very active with the Kihei Elementary School garden.
Organic Farms Provide School Lunches
Marin’s Organic School Lunch program delivers farm fresh organic
food directly to schools throughout Marin County, CA
12,000 students a week — that’s about half the schools in the
county — benefit from the efforts of Marin Organic, who connects
the farmers produce to the school’s kitchens.
“There are a lot of farmers in Marin County, and a lot of schools–
why not foster a relationship between the two?”
Indoor Electric Composter
Click image for History Channel video report.
You can add food scraps every day. Takes 2 weeks to make a basketful of ready-to-go compost. Very low electric usage.
weFarm@Kapalua: Friends of the Farm Work Party
Saturday, July 17
8:30 A.M. to noon-ish
4900 Honoapiilani Hwy
Grab your farm curious friends and family and join us for the first community work morning at weFarm@kapalua . Help us move the farm forward while meeting your neighbors and local farmers. learn our vision for a more food secure Maui, and find out ways to be engaged.
We will meet at the office at 8:30 A.M. and vanpool to the farm. The office is located at the corner of the highway and Napili Hau St. across highway from Napili Plaza. Together we will work through farm tasks assigned by farmer Dan. Around 11:30 A.M. we will wrap-up in the field and head back to the office for a potluck lunch.
Bring: long pants, a protective top, gloves (if you have them), sturdy shoes, sun protection, a water bottle, a dish to share for lunch and lots of energy. RSVP toinfo at uluponosustainable dot com. Reply early as space is limited.
SMS at KCA June 16, 2009 – Review of Meeting
GROWING OUR FUTURE, TOGETHER
June 16, 2009, 68 p.m., Kihei Community Center, 303 E. Lipoa St. Kihei, Maui, HI
The Kihei Community Association hosted South Maui Sustainability for a slide presentation and breakout group discussion of community gardens, renewable energy, reef sustainability and recycling and conservation.
SUGGESTED ACTION ITEMS FROM BREAKOUT GROUPS
RECYCLING AND CONSERVATION DISCUSSION
Curbside Recycling
Advocate for full service curbside recycling
In the meantime set up neighborhood recycling groups where neighbors take turns transporting to the recycle/redemption centers.
- Money collected could go to:
- The person who transports the materials
- The whole group
- Other organizations as a donation.
Advocate for the recycling of office paper.
- Packaging
- Charge for plastic bags in the stores. This stick might be a more effective way to reduce use of plastic bags than the carrot of getting a small refund for using your own bags.
- Find a way to get money for plastic bags (by weight) to motivate the pubic to pick up the bags, especially off the beaches.
- Energy and water Conservation
- Clean the exhaust ducts from electric dryers
- Turn off dishwaser “drying cycle”.
- Watch your wattage on all appliances with KillaWatt or other metering devices.
- Lower thermostat on hot water heater. 100 degrees is enough.
- Upgrade any appliances older than 10 years to Energy Star.
- Clean off the radiator tubes of your refigerator.
- Turn dishwashing and hand washing water off when not actually using it to wet or rinse.
- Turn off electricity for hot water heater, then turn on 15 minutes before needed. A timer box by the heater is better than using the circuit breaker for this.
- Plug appliances, sound and computer equipment into power strips and then turn off power strip when done.
- Use drip irrigation whenever possible
- Promote graywater usage and public policy.
- Advocate for Xeriscaping.
- Advocate for bike lanes, especially on the Norht/South Kihei collector road.
- Encourage bus usage
- Whenever possible rescue freshly dug up plants from beting taken to the landfill. Can take them to schools, Aloha Shares, the Habitat for Humanity ReStore, churches, homes, etc. Also see http://www.MauiPlantRescue.com
- Use used coffee cans for storage.
- Convert old cloths into bags or material to chrochet into rugs.
- Take old towells to the Humane Society for use with the anmials.
- Use the library instead of buying new books.
- Use passive solar jugs to store heat for upcountry greenhouses
- Take used magazines to your doctor and dentist’s offices.
REEF SUSTAINABILITY DISCUSSION
Most important issues
- Carbon dioxide deposition, nutrient rich waters going into ocean.
- Run off from development (concrete, better construction, land use)
- Street run off, golf courses. Irvine& Newport Beach already doing good things. John Tetamer.com
- Decline in fish, over fishing
- Water quality
- Sewage dumping.
- Community ed. is poor, need to raise awareness. Population and growth problem
- What needs to be done?
- Start at worst problem and work back.
- Put filters in run off areas, since wetlands are already built over.
- Promote natural wetlands, have penalties to over fishing, rules and regulations.
- Neighborhood watch program.
- Mooring. Rotationrest rotation – put into law?
- Small steps s/b encouraged faucets, car washes, look at selfbehaviors.
- Consulting Hawaiian Kahuna
- More gray water use – education
- Apollo alliance –Pam lightfoot
- Water recycling link west Maui, establishing political strength, Gary Hoosier, political advocacy, Malama Kauau = connecting
- Pick two/3 political issues, strength together State issues DNLR enforcement, 24 county offices to work with.
- Use wastewater instead of dumping It., proactively protecting reefs now. Spending now to save reefs/water later.
- What is being done by other groups?
- Pump don’t Dump. Putting signs up to help protect reefs. Educating visitors PSA on Airlines, Ziggy Lovenut. “Eyes on reef” –How to recognize Coral Disease and algae Growth.
- Darla White. Shoreline reef cleanup Diving, snorkeling, beach line
- Aquamarine collection Legislation Dyer?
- What can we do? And how will we do it?
- Education. Create Hawaiian island alliances to gain political power.
- Encourage –testify legislators – to save reefs and waters
- Create Education programs, all age schools
- Presentations –water quality, respecting our waters.
COMMUNITY GARDEN DISCUSSION
- Possible Sites
- Kalama heights, Churches, ML&P land, Technology Center
- KCA back and front. Safeway –North Liloacatchment
Interested parties – Kirk Surrey, Anne, Michael
- Ideas for bringing in the community
- Church out reach, parents of children in schools, Rotary, SMS mailing list, Advertising in Maui Weekly etc. Flyers on Apt. doors.
- Master Gardeners. Marin County model.
- Tova
Challenges of water cost.
Do prototype, then “sell” idea.
Create a social network.
RENEWABLE ENERGY DISCUSSION
- Funding – Done by county or state – solar install paid on property tax bill and passes on to new owner w/tax credits over 50% it is a good return on investment 1017%. Also prop value goes up. $24,000.00 = 3KW system. Fed Gov will lend money for this. Standard measurement unit is peak power output of solar panels….?
- New units prices going down due to supply and demand
- MECO can invest in solar elect, themselves and will start doing installs.
- New super efficient glass which gives 3% better absorption of solar light.
- Panel warranties going up to 20 yrs.
- Efficiency = conservation w/out sacrificing
- Great person in Kihei for solar – Steve Fryer
- July 18th solar Town call Hawaii PV coalition.org
- Know what you need – Willy Bennett can do this for you.
South Maui Sustainability 