Come see us at Craftland and Holidays at the Park!

The SCLT Organic Gardening Kit will be available at a couple events in December:

• Craftland Buy Art Reception on Thursday, December 8^th from 5-8pm. Craftland is located on 235 Westminster Street in downtown Providence and features hundreds of handmade goods by independent artists—from one-of-a-kind craft items to fine art pieces.

• Holidays in the Park at the Roger Williams Park Botanical Center on Saturday, December 10^th from 11am-2pm. Holidays in the Park is an annual event that features various activities, vendors, crafts lessons, local crafts and gifts for sale, live music and free food.

Proceeds from the Organic Gardening Kit supports SCLT’s Community Growers Network, which aims to provide access to gardening resources, education, and community building for its members, helping gardeners in Providence grow more food!

The kits can also be found at wholesale price at $15(plus shipping) at the recently debuted SCLT online store. Customers can also arrange a pick-up when ordering from the store to avoid a shipping cost. The online store features other products to inspire the food grower in everyone, including City Farm T-shirts and Plant Sale gift certificates. Check back in the next couple of weeks and the New Year for even more great gift ideas that will go towards supporting SCLT’s programs in education, City Farm and the Community Growers Network. These are gifts made with local and/or sustainable designs, materials and goals in mind!

Plant Providence Calendar:

Folks gathered around at a workshop to learn how compost can remediate unhealthy soil

Although the Plant Providence Calendar is being tucked away until spring of 2012, the work around it hasn’t quite gone into hibernation mode. Word on the street is that next year’s calendar will hold even more workshops, both old favorites and fresh, new topics! The Plant Providence Calendar is truly a community effort that wouldn’t be possible without the invaluable knowledge and effort of our workshop instructors (most of which are our dear friends, acquaintances and colleagues!). Here’s our Plant Providence workshop instructor hall of fame:

Urban Chickens I and II taught by staff and chicken-raising expert Kate Lacouture; Safe Soil: remediating Lead taught by City Farm’s Rich Pederson and Liz Colon; Beginning Organic Growers Series (BOGS) taught by staff and our friends Raffini (a community garden grower), Jenn Steinfeld and Adam Graffunder (Florence and Manton Farm); BOGS taught in Spanish by Jairo Rosales; Rain Barrels 101 taught by President of African Alliance Julius Kolawole; Taming Your Tomatoes taught by Thom Mitchell and James Crowley; Winter Greens and Low Tunnels and Seed Saving taught by Scratch Farm’s Katie Miller; Medicinal Herbs and Foraging by Farmacy Herb’s Mary Blue; Composting 101 by Sejal Lanterman and many more!

These folks sure know what they’re doing and we’re looking forward to partnering with them again in the years to come! We also want to give a big thanks to our sponsors the Albin Family Foundation, Brown University Center for Environmental Studies, URI Outreach Center, Casa Buena Builders, Inc. and What Grows on RI? Check back for Plant Providence updates in the near future.

Make it a Green Friday!

SCLT organic gardening kit, available on our online store!

The moment we all wake up the morning after Thursday’s Thanksgiving festivities will mark the start of the holiday shopping season. Stores and radio stations will switch on the holiday music playlist and cities will be decorated with lights, wreaths and ornaments. Even if you won’t be one of the dedicated and determined few who are gearing to get up before the sun does on Friday morning, you might still be getting ready to make those shopping lists and checking them twice.

How about instead of a black Friday, we have a green one? Southside Community Land Trust is proud to be making a grand opening of our online merchandise store just for the occasion! Our store will feature products that inspire the food grower in everyone. We are thrilled about our organic gardening kit, which includes seeds, cover crop, garden markers, organic fertilizer and bug spray. This kit will make the perfect gift for someone in your life who wants to start growing their own fresh and healthy food.

On our merchandise site will also be City Farm T-shirts and Plant Sale gift certificates. Check back in the next couple of weeks for some other great gift ideas that will go towards supporting SCLT’s programs in education, City Farm and the Community Growers Network. These are gifts that are made with local and/or sustainable designs, materials and goals in mind!

Brewing Some Local Philanthropy

Southside Community Land Trust is delighted to be featured as one of Blue State Coffee’s Providence causes over the past two years. In their philanthropy program, customers nominate the non-profit organizations Blue State will support and vote on how the donations are allocated in their store.

“Blue State Coffee is proud to have been able to support the important work that SCLT does over the last several years,” says Alex Payson of Blue State Coffee, “Our philanthropic giving is directed by customer suggestions and SCLT continues to be an important organization for our customer base here in Providence.  We believe that socially responsible businesses give back to the community that supports them, and thanks to our customers we have donated over $250,000 since we opened our first store in 2007.”

SCLT gives a big shout-out and thanks to the Thayer Street Blue State and its customers for their socially conscious and creative way of giving back to the local community and for raising us a contribution of $4,500. Awesome!

A Look Back

It’s amazing how much can happen in an year. This November was the last of the 30th Anniversary events for SCLT and we couldn’t be more delighted for all the great moments, friendships and celebration we’ve had. We’ve put together some images that capture just some of the plentiful good times of our 30th anniversary year. It’s time to look back, smile and look forward to another vibrant 30 years. Cheers!

Building the possibilities

We did it! With much perseverance and the help of our invaluable volunteers, the Potters Ave. Community Garden expansion was completed yesterday. It all started from a tree by the old garden that was damaged from a storm in June to have us ask the question, “Why not?” when the idea presented itself to turn the undeveloped area into a space to grow more food. “Community folks, neighbors and even students participated in the building of this garden. At the end of the last day, nobody wanted to leave because it was such a lovely experience and we grew so close as a team. We’re all excited for the possibilities of what this will bring to families in the spring,” said Liza Sutton, SCLT Community Growers Network Director. 29 new raised garden beds were built from this garden expansion effort, giving even more area families the opportunity to grow fresh, healthy food.

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SCLT wants to give a big thank you to Mel and Connie Carter for being generous hosts in letting us transform the space. For more great stories about the effort being made to provide families access to growing their own food, read about the Greenwich Street Garden that was built this summer.

Providence’s Deep Roots

Last night’s Deep Roots panel discussion was full of fascinating history about urban agriculture in Providence. We learned that at one point circa World War II, the city was pooling in an enormous amount of effort to make growing food a part of daily life. Victory gardens were established all over the city in order to reduce pressure on the food supply from the war effort. In the slideshow, you’ll see that there once was a garden right in front of the State House. At this time where growing food was stressed by state departments, 40% of the nation’s food supply was grown by civilians in gardens. What an amazing piece of history – imagine the possibilities for our present and future!

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Click here to watch a video of the 30 years of history behind SCLT. Thanks to all who came by and made it a wonderful last 30th anniversary event. Things are wrapping up for the year here at SCLT, but stay tuned for ways to get involved and how to support us. Let’s keep growing deeper!