Searching around the wine section of Deluxe Market in Aptos, I came across a Villa dei Sogni Vino Rosso. Most wines at Deluxe have helpful information for each bottle, and a tag on the Vino Rosso informed that it was produced by local couple Jack and Lori Burkett, along with Lori’s brother and sister-in-law Garth and Barbara Shirreffs.
A blend of 45% Sangiovese, 35% Cabernet Sauvignon and 20% Zinfandel, their Vino Rosso 2013 ($26) is a rich mouthful of these three red varietals. Estate-grown in the vineyard of the Burkett and Shirreffs families, the wine has notes of Sangiovese’s plush cherry fruit, and distinctive black currant, tobacco, coffee, and mint notes from the Cab. “The blend is subtly different, depending on the prominent grape that is harvested each year,” Lori Burkett says. Grapes are tended to and harvested by family and friends, and fruit is turned into wine with the help of Midnight Cellars in Paso Robles.
Family members of the Burketts planted the vineyard in 2001 on a sunny patch of land near Lake Nacimiento, and their first harvest was in 2003. But soon after, Lori’s husband Jack was diagnosed with a brain tumor and lost the ability to speak or walk. “He was given one year to live, but is still going strong after 18 years,” says Lori. “He has kept a positive spirit.” Initially, Jack went from being wheelchair-bound, hardly able to move, to walking with a brace on his leg. Lori credits the Cabrillo College Adaptive PE and Stroke and Disability Center with keeping Jack healthy. The Burketts now give 10% of wine sales to Cabrillo in gratitude. Named Villa dei Sogni, which means “house of dreams” in Italian, this robust Vino Rosso 2013 pairs well with any hearty meal.
“This has been a dream come true,” says Lori. “With the grace of God, the love and support of our family, church family and friends, Jack is thriving and enjoying life. He beat the odds.”
Villa dei Sogni Vino Rosso is carried at Café Sparrow, Café Cruz and East End Gastropub.
In my end-of-summer attempts to enjoy the afternoons, I’m getting sunburned more than I should. I often find myself picking away at the long fingers of my aloe plant, rubbing the stringy goop on my shoulders and nose to ease any lingering sting.
Healing at the expense of plants is something humans have done for centuries. While I appreciate modern medicine, my aloe plant reminds me that healing relief for minor problems—even if fleeting—may be just a pluck away.
Cameron Salomon, grower and owner of Kindred Herbs medicinal plant nursery, began cultivating her company’s healing plants around a year ago. Since then, she’s grown more than 60 types of medicinal herbs on her little plot off Ocean Street Extension.
“I’ve been focused on herbs for the last six years, and it’s been a longtime dream of mine to open a nursery, since I was a teenager,” says Salomon, who is currently gearing up for a fall varietals sale.
She buys seeds from Oregon organic farm Strictly Medicinals, which focuses on potent plants with varied health benefits. “There is an emphasis on the medicinal contents of plants, rather than their beauty or shelf life, which is kind of what our food crops and flowers have turned into,” says Salomon, who also prioritizes ecological benefits like healthy soil. “Some of them are beautiful, but that’s not their only purpose.”
The roots of the project hew close to Saloman’s own interests. “It’s called Kindred Herbs, but it also could be, like, ‘Cameron’s favorite plants,’” she laughs. For others with an interest in gardening, from beginners to connoisseurs, here are a few plants she’d recommend:
Lemon Balm
“Lemon Balm is a digestion herb. It’s good for kids, pregnant women and the elderly. It’s a safe herb. It benefits digestion, but it’s also a very uplifting. It even has antiviral properties. It’s a powerful herb for being so safe, and is easy to grow. It’s a mint relative.
Some of the important things to think about are ‘right plant, right place.’ There are little tags on the plants to tell you where to put herbs and what they need. If they are in the right place, they will really grow themselves.”
Calendula
“Calendula is another plant that grows itself. It makes a beautiful, bright orange flower. It’s drought tolerant, which is important to our climate, and it flowers throughout the season. It has a very broad window for harvesting. You’ll plant it in one spot and see it pop up in other parts of your garden. It grows well with fruit trees, too.
It helps repair the skin and cellular tissue. It’s one of the main ingredients in all-natural salves you see. It’s pretty easy. You can make an infused oil, and it also has an edible flower that you can put in salads or on cakes. It’s a common ingredient in cold and flu tea recipes. It’s bitter, so I wouldn’t do an all-calendula tea, but a little bit can be helpful. It’s also a lymphatic herb, which is one of the cleaning systems of the body.”
Passionflower
“There is edible passion fruit, which is passiflora edulis, but this is passiflora incarnata. They are related, but this is the medicinal plant version. It’s a perennial vine. You can harvest the flowers of the leaves. It makes a purple flower that is quite stunning and looks like it’s from another planet. It’s an amazing nervine. It calms down the nervous system and helps promote relaxation. It’s a good sedative, and will help the body go to sleep, but it won’t leave you groggy the next day.”
Elderberry
“Every home should have an elderberry. It flowers in the summer and sets berries in the late summer to fall. It’s one of the top antiviral herbs. It’s one of those herbs that is like a food. You can consume it as if it was a food. It’s safe to take regularly. Depending on the amount you take—usually it’s a teaspoon for a kid or tablespoon for an adult—taking it throughout the winter is a really effective way of staving off colds and flu.
You can make a syrup out of it. You harvest the berries and boil them and add honey. It’ll last for a couple of months that way. You can also use the flowers. They can be made into a cordial. You infuse the flowers with water and add a sweetener. It will naturally ferment, there is a cordial and liqueur. It’s a fun way to enjoy medicine.”
Kindred Herbs will host its second medicinal herb sale from 10am-3pm on Oct. 12-13 at 2014 Ocean St. Extension, Santa Cruz. kindred-herbs.com.
Caitlin Parker wasn’t happy with the bagel options in Santa Cruz, so she started making her own.
She opened Firefly Coffee House as a coffee destination on lower Pacific Avenue and eventually decided to incorporate bagels. After moving to Lake Tahoe and opening sister café Dragonfly Coffee, she sold Firefly to Angela Tang, who has maintained the homey, comfortable feel of the café and continued the homemade bagel legacy.
What lead you to buy this café?
TANG: We were in San Francisco, my husband and I, and when I got pregnant, a colleague of mine let us know about a coffee shop in Santa Cruz that was for sale. My husband immigrated from Cuba, and before you know it, I’m in my third trimester and buying a coffee shop. My husband was still trying to get used to American life, and there we were.
You got a new shop at the same time as a new child? How was that?
Yeah, it was a challenge. But it’s cool now, because every time I’m in the shop, people ask me how my daughter is doing, because they met her when she was in the womb. Every now and then, she comes to the shop with me.
What’s special about your bagels?
People love that we boil them and we do everything in house. Firefly is a tiny but mighty little shop, so when people find out that we make them in house and boil them, it leaves an impression. We can make up to 80 bagels per day, and depending on the day, they sell out pretty quick.
Any menu expansions plans?
We’ve kept the menu pretty much the same since we bought it. We wanted to stay true to the offering and what Firefly has been. We toyed around with expanding the hours to get a beer and wine license, but that’s not really come to fruition given that we have a child. Because my husband is Cuban, sometimes we will do Cuban espresso and will make Cuban cortados.
This isn’t technically our annual Green Issue, but there’s a lot of green in this issue. Even the fact that a “green issue” was created way back when speaks to how stories with an environmental focus were once few and far between, even in alternative journalism.
Now, of course, with the ever-more-urgent issues around climate change, environmental stories require year-round coverage—I doubt we put out even one year issue a year that doesn’t have some kind of relevant coverage.
Even in that context, though, I think this week’s issue captures how multi-faceted the world of environmental journalism really is. First, there’s Christina Waters’ cover story on the 40th anniversary of Life Lab, a pioneering Santa Cruz “garden classroom” educational program that is bringing not just awareness, but the actual experience of nature to a generation of children. Then there’s Jordy Hyman’s story about a new film documenting the fight for the Beach Flats Community Garden. And Patrick Dwire reports on how local students are preparing for the Global Climate Strike on Friday.
On a non-green-related note, I wanted to mention that I will be moderating a Q&A this Saturday, Sept. 28, with recent GT cover-story subject Jennifer Otter Bickerdike about her amazing music book Why Vinyl Matters, which she will also sign. It’ll be at Streetlight Records, 939 Pacific Ave. in Santa Cruz, at 4pm, and it’s free. Hope to see you there!
As a practicing artist and arts activist, I signed the letter of note in this recent article, because it was thoughtfully written and came from a place of sincere concern, while voicing both respect for what has been accomplished at MAH in these last eight years, and hope for how it might look in the future. Certainly it spoke of disappointments and frustrations, but it was additive and constructive as well.
Few would contest Nina Simon’s extraordinary transformation of MAH. Santa Cruz and the art world has congratulated her amply for what she has accomplished in terms of attendance, finances and social justice outreach.
Despite these accomplishments, much was set aside or undervalued during that time, and these aspects should be considered when searching for new leadership. From the perspective of an artist, that might include having an experienced curator who could present contemporary art exhibitions, some of which could again highlight local and regional practicing artists. The museum could actively support the growth of local artists at every level by seeking their collaboration, input and inclusion, rather than creating unnecessary barriers.
There are two areas that I feel get trivialized and lead to misconceptions. Although everyone has the capacity and should be encouraged to express themselves artistically, not everyone is an artist. Those of us who have studied or have practiced art making for years understand what is involved when you choose to pursue art seriously. It is demeaning and hurtful to be silenced as “elitist.” One cannot talk about the importance of art without respectfully addressing those who have created that art and the discipline it takes to dedicate oneself to sustain a serious art practice. The institutional art world may be dominated by male elites, but here in Santa Cruz, there are certainly as many working women artists as men. I doubt that you can find a single one of us who has become wealthy selling our artwork. In fact, we as a community are grieving the loss of so many artists as Santa Cruz becomes more and more unaffordable. The museum could play a role in encouraging struggling artists rather than demeaning or neutralizing them. As a political and social activist, I surely believe that inclusivity and multi-cultural exposure are vital as we move forward, so MAH’s focus on social justice is just fine with me. But interacting and engaging with visuals and viewing mature works of art are two very different things and I’m afraid there hasn’t been much interest in understanding that distinction.
In the article, “tweaks” were mentioned as “tricky to master to everyone’s liking.” Yet there was a hauntingly vague description of the recent hiring process. After two finalists were selected, the search evidently ended badly “when the staff found out who the two finalists were—some administrators expressed dismay, and threatened to shut down the museum in protest.” Shutting down the museum—what was that about? Readers were left to wonder: who is in control of the hiring process and how will it move forward? If there is to be, as the article suggests, a “healthy dose of community involvement and discussions about what’s next,” how will that happen when Nina decided not to read the entire letter that was signed by 100 supporters of the arts. And then Geoffrey Dunn resorted to belittling and name calling, dismissing the concerns of the signatories of the letter, who included major long-term donors to the museum, arts administrators, arts educators and dozens of local exhibiting artists, who, in fact, have some very real concerns about how and if MAH can expand its mission to include those of us who value traditional and contemporary art, as well as social justice exhibitions.
Yes, “art may be changing” but dismissing art history and the concerns of serious disciplined artists and supporters of the arts as elitist is simplistic and divisive, and will not serve to bring the community together for the sake of all its members. By forging alliances rather than allegiances, MAH has an opportunity to expand on its accomplishments and serve even more of the community than it already does.
Sara Friedlander
Santa Cruz
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GOOD IDEA
Law enforcement and educational leaders will use new grant funds to improve school safety and reduce juvenile delinquency. The Board of State and Community Corrections approved $715,000 for the Sheriff’s Office, Probation Department and County Office of Education. Their new multi-agency partnership will contract with the Community Action Board, with the goals of improving threat assessments, preventing bullying and targeting juvenile delinquency via social-emotional learning and restorative justice programs.
GOOD WORK
Hannah Hagemann, a recent graduate of UCSC’s science journalism Master’s program, has landed a prestigious one-year Kroc Fellowship at NPR. Hagemann, who reported for KQED, was one of the first journalists on the ground covering Gilroy’s mass shooting in July. The former geologist also contributed to aGT cover story in January answering science questions about Santa Cruz County. Hageman’s piece looked at the impacts of the historic liming industry.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“The garden suggests there might be a place where we can meet nature halfway.”
Though there have been global climate strikes across the world in the last week, Santa Cruz’s big strike day coincides with a U.N. Climate Action Summit in New York City. The strike will include walkouts at schools and workplaces across Santa Cruz and student marches converging at River and Front Streets at 2:25 p.m., then continuing to the Youth Green Commons festival at the farmers’ market site on Cedar Street, with multiple events hosted by students and local groups. Some groups will be staging climate teach-ins at various locations on the way. Check online for a detailed map and schedule.
INFO: Noon, Friday, Sept. 28. Santa Cruz Green Commons, 686 Cedar St., Santa Cruz. scruzclimate.org. Free.
Art Seen
Sesnon Gallery’s ‘Multiples’
This exclusive exhibition will feature approximately 60 selected works, from a total of over 200, that make up the Parkett Collection housed at the School of Fine Arts, University of Castilla La Mancha’s Contemporary Art Archives and Collections in Cuenca, Spain. This exhibition highlights non-traditional mediums, fostering the engagement of students, scholars and diverse populations with the works of acclaimed contemporary artists. UCSC’s Sesnon Gallery is the only public educational institution in the nation that’s exhibiting this particular selection of work—it’s literally one of a kind.
INFO: Show opens Wednesday, Oct. 2, with a reception 5-7pm. UCSC Sesnon Art Gallery, 1156 High St., Santa Cruz. art.ucsc.edu/sesnon. Free. Photo: Katharina Fritsch.
Saturday 9/28
Elkhorn Slough Reserve Open House and Plant Fair
Celebrate the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve—and National Estuaries Week—at the Elkhorn Slough Reserve Open House and Native Plant Fair. There will be information sessions with local land stewards and researchers, arts and crafts, microscope activities at the learning lab, and a plant fair for gardeners. Plus, there will be tacos, burritos and drinks available all day to fuel the walks and talks.
Oh boy(s)! Gordo Gustavo’s is back with some company! You don’t want to miss this one. After a three-month break, they’re back at it with the local dumpling bandits at Full Steam Dumpling. The two are collaborating to bring you a special menu filled with delicate, juicy smoked meats nestled in classic dim sum doughs. A little package of smoky, tasty love. Expect a Smoked Brisket Bao, Oak-Smoked Pork Gyozas, Pickled and Smoked Shiitake Crystal Dumplings, some super spicy Pan-Fried Noodles with Fire-Grilled Chicken, and a whole lot more! There will be a bunch of local brews on tap, so come thirsty and hungry.
INFO: 5pm. Santa Cruz Food Lounge, 1001 Center St., Santa Cruz. Free entry.
Friday 9/27-Sunday 10/13
Actors’ Theatre’s ‘Company’
Santa Cruz County Actors’ Theatre, the brains and brawn behind the annual sold-out 8 Tens At Eight Short Play Festival, is concluding this year’s season with Stephen Sondheim’s award-winning musical Company. Through a series of vignettes, the production’s main character Robert is a New York bachelor who learns of the perils and pleasures of love, marriage, dating, and divorce from his married friends during his birthday. This is Actors’ Theatre’s first musical production, and is ushered in by Director Andrew Ceglio (a Cabrillo Stage favorite), with Daniel Goldsmith as musical director (seen this summer conducting the pit orchestra for Cabrillo Stage’s Into The Woods). There is of course a powerhouse cast, including local favorites like Bobby Marchessault, Lori Rivera, Melissa Harrison, and more.
INFO: 8pm Fridays and Saturdays, 3pm Sundays. Center Stage Theater, 1001 Center St., Santa Cruz. sccat.org. $29-$32. Photo: Jana Marcus.
The setting is irresistible. Fragrant with herbs, flowers and rich soil, the Life Lab Garden is tucked into a few vibrant acres next to the UCSC Center for Agroecology’s hilltop farm overlooking the Monterey Bay.
From every spot on this effectively designed outdoor learning arena, you can inhale the Earth and see the ocean. Chickens curious about human animals strut around their palatial enclosure, ready to be held and admired by visiting children. Ten-foot-tall sunflowers tower over young visitors from local schools, who come to learn the fundamentals of air, soil, water, and how plants grow during field trips.
What happens here is highly interactive learning, perfumed by the aromas of well-cultivated gardens. This is the root of the influential Life Lab program, which has now spread to blooming classrooms throughout Santa Cruz County, Pajaro Valley and the entire country. In garden classrooms at their own schools, youngsters in grades K-5 learn garden-based science, cooking and nutrition—dynamic skills to fuel a lifetime of environmental literacy, healthy eating and love of nature. In alliance with Next Generation science strategies, the Life Lab-initiated garden classrooms prepare young people for careers in the sciences, growing the future.
Since the program began at Green Acres School in 1979, Life Lab has hosted thousands of local school children, who as adults have brought their own children to the site near the UCSC Farm and Garden for summer camp programs and nature visits. The vigorous immediacy of the Life Lab project has changed lives, and this year it celebrates 40 years of inviting children into the garden.
The Garden
Visitors enter the Life Lab garden through the Louise Cain Gatehouse, renovated into a functional meeting space that preserves the old stonework footprint. School field trips—over 2,500 kids from 50 schools each year—bring children up for a welcome meet-and-greet at the shady amphitheater just up the trail, before they head out to explore the bee hives, orchards and herb beds beyond.
Don Burgett, Life Lab’s executive director, gives me a quick tour. He’s been with LifeLab for eight years, and before that was development director for the Organic Farming Research Foundation. Burgett, like most of the Life Lab team, came to his work through the Center for Agroecology at UCSC’s Farm and Garden. “That’s how we can serve these kids,” he says. “With our resident staff, who train dozens of interns each year up here. It’s an introductory activity—a bit of hands-on science education.”
A stand of huge favas in full bloom shelters a circular seating area. In one sitting, young visitors can learn about cover crops, as well as the ingredients for a tasty dish of pasta.
At another gathering spot, they’ll learn the six major plant parts—horticultural STEM, where they will discuss and draw plants, or even dress up in costumes of their favorites.
“We’ve started inviting stories from past Life Lab visitors,” Burgett says. “We’re beginning to track the kids who have come through the program through multiple generations. Many who come up to visit are the children of people who were camp kids themselves during the summers. This whole place is about the love of learning.”
OUTSIDE INFLUENCESAn aerial view of the Life Lab Garden Classroom on the grounds of the UCSC Farm and Garden.
We come to a miniature apple orchard. Various learning stations dot the garden; most are circular in design, so that children can gather around a central leader or exchange ideas easily among themselves. A weather station with ways to measure temperature and wind sits next to a pond and a tunnel arbor for birdwatching.
“In fall, it’s very farm-to-table,” Burgett continues. “They visit the apple orchard, pick some fruit, then press it into cider they can make and enjoy. There’s a corn station in the kitchen where they learn how to make and grind masa into tortillas. Then make a garden-foraged salsa. They even make their own butter. In winter, nutrition is the focus—herbs, roots, chards.”
From chickens to compost is an easy conceptual transition, as is using a berry patch as a source for making fresh-fruit popsicles.
I’m dazzled by the intimate scale of this ingeniously equipped garden classroom—a thought-provoking Disneyland for children who might not have their own home gardens or easy access to the cycles of nature.
We move up into a small showpiece orchard. “The field trips then break into three smaller groups, led by interns,” Burgett says, and smiles. “It’s all about the magic of transformation.”
Organic Development
The newest addition to Life Lab’s strategic plan is brand-new Co-Executive Director Judit Camacho. “Her children had formative experiences in our programs,” Burgett notes, “and Judit brings a wealth of experience as a nonprofit executive director to our work.”
Camacho comes on board with deep roots in Santa Cruz County as a math major at UCSC. Her grooming through leadership programs led to her work as executive director of the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) at UCSC. Returning to Santa Cruz after a six-year family hiatus in Guadalajara, Camacho joined the leadership of Life Lab.
LEARNING CLIMATEThe Life Lab curriculum encourages kids to think about biology and the Earth’s ecosystems.
Camacho’s own children went through the Life Lab program, as students and then as interns, and her dream is for all children to participate in extraordinary programs like Life Lab. “I believe in the level of attention they get here, the happiness they feel, their minds just bloom,” she says. Camacho’s skills will be put to the test as development director, with Life Lab funding her primary challenge. “All students need space to dream. I’d like to see the garden classroom be part of the culture of every school. Learning where food comes from, how to care for the earth.”
Camacho is an advocate of Life Lab’s concept of garden classrooms within elementary schools. “There were always field trips, off-site experiences with school groups. But it’s such a critical thing to have gardens on the school property, where they have access to it all the time. During recess they love to go out and check on the garden.”
The main garden at UCSC and the school gardens feed into each other. “When they’re here at our Life Lab garden, young children can see themselves in new ways, and see themselves as scientists,” Camacho says. “They’re learning how to think about the Earth and biology. This is where it begins.”
Kathleen Mitani, assistant principal at Watsonville’s T.S. MacQuiddy Elementary School, sees the program as a valuable opportunity for students.
“Everyone is raving about the Life Lab garden classes,” Mitani says. “The lessons were accessible. Can’t tell you all how excited and appreciative that we have this program at MacQuiddy this year.”
With the addition of Camacho, Burgett believes, “We will be able to expand our reach and go deeper with our mission.”
Camacho’s energy is infectious. “There is a lot to do here,” she says.
The Vision
The motto says it all: Life Lab cultivates children’s love of learning, healthy food and nature through garden-based education. Founded in 1979 in Live Oak, the Life Lab office trailer became a tenant of the University in 1988. A model teaching garden—a classroom in a garden—was built in 2000.
“We are separate from the university, but were always connected with the farm,” says Burgett. “That was the big strategic theme.”
The view of the Monterey Bay glistening in the distance was instrumental in sweetening the recipe. “We established gardens with schools, and by the late ’80s these programs were getting state and federal attention, such as National Science Foundation grants for a curriculum developed for K-5 Life Lab sciences,” says Burgett. “The next step was to disseminate the model. We offered workshops for educators and have trainers all over the country.”
In the 1990s, momentum grew. “There was a ‘share it with the world’ expansion of the Life Lab concept,” Burgett says, “but that tapered when policies shifted in the 2000s. We planted seeds—not all took. So we contracted in size, ramped up here and shifted focus back to the local garden classroom.”
The current plan includes serving 4,000 Pajaro Valley Unified School District students year-round in the coming school year in nearly half of all district elementary schools (7 of 16), and more than 6,000 children total across Santa Cruz County.
“Students of today need to have a positive relationship and connection with nature to help them care for the environment,” says Kevin Beck, a second-grade teacher at Watsonville’s Starlight Elementary School. “This program is a huge piece to building that connection.”
Team Effort
Handling two major thrusts of Life Lab’s mission—teacher training and curriculum building—are Burgett’s colleagues Whitney Cohen and John Fisher. “The demand for our program was insane.” recallsCohen, Life Lab’s education director and teacher training coordinator. Cohen designs the Life Lab curriculum, leads educator workshops nationwide and works with field administrators to design lesson plans for each school as templates throughout the country.
“In the past six years, we’ve renewed our focus on the Pajaro Valley. We work in seven elementary schools. And we designed a two-acre Blooming Classroom in Watsonville with paid garden coordinators in some schools. Parcel tax provides pretty solid support here in Santa Cruz,” says Cohen.“We have to create a culture that includes this garden classroom. Life Lab educators are helping the teachers sustain, not simply start up, the gardens.”
As Burgett notes, “You have to build a culture first. You can’t simply gift a garden and expect it to perpetuate itself.”
One of the original builders of the garden classroom, John Fisher developed programming for children and UCSC interns, and is now the director of programs and partnerships, focusing on sharing Life Lab models across the state and country. As outreach coordinator for the school garden support organization, his job is to build a broader network.
“We constantly work on how to better sustain these gardens. We now have a national forum, webinars and leadership institutes. We train trainers,” says Fisher, who like everyone involved in Life Lab has a science degree, spent time as a grower here and abroad, and apprenticed with the UCSC Agroecology program.
“We explore ways to support best practices for our participants’ own regions—Hawaii vs. South Dakota, for example,” he says.
The Life Lab model has been borrowed, imitated, modified, and replanted across the country, he tells me, by groups like Edible Schoolyard, KidsGardening, FoodCorps, and Big Green.
The internship program for teens and undergraduates trains the next generation of Life Lab educators. “Over 80 come here each year, and then continue to work in other blooming classrooms,” says Fisher. “They learn to develop lessons, learn how to connect with children, and work with them. Reconnecting with our roots is the whole project.”
TEACHING ASSISTANTSLife Lab co-directors Judit Camacho and Don Burgett.
Garden classroom expenses run close to $200,000 annually, half of that camp-related, the rest in field-trip costs. Since 2015, most of the funding has been private.
“LifeLab does not receive any local public funds,” says Burgett. “New major commitments amounting to $1 million over three years have allowed the project to hire three new staff and expand national outreach.” But more is needed.
Life Lab’s garden classroom finds support in other ways as well. Carolyn Rudolph, owner of Charlie Hong Kong restaurant, donates all the food for intern training.
“Kids come and cook with us, and learn about vegetables every year. I would always ask the Life Lab kids to come. They would show up, and we’d all dress up as vegetables,” Rudolph recalls. “Then I found out that they were paying for lunches during their teacher training period. So I said we would donate lunch.”
Rudolph, who takes her granddaughters up to visits at the Life Lab garden, also takes her management team and lunch organizers up to visit.
“Eating healthy should be a birthright, not reserved for people who can afford to pay high prices for food,” she says.
The Next Generation
As coordinator for the Watsonville School Garden Programs, Aisling Mitchell manages interns and develops lesson plans for seven elementary schools. A native of Ireland, Mitchell got her degree in Biology at UCSC and worked through UCSC’s Agroecology program before serving with Food Corps in Oakland and Santa Cruz’s Homeless Garden Project.
Mitchell and I met at the garden classroom of Amesti Elementary School in Watsonville, joined by 24 rambunctious second graders. Once they got settled at three picnic tables in the shade of an oak tree, the children listened as Mitchell asked them about the seeds they find in the garden.
“This is hands-on, inquiry-based science,” she explains to me. “They’re not learning facts. They’re learning how to ask questions. We use the five-E method: engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate.”
Kindergarten classes learn the basics about sun, soil, air, and water, she says. They’ll come out into the garden from K-2nd grade in fall and spring, and then in cooking and nutrition classes, 3rd-5th grades, during the winters.
“This garden is a classroom,” Mitchell reminds me. “It’s not a planting garden.” Even so, the cherry tomato vines are bursting with ripe fruit, the sunflowers tall, and basil and fennel perfume the warm air.
A classroom teacher had come out with the little ones, partly to help keep everybody focused, and partly to see what the kids are learning in the garden. Mitchell is responsible for what’s learned in the school gardens: “I recruit, hire, train, and develop curriculum,” she says.
Life Lab has partnered with Watsonville schools, and thanks to a generous flower grower, now has land on which it has started a 2-acre blooming classroom close to Pajaro Valley schools.
“I have a challenge for you today,” Mitchell announces. “Close your eyes and think of all the ways that humans travel.” The kids squirm with excitement. They close their eyes. “Now turn to the person on your right, and tell them your answer.” Next she invites them to share and writes their answers on the board.
Mitchell then asks the children how seeds get from one place to another, and as they raise their hands, eager to answer, she writes down their responses. Each picnic table is equipped with brightly colored markers and paper for the children draw and label seeds.
“It’s got an academic core. This is not an extra recess,” she says. “The children learn about caring for the Earth. And there are lots of perks–it’s fun, and the children get to be outdoors. We let the kids know that this is an organic garden, and what that means.”
There’s also a strong focus on literacy and English instruction. Mitchell writes the questions and the children’s answers on the large newsprint pad.
Next, they think about how seeds travel. Mitchell encourages them to make connections. You can practically watch the lightbulbs turn on in each 7-year-old head as they draw the different varieties of seeds she distributes. Absorbed in coloring, the children produce drawings that are inventive, wild, silly, and overflowing with energy. Soon their 45-minute visit to this Life Lab blooming classroom will be over. But these lessons will stay with them for a lifetime.
Celebrate 40 years of the Life Lab program on Sept. 29, at the UCSC Farm, as part of the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems (CASFS) Harvest Festival. Life Lab will host family-oriented activities and a cake cutting. Help them blow out the candles, 12:30-5pm. The 40th Gala Dinner is at Hotel Paradox on Sunday, Oct. 13. lifelab.org/event/40th-birthday-celebration.
Social documentarian Michelle E. Aguilar was in the middle of an MFA program at UCSC and looking for a new subject for a film when she was approached by Monika Egerer, a grad student in the school’s environmental studies department. It was 2015, and Egerer was conducting research in the Beach Flats Community Garden, also known as El Jardín de la Comunidad de la Playa. The 20-year-old communal green space, she told Aguilar, was in jeopardy.
The concept drew Aguilar in, the filmmaker remembers, because the story was happening right in that moment. Also, the garden, which is owned by the Santa Cruz Seaside Company, fascinated her.
“There are a lot of community gardens in Santa Cruz, but this one is so incredibly unique,” she says. “The way that they grow, and their farming techniques and traditions, the heirloom seeds they’ve brought from El Salvador and Guatemala and Mexico—what they’re growing there is not like anything I’ve seen anywhere north of the border.”
The Seaside Company, which owns and operates the Beach Boardwalk, signaled in 2015 that it planned to take back the land and use it for its own landscaping purposes. Between July 2015 and April 2016, Aguilar captured more than 300 hours of footage as the story unfolded—documenting coalition meetings, City Council meetings, fundraisers, marches, and the seasonal rhythms of the garden itself.
The hardest part, she says, was staying behind the camera.
“While I was filming, I just wanted to help,” she says. “I knew I was capturing footage to create this documentary that would eventually help down the road, but at the time everything felt so dire. I was capturing all this footage that was so emotional, showing how important the space was, but I really wanted to be able to do something at that time.”
Once she saw the community rallying around the gardeners, Aguilar says she felt better about her documentarian role and more confident that her work could help in the long run.
Through an outpouring of community support, protest and negotiations, the garden was partially saved from the Seaside Company’s bulldozers with a three-year lease, which that Seaside and the city agreed to extend last year. Aguilar’s short documentary No Place To Grow premiered Thursday, Sept. 19 at the Museum of Art and History, with about 75 people crowding into a small room to attend the event.
After the film, audience members talked about protecting the garden for the long-term, with some suggesting aggressive tactics, like pressuring City Council to use eminent domain to force a sale of the property. Others wanted to start a fund for the purchase of that or another property. Some asked supporters to sign a petition supporting the garden.
Aguilar said she hopes the film will keep the conversation going in the Beach Flats and beyond. “Other communities are dealing with similar issues of gentrification and land rights and green space and food sovereignty,” she said. “This isn’t unique to just the Beach Flats.”
The Beach Flats Community Garden agreement will be up for another renewal at the end of the year 2021.
Seaside Company spokesperson Kris Reyes tells GT via email that his employer is “open and willing to extending the existing lease.”
STEM LEARNING
For more than 20 years now, the Beach Flats Community Garden has been a haven for residents of the predominantly low-income neighborhood that sits in the Boardwalk’s shadow.
In 1994, a few residents of the Beach Flats neighborhood began growing food in a vacant lot that until then had sprouted only graffiti, trash and burnt-out cars.
The Santa Cruz Department of Parks and Recreation rented the half-acre property on behalf of the gardeners, signing a year-to-year lease for the cost of the property tax with the Seaside Company. The intention was originally to find a permanent home for the garden, but land in the Beach Flats is scarce, and the garden stayed put.
Over the next two decades, El Jardín de la Comunidad de la Playa grew into a sanctuary of tranquility in a sea of concrete, traffic and rollercoaster screams. The gardeners planted corn, beans, tomatoes, peppers, squash, chayote, marigolds, cactus, fruit trees and more, helping to feed a community that often struggles to afford basic necessities.
“The community really relied on the space for nutrition and organic food,” said Aguilar. “There’s really no other green space in the Beach Flats community. It’s a half-acre garden surrounded by concrete. One of the subjects of the film called it an island.”
The film offers a glimpse into the effort to save the garden, focusing mainly on Emilio Martinez Casteñeda, who worked in the garden nearly every day for 20 years.
In interviews and at tense City Council meetings, the documentary shows the grief of the gardeners pondering what the loss of the space would mean for the Beach Flats community.
At one meeting captured in the film, supporter Chris Cuadrado says, “In fighting for this, we’re not just fighting for this specific garden, we’re fighting to preserve an infrastructure of resources that are for the Latino community here in Santa Cruz.”
As it wraps up, the film documents a bittersweet agreement to continue the lease on 60% of the land, and the contentious work of tearing out and reorganizing garden plots. The film ends—on a cautiously optimistic note—with Casteñeda planting a new crop of corn.
Aguilar is fundraising to pay off the film’s post-production costs. She plans on submitting it to festivals and releasing it for educational distribution to universities, libraries and the internet.
PLOTTING AHEAD
City Manager Martín Bernal says that the struggle over the garden is only one component in the broader aim of improving livability for Santa Cruz’s working people.
In 2018, when the lease came up for renewal again, Bernal went down to the garden to help translate and to answer questions. He says that most of the people he met were more concerned about the cost of housing than the actual garden.
“They were mostly interested in getting assistance or had concerns about their housing situation,” he says. “That was at the top of their list of issues and concerns. The garden was a part of that, obviously, but I think for them, what good is a garden if they’re not going to be able to continue to live there?”
Last year, some councilmembers wanted city staff to focus on doing whatever they could to preserve the garden, while others supported a more holistic approach to address affordable housing and the community’s wider needs. Bernal says that, for example, the city could stipulate that new developments in that area include community garden space.
The current lease on the Beach Flats Community Garden ends on Dec. 31, 2021. But Reyes, the Seaside Company spokesperson, says in an email that the current agreement has worked out well. At this point, there is “nothing to negotiate,” he says.
“The existing garden is a beautiful community space,” he writes. “We are proud to have played a role in contributing to this space for over 20 years. And we want to do our part so the garden can continue to thrive.”
For more information on the garden, visit beachflatsgarden.org. The Beach Flats Garden Harvest Festival will be Sunday, Oct. 6 from 12-5pm.
Tamarah Minami, an eighth grader at Mission Hill Middle School, has been busy with extracurricular work the past couple of weeks. Her project is a big one. Tamarah and her classmates want to ensure the planet they call home gets a fair shot at asustainable future.
Tamarah, 13, has been leading weekly meetings with students from other schools to organize local support for the Global Climate Strike on Friday, Sept. 27—in which students around the world will walk out of their classrooms and into the streets, demonstrating against the forces behind the climate crisis. She believes adults have underestimated her generation.
“And now we are strong because so many young people are speaking up,” Tamarah says.
Climate organizations, student associations, labor unions, and faith-based groups are collaborating on the strike week that began Friday, Sept. 20, and will culminate this Friday, Sept. 27. Over the past year, high school climate protests have been spreading around the world with increasing momentum, thanks in large part to Greta Thunberg. The 16-year-old Swedish student inspired students everywhere when she first began her “Friday for Future” school strikes in the fall of 2018, making her a worldwide icon. Earlier this month, Thunberg sailed to New York City to address the United Nations Climate Action Summit. Tamarah cites Thunberg’s activism as an inspiration.
Last year, a report from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that humans must cut carbon emissions in half by 2030 and reach zero emissions within 20 years after that. The findings spurred international calls for action.
Grant Black, a politics major at UCSC, is a co-coordinator of the local hub of the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led climate justice organization that’s received considerable attention in its support of the Green New Deal. Black has been helping to organizing Santa Cruz’s student strikes.
“We are telling politicians to either step up or step aside, because we only have 11 years to address this crisis, and less time to address it politically,” Black says, “so we are fighting hard for a Green New Deal for all people.”
Young people like Black have amassed considerable support for their green vision and a brighter tomorrow. Issara Willenskomer sees himself as something of an “elder advisor” to the Sunrise Movement’s local hub. He emphasizes that adults are playing a secondary, supportive role in the youth-led effort.
“The young are the ones with actual skin in the game,” he says.
With thewalk-out coming up on Friday, Santa Cruz City Schools Superintendent Kris Munro tells GT that state law “doesn’t allow us to excuse student absences for walk-outs or political activities.” She adds, however, “We believe in supporting student voices and encouraging good environmental stewardship.” Munro says there will be several in-school activities related to the climate crisis planned for various campuses.
In solidarity with the youth-led student strike, an array of local climate activist groups are hosting teach-ins, guerilla street theater events and panel discussions.
Pauline Seales, 75, a key organizer of Santa Cruz Climate Action Network, stresses that all of this climate activism has a non-violent focus, so parents don’t have to worry about their kids participating.
Seales, who earned a physics degree from Leeds University in the United Kingdom, compares the world’s nations to a large fleet of buses. The whole fleet, she explains, has been heading toward a cliff for some time.
“Most of them have got the message that there is, in fact, this precipice ahead,” she says. “Many have begun slowing down, and some have even begun turning around. Some have made a lot of progress on that, and some are just starting. But we, in the American bus, have as a driver a guy who is shouting, ‘There is no precipice! No reason to worry! Press on—full speed ahead!’ But the people in the bus are beginning to get pretty darned upset.”
A schedule of events is available on the Climate Action Network’s website, scruzclimate.org.
Last week, Nuz called out neighborhood activists for using the idea of transitional encampments to fuel a recall effort against city councilmembers Drew Glover and Chris Krohn.
Those same recallers have, of course, not suggested any better ideas to address homeless issues. But zooming out, there are bigger themes at play here. It is time for this town tostop arguing and start fixing its problems. Santa Cruz’s failure to do that is a pandemic that stretches beyond a conservative coalition of anti-Krohn groups.
You need look no further than Krohn himself.
Take for example the Santa Cruz City Council’sshort-sighted move last month to unceremoniouslyax the Corridor Zoning Update, a years-old effort that aimed to plan forsmarter housing growth—much of it affordable—on Santa Cruz’s four busiest streets. Although Krohn and Glover have not gotten much heat for it, they both voted to kill that plan, in spite of all the ranting and raving the two of them do about the “housing crisis” and “struggling” renters. They did so because—their own grandstanding aside—a huge part of their political coalition is privileged NIMBY single-family homeowners, some of whom happen to live a couple blocks from the busy streets where we really should be upzoning for denser housing. Though it was good policy, the plan was a work in progress. It was on the backburner, while staff focused on implementing the Housing Blueprint Subcommittee recommendations. But in a surprise 4-3 vote, the council’s super-liberal majority pulled off a political stunt to toss the corridor plan out quickly, without any real public input. Planning staff will now have to do the council’s busywork involved in putting the corridor plan to bed, instead of the actually important work of making housing cheaper.
Since the vote, Krohnhas argued that there are other important progressive values besides housing affordability. Like “quality of life,” although—let’s be honest—that’s really just rich-people-speak for “no new buildings over two stories tall.”
It seems like an odd principle to stick to—especially considering that corridor development would be along busy bus routes, which is where California communities should be growing if we’re serious about cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Development along the corridors would reduce the spread of sprawling suburbanism across the region and make it easier for commuters to live without cars.
And this is where, when you look at it closely, Krohn’s world view starts falling apart.
Take his antics on the City Council, for instance. Whenever Krohn sees his more moderate colleagues declining to back him on the tenant protections he supports, he interrogatesthe other councilmembers, asking why they don’t care about renters. He hunts for rabid applause from supporters who show up to cheer him on. And given the current housing shortage, the sense of urgency is palpable. The truth is that protecting renters is great, but honestly—when you’re in a housing shortage—the best way to stop average rents from continuing to soar is to build housing. (At the very least, you could stand up for both types of solutions, if you truly cared.)
And yet, Krohn spent three years weaponizing his divisive rhetoric to undermine corridor upzoning. He then helped hammer the final nail into the corridor coffin on Aug. 27. After finally accomplishing his goal, Krohn flipped his logic on the housing crisis’ urgency. He’s found a new way to argue that he’s still the most “progressive” guy in the room, in spite of constantly finding unique reasons over the years to vote against housing projects and plans. He has conveniently come to discover a list of considerations to ponder besides housing. Like protecting the “livability” of homeowners, in this case.
Krohn defends his point of view by saying the corridor plan was unpopular, anyway. And maybe he’s got a point there. It’s almost like someone’s been campaigning against it!
Looking ahead, Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to sign the Housing Crisis Act of 2019 any day now. And when he does, last month’s anti-corridor vote will leave Santa Cruz in violation of state housing law.
Now, that is a development that won’t make Santa Cruz look too progressive.
My family and I have a New Year’s tradition, born of my daughter’s experience living in Korea.
We bypass staying up past midnight—a custom too freighted with booze and melancholia anyway. Instead, we rise before dawn and greet the sunrise on the beach, as the Koreans do. In our case, we largely have Seabright Beach in Santa Cruz to ourselves. Then it’s off to the best breakfast we’ll have all year, at the Crow’s Nest.
If Patti Smith’s new memoir Year of the Monkey is to be believed, a few years ago, while we were lingering over our crab omelettes and brioche, Smith herself was about a mile up the coast, stumbling alone around an unfamiliar waterfront looking for breakfast and, more urgently, coffee. She found the Ideal Bar and Grill—which was, alas, closed—then plopped herself down at a bench to brood.
Gifted with hindsight or clairvoyance, would I have abandoned my family to rescue Patti Smith from her coffee-less misery? Almost certainly. But The Year of the Monkey might have turned into a much different book.
Dreamy, lyrical, even hallucinatory, Monkey is a wistful chronicle of Smith’s life in 2016, and the latest in a series of her enormously successful memoirs, preceded by the National Book Award-winning phenomenon Just Kids (2010) and its follow-up M Train (2015).
The new book hinges on two significant losses in Smith’s life: the deaths of her close friend and music producer Sandy Pearlman, and even closer friend—and former lover—playwright Sam Shepard.
But it begins in Santa Cruz, on New Year’s Day, with Smith waking up at the iconic Dream Inn, which throughout the book she calls “the Dream Motel” as a way to take ownership of it and enlist it as the book’s central metaphor.
That New Year’s Day opening—Smith lost and alone in a part of Santa Cruz which is usually clogged with tourists, scrounging for a cup of Nescafe, and dialoguing with the Dream Inn sign—is key in setting a tone. A midwinter ghost-town vibe pervades this whole book, even as it follows Smith to San Diego, Venice Beach, Arizona, Kentucky, Seattle, and New York.
STREET POET
Before she was a publishing-industry powerhouse, before she was a punk-rock icon, Patti Smith was a street poet.
Considering that the world has consistently given her nothing but fame and applause for following her muse wherever it may take her, it’s no shock that her latest book defies all familiar categories, playfully exploring the seam between reality and fantasy. It’s full of half-buried dream imagery and mysterious characters who emerge from somewhere out of the American landscape. Smith herself calls this weird state of consciousness “skating along the fringe of dream,” and later, “more of a visitation, a prescience of things to come, like a tremendous swarm of gnats, black clouds obscuring the paths of children reeling on bicycles.”
Literal-minded readers looking for a documentary tone or for rockstar gossip are likely to come away perplexed, even mystified by this swirl of images, themes and references—Australia’s mystical Ayers Rock, Chilean novelist Roberto Bolaño, ’80s pop singer Belinda Carlisle, on and on. But fans of Smith’s previous memoirs should know the score by now. Smith’s poetic sensibility is driving the bus here, and anyone who takes Monkey on its own terms, as a 170-page prose poem, will be rewarded with a rich, kaleidoscopic narrative of surprises and insights.
Death and loss haunt nearly every sentence of this book—again, no shock to anyone who has experienced Patti Smith’s work. The political horror that accompanies any memory of 2016 is referenced only obliquely—“an avalanche of toxicity infiltrating every outpost” as she called the 2016 election. Instead, the beating heart of the book comes with Smith’s visits to Shepard at his Kentucky horse ranch. Shepard, nearly as admired in his artistic realm as Smith in hers, was afflicted with ALS in his final years. And Smith’s account of the once-virile playwright—no longer in control of his body, darkly commenting “We’ve become a Becket play”—is heartbreaking.
Smith, 72, has been as intimate with grief as any living artist, having survived the death of her first love and muse Robert Mapplethorpe and her husband, guitarist Fred “Sonic” Smith, along with countless others close to her. Her previous books (and her particularly strong late-1990s string of albums) have been fearless meditations on not just coping with loss, but learning to incorporate the memories and spirits of those she’s lost in her own dream of life.
She chronicles her string of losses in Monkey and adds, “Yet still I keep thinking that something wonderful is about to happen. Maybe tomorrow.”
