"It's a Beautiful Day. Have You Had Your Coffee?" (Introducing the FoodShed Planet Gift Guide for Holidays and Other Beautiful Days)

So my friend Ashley and I walk into the Clarkston Community Center, right smack in the middle of a community that has served as a prime relocation destination for refugees from more than 52 war-torn countries over the past 15 years.  I had been to this location to visit its community garden not long ago.  It's also just across a parking lot from the blue house where the Fugees Family, whose story is told in Warren St. John's excellent book Outcasts United, is holding its school while building at a permanent location.

We hear a group of people in a large room at the end of the hall and head towards it.  We find out later that they are Bhutanese refugees (I don't know enough yet to know this instantly). I discover later that the majority of them have come with the help of aid organizations in 2008, and that there are more than 5,000 here in Georgia already, that they were peasant farmers with little formal education, that they don't have the skills needed to find jobs here, and, of course, they don't speak English. (Here is a Bhutanese refugee blog with lots of information.)

That's where Jay comes in.  Jay is a volunteer teacher of English as a Second Language.  He is tall and lanky and commands the room easily.  He seems to know everyone's name and smiles often.  He is standing in front of a blackboard and he writes today's lesson on the board.  It is a sentence.  It says, "It's a beautiful day."  

Ashley and I smile when he writes it, and we notice some of the women are watching us closely.  One older woman next to us had said tentatively but proudly when we walked in, "Good . . . morning" and had smiled broadly when we answered her in return.  She seemed relieved that her words were understood.  I realized then that we were the token American women here.

Jay asks who can read the sentence.  We hear murmurs throughout the room, and suddenly an older man wearing a traditional Bhutanese hat says haltingly, "It's . . . a . . . beautiful . . . day."

There are smiles all around, and Jay moves on.  He writes another sentence, "It is a beautiful day" and then spends time showing the difference between "It's" and "It is" and how they mean the same thing.  He accentuates the "is", as in "It IS a beautiful day."  And increasingly, both Ashley and I realize, it is.

Jay goes on to one final sentence.  He writes, "Have you had your coffee?"  This one is easier for the students because, we find out later, the Nepali word for "coffee" is the same as in English.  Or, as Ashley suggests, the English word is the same as in Nepali.

These simple sentences echo in our heads all week.  In fact, each time we talk now, one of us says:

"It's a beautiful day." 

The other answers:

"It IS a beautiful day." 

And the first one asks:

"Have you had your coffee?"  

I am so moved by the simplicity of these words that I create a blog with a daily photo as a meditation or reminder of that ESOL class.  See here.  I don't know how long I will keep it going (the last thing I need is another blog), but for this week it has been nice.  In fact, it has been a gift to me to take a moment to look back at photos I've taken on or around each day's date since I first got that "magic camera" over four years ago.

And this gets me thinking about gifts, and I remember just last year that I bought a basket made by Bhutanese refugees at my local farmers market.  It has been sitting on my desk all year, holding things on which I'm working. 

The baskets are made with kudzu, an invasive vine brought to the Southeastern United States 50 years or so ago (and which I still believe have bio-fuel or cancer-fighting potential, and will turn out to be a major plant of importance) (See this post about Channing Cope and His Vine of Hope.)  For now, people with nothing but hope use it to make something beautiful.  Because it IS a beautiful day.

And back to the idea of gifts, I'm thinking of the holidays already and my ever-growing go-to list for "gifts that give twice" (to a recipient and to people in need somehow) and so, today, I launch the: 

FoodShed Planet Gift Guide for Holidays and Other Beautiful Days 

I'll add to this over the next two months, but please know that these are all gifts I have personally purchased for myself, given as gifts over the years, or have on my list as things I want to try as gifts this year. 

I'll mention a detail or two about them and link to stories I may have written in the past.  So, kick back, relax, and take a look at these gift ideas.  

But first, have you had your coffee?

1. Land of a Thousand Hills coffee

2. Equal Exchange Chocolate, Tea, Nuts, and Coffee.  Equal Exchange's fundraising option for schools let schools earn money and it offers lesson plans to teach children about how these products are farmed and sold in a way that benefits local communities. 

 

3. Fugees Family watch 

(buy one and two refugee students each get one as well)

4. Ten Thousand Villages This is my hands-down, number one, never-fails place to buy gifts.

5. One World Futbol 

That link takes you to my friend, Betty's, post about this project, which is where I heard about it. For every ball you buy, one is donated.  I love this ball! (Meet Betty here.)

6. IdBids.  My friend Debbie designed these products to teach children about the environment.  They are now distributed nationally at REI and other stores and are finding their way specifically into kindergarten classrooms (a great teacher gift!)

7. Inca Kids.  Fair Trade gifts from Peru and other South American countries that support local artisans. I haven't bought from this company yet, but a woman named Gigi owns it and wrote me such a beautiful story about how and why she started it that it is on my radar for this year.  I especially like this belt for teens (shhhh, don't tell my older daughter), and there are terrific Alpaca hats and gloves.  In the Atlanta area, Inca Kids products will be sold at a new shop in Buckhead (326 Pharr Road) named 5Continents, opening October 8.  You can bet I'll be there this holiday season!  Here--from the media release: 5Continents is a new concept in retail in the city; collective of artisans and fair trade initiatives focusing on eco-friendly and sustainable products from all five corners of the world.

 

8.  Klean Kanteen.  This BPA-free, stainless steel water bottle now comes in a wide variety of options, include the I-wish-I-had-it-when-my-kids-were-little sippy cup.

9.  Books, books, and more books.  This is the gift-of-choice in our house (both my daughters are huge readers.  In fact, my younger daughter has her own little book review blog thing goin' on).  Here are two of my faves, by the same photgrapher/writer team.  Here are the rest of the books I recommend.

10.  And of course, TOMS Shoes (for every pair you buy, a pair is donated.) FYI, I wore my TOMS shoes while walking an average of 10 miles a day in New York City and Washington D.C. this summer and my feet felt terrific the whole time.

10.  A whole year's worth of ideas from Betty's blog. Betty has been giving away $100 a day every single day in 2010 to various causes, and writing about them.  If you are trying to match a gift to the recipient's specific passions (which is a nice thing to do), then you're sure to find one that works for you here.

"It's a Beautiful Day. Have You Had Your Coffee?" (Introducing the FoodShed Planet Gift Guide for Holidays and Other Beautiful Days)

Are You the Alan of Your Neighborhood?

Remember my neighbor, Alan?  Here, I'll remind you.  Here's Alan of the Appalachian Trail.  And Alan of the Waterless Car Wash.  And Alan of the Environmentally-Sound Disposal of Paint Project.  

Oh, and wait, he was also the one who found the roofer who tried to work with me to recycle the entire neighborhood's shingles.  

And, yes, he's also the person who organized the voluntary landscaping service for any neighbor interested.  Now the majority of mowers and blowers happen just one day a week instead of every single day in our neighborhood, thereby reducing noise pollution, and increasing safety for walkers and bike riders. 

And I almost forgot about how he removed all the hardware and wood so we could recycle all those mailboxes when new ones were installed.  

And, yes, he even changed the light bulbs at the front of the neighborhood to energy-efficient ones. 

And it's no surprise that our neighborhood recycles at almost double the rate of the rest of our city, partly because Alan encourages it.

Well, after years of successful tomato production, Alan and his wife, Fran (Fran,I need a photo of you!) just put in their first raised garden bed. 

Not only that, but Alan assembled these benches and put them in a public area, per the request of neighborhood families whose children are riding their bikes every single day in the street in one central spot in our neighborhood (and no, it's not a cul-de-sac, interestingly).  My younger daughter said to me the day she saw the benches, "Can we go for a walk after dinner tonight and sit on the benches?"  Guess what?  Half the neighborhood had the same idea.  It's amazing what two little benches can do to build community.  And it continually amazes me what one person can do to make a difference.

Ya' got someone like Alan in your neighborhood?  Thank him or her.  And offer to help occasionally.  They are not usually the type to complain, or to ask for help. 

Thank you, Alan Romanchuck.

Have no one like Alan in your neighborhood?  That person can be you.  As the poet Rumi put it: You are looking for miracles.  That's the problem.  You are the miracle.

Are You the Alan of Your Neighborhood?

How You Spend Your Days Is How You Spend Your Life, and Other Realizations While Looking at Rot

The pink dawn exploding across the mourning sky of September 11, I rode my bike to the community garden, a place where I expected to find peace and life.  My worldview has changed greatly over these last nine years, partly due to the plethora of books I've read such as the excellent What is The What, by Dave Eggers, about the Lost Boys of Sudan, and I now realize that truly inconceivable atrocities happen every day and the small, positive signs of good in the world must be recognized and nurtured.

And so, my reaction to something seemingly small appears trivial.  Insignificant.  But when I got to the garden, I felt slapped in the face every where I turned by death. 

Death, death, and more death.

Oh, sure, there was the overwhelmingly successful greens growing table, from which we've already harvested for the food pantry even though these greens should not even be growing yet in our climate.  Through the daily attention of an 81-year-old farmer and  the clever addition of a shade screen, however, they are.  And that is not the only vibrant spot of life.  There is much to admire.  And, frankly, I've shown you that side of the garden many times already.  I like to focus on that, on the positive. But I also want to give you complete honesty, and frankly, our garden has the same major problem that gardens everywhere has.  Apathy.

A handful of beds in our garden seem abandoned. Unloved.  Uncared for.  Unappreciated.  As a result, these beds are filled with rotting food.  In fact, I think we could have literally doubled our Ton for Hunger food pantry donations (and met our 2010 goal) if food in personal plots had not gone to waste.

Other by-products of this rotting food include the proliferation of bugs and the potential attraction of other animal life that would thereby affect the entire garden, plus the open invitation to theft since it appears as if our produce is not valued enough to harvest.  

What becomes quite clear is that being part of a community garden means that members have a responsibility to each other, not only to mulch around their beds and to volunteer three measly hours in an entire year, but to keep their beds productive and harvested (all as required in the contracts they willingly sign, and that more than 25 families on the waiting list would be happy to do).  What also becomes quite clear is that rules not enforced are worth nothing.  I'd rather have no rules than ones that mean nothing.

I'm trying to focus on feeding people.  In fact, I'm now off the community garden board of directors ( I had agreed to be on it for a year) and am specifically focused on outreach to encourage the creation and expansion of more gardens with dedicated donation programs to those in need. A handful of people, some not even garden members, have volunteered to serve as stewards of the food pantry beds at our community garden, and my friend Sally is running that program now, along with my extraordinarily dedicated friend, Bob, who had not planted so much as a radish in his life just a year ago and whose food pantry beds are consistently the most productive.

I've been asked specifically to help with Garden Isaiah again, a truly beautifully-designed garden at a local temple that is 100% dedicated to feeding those in need and is in continual need itself of stewardship and expertise, although a hard-working, generous team of leaders has emerged since last I reported on this.

I don't know why I keep getting called back to that garden:

* Perhaps because a bench dedicated to my friend is in it, and I feel a responsibility to her and her family. 

* Perhaps because I know what love Roy put into that garden, and I understand his need to step back so that others could step forward.  (See Making Space So Others Can Serve here.)

* Perhaps because I've seen how a woman named Peggy stepped up to do things she had never done and continues to do them with such grace.  

* Perhaps simply because Robert rode his bike to the community garden yesterday morning and asked me.  

* Perhaps because I know I have so much yet to learn.  

* Perhaps for other reasons I don't yet understand.

I'm not questioning it right now.  I'm just answering the call by working it directly into my life.  This past Labor Day Weekend, for the second year in a row, my daughters and I did our "life pies."  These are visual representations of how we want to spend the limited resource we each have of 168 hours a week.  This originated from a quote I heard once that said, "How you spend your days is how you spend your life" and the realization that we could create the lives of our dreams if we, first, defined them, and then actively accommodated the time needed for them into each and every day. (I got a particular kick out of the fact that my younger daughter built in time specifically for "thinking."  And my older daughter's life pie reminds me of the recent World Cup game schedule wheel!)

We plot this out on paper, and then transfer it to actual pies so that we can taste the sweetness of life.  Mine was lemon merengue this year.  My older daughter and I were, again, shocked to discover that even after work/school, sleep, chores, and all the other daily non-negotiables are considered, there are hours left in the day to make dreams come true.   Last year, as a result of this exercise, I stopped using Facebook because that time was more valuable to me elsewhere.   I also watch little to no television, and I attend as few meetings as possible (or try to double-up so that meetings and exercise or meetings and food pantry harvests happen at the same time).

This year, I've stopped calling my food growing efforts "gardening," because that sounds like a hobby and it's not a hobby to me.  I'm calling it food production and food management now.  And I have about 8 hours a week in my life pie for food production beyond my home garden.  I will be giving three hours of that to our community garden, and three hours to Garden Isaiah for the next few weeks, until the fall crops are in.  The other two hours go to all the other random requests that come in for advice about new school, home, community and other gardens.

I have to focus on this.  On planting seeds and feeding people.  Because if I take my eyes off of this, I see decay, neglect, and far worse things all over the world.  And I feel rotten.

How You Spend Your Days Is How You Spend Your Life, and Other Realizations While Looking at Rot

Move Over. The Kids Have Arrived.

* Emory University student Evan Crane is measuring the effect that the amount of surrounding green space has on the diversity, richness, and abundance of bees and other pollinators within 30 different community gardens in the metro Atlanta area, including ours.  He intends to determine whether this varies by social strata so that as urbanization increases, just policies regarding green space can be included in order to deliver pollinator benefits to both humans and the larger ecosystem. 

* Dunwoody High School junior Nicole Anderson organized a protest group of students when students were illegally banned from public street parking while the school is under construction.  This group felt like it was being treated unfairly and had no voice.  She is now the first youth in the newest city in the United States named to a citizen advisory committee (see Atlanta Journal-Constitution article about it here).  She was given an official seat at the table on the City of Dunwoody Transportation Commission by Councilor John Heneghan, pictured here.

* Elementary school students are taking action and filling the bike rack at the school where people said no one would walk or bike to school.

* Children of all ages are harvesting (and eating) fresh, organic vegetables from their own, community, and school gardens, many of which didn't exist a year ago.

* And the youth of our city showed up to advocate for allowing backyard chickens (which was denied by City Hall).  (And FYI, for the record, the Open Records Request showed 11 citizens wrote emails against  this ordinance.  11.  There were 48 in support. This does not appear to be the big, divisive brouhaha that it was made out to be, unless there truly were hundreds of phone calls and conversations against it, which, I suppose, is possible.)

Move over, folks, and make room.  The kids have arrived, and frankly, they want a voice in the choices that will make a measurable, sustainable difference in their futures.

Cities nationwide are embracing the positive energy and future potential impact provided by engaging the youth of communities in policy creation through youth commissions.  Take a look here at what's happening.  

If you are in a leadership position in your community in any way, shape or form, think about how you can include the voices of youth in your efforts.

And then slide over a bit.  The next generation has arrived.

Move Over. The Kids Have Arrived.