Renfrew-Collingwood Community News

News stories from the Renfrew-Collingwood community in East Vancouver

Category Archives: Arts & Culture


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Fresh and local: Weekly VanTech market garden starts Wednesday, May 28

BY MARILOU BOURDAGES

Veggies for sale at Van Tech market garden

Veggies for sale at Van Tech market garden. Photos courtesy of Fresh Roots

“This is as local as it gets,” says Marilou Bourdages, community coordinator with Fresh Roots Urban Farm Society. “Our vegetables are grown in VanTech Secondary School’s soil by students and neighbours, and are then sold back to the neighbourhood community, right on the school grounds!”

Fresh Roots Urban Farm Society, in collaboration with the Vancouver School Board (VSB), is transforming underutilized school grounds into schoolyard market gardens, creating productive farm fields that are used as outdoor classrooms by the school community.

A year ago, Fresh Roots and the VSB signed a first of its kind licensing agreement, plowing the way for one-quarter-acre schoolyard market gardens at David Thompson and Vancouver Technical (VanTech) Secondary Schools.

Fresh Roots grows community through growing food

The schoolyard market gardens are places where knowledge of food and health is shared between generations, cultures and languages. “We have students that come to the field, with elders hand in hand. They translate their grandparents gardening methods – basking in their families rich heritage,” explains Ilana Labow, co-director of Fresh Roots. Teachers also use the garden to achieve BC’s core curriculum objectives in various subjects like biology, physical education and English.

Starting May 28 until November, Fresh Roots will run a weekly market stand on Wednesdays from 3:00 to 6:00 pm at VanTech Secondary School.

Starting May 28 until November, Fresh Roots will run a weekly market stand on Wednesdays from 3:00 to 6:00 pm at VanTech Secondary School.

These gardens are not just for students

During the summer, neighbours can taste Fresh Roots’ locally grown produce by visiting their Good Food Markets. Starting late May until November, Fresh Roots will run a weekly market stand on Wednesdays from 3:00 to 6:00 pm at VanTech Secondary School. On May 28, for the first market of the year, lettuce, salad mix, radishes and turnips will be waiting for neighbours to take them home.

“The food is delicious and affordable,” says Melanie Beliveau, a teacher and resident in the community. “Every produce bought at the Good Food Market directly supports schoolyard grown crops and programming.”

Neighbours interested in supporting the market garden are also encouraged to commit to a weekly Veggie Box – customers pay up front for the entire season and in return get an assortment of delicious vegetables weekly. It is a wonderful way to support local agriculture and ensure that families have access to healthy, high quality food every week.

The season is already well underway

The amazing schoolyard garden at VanTech Secondary, 2600 East Broadway, was built with the help of students.

The amazing schoolyard garden at VanTech Secondary, 2600 East Broadway, was built with the help of students.

At VanTech, students and neighbours have been working in the garden since March, boosting the raised beds’ fertility by adding rich compost. The overwintering kale has been completely harvested to create space for this year’s crops. The head lettuce left the greenhouse and is now enjoying the sun outside, next to the beet and carrot seedlings. As the season progresses, the diversity of vegetables will keep growing. Everyone is welcome to drop by anytime and check out what is growing on.

“It doesn’t matter what language you speak, nor where you come from,” says Marc Schutzbank, co-director of Fresh Roots, “everyone has a relationship with food.”

Weekly Veggie Boxes!

Support the Schoolyard Market Garden by enjoying a weekly box of delicious vegetables. Pick up will take place at the VanTech Secondary Good Food Market, on Wednesdays from 3:00 to 6:00 pm.

  • $475 for 24 weeks of veggies; May – November
  • 10% off Fresh Roots’ Good Food Market
  • Sample weekly veggie box includes:

1 large leafy green (kale, chard or mustard)
1 salad creation (salad mix, spinach or head lettuce)
1 herb (cilantro, parsley or dill)
1 root vegetable (carrots, beets or turnips)
1 crop of the week (zucchini, beans or garlic)

For more information and to sign up, please visit: www.freshroots.ca

Marilou Bourdages has been passionate about urban agriculture and food for many years. Being able to work at engaging the community in the Schoolyard Market Gardens is a dream come true for her.

Copyright (c) 2014 Renfrew-Collingwood Community News


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Serving up a lot of fun and a bit of magic: Project Chef’s secret ingredients for health and nutrition

BY JULIE CHENG

Master Chef Barb shows the proper way to measure flour with the help of Chef Tiffany. Photo by Julie Cheng

Master Chef Barb shows the proper way to measure flour with the help of Chef Tiffany. Photo by Julie Cheng

“It’s time for the magic ingredient,” says Barb. “This makes bubbles when you add water.” As she measures the baking powder into the bowl, the kindergarten students, all together, let out an awe-filled, “Whoa!”

“Now I’m going to show you a fancy tool: It’s your finger!” she says, waving her index finger in the air. “But it must be a clean finger.”

Another huge “Whoa!” fills the room as she turns the flour into dough with the fancy kitchen gadget that’s her finger.

Watching this animated woman in action is a real treat. You can’t help but think, “These kids are so lucky” and “I wish I learned to cook from her.”

These lucky kindergarteners from Graham Bruce Elementary are learning to cook from Barb Finley, a school teacher for 25 years who later became a chef and has taught at the Dubrulle Culinary Institute and the Northwest Culinary Academy of Vancouver.

Chef Saman mixes the dough with the fanciest kitchen tool ever—her finger! Photo by Barb Finley

Chef Saman mixes the dough with the fanciest kitchen tool ever—her finger! Photo by Barb Finley

Barb started Project Chef in 2008 to teach children about wholesome food. This school year, Project Chef will run in a total of 14 schools in Vancouver, including Graham Bruce and Nootka schools, and cook with some 1,500 children and 800 parent and community volunteers—but there’s also a three-year wait list of more schools wanting this program.

At Graham Bruce, Barb and her team is running the Project Chef in Residence program, where they work for one month. From kindergarten to grade 7 and parents to teachers, everyone at the school learns to develop healthy attitudes toward food, make meals from scratch from whole foods, and, most of all, they learn that sharing food with people is a joyous thing. “It’s a total immersion,” explains Barb. “When the whole school is involved, that’s when magic really happens.”

The program buys local and organic as much as possible, from farmers markets. You can still get fresh greens in winter, says Barb. “Right now, there’s arugula and kale, and the wildest, wackiest carrots—the kids love them.”

Chefs Jeevan, Nathan and Aezen proudly display their pizza masterpiece. Photo by Michelle Fattore

Chefs Jeevan, Nathan and Aezen proudly display their pizza masterpiece. Photo by Michelle Fattore

From Day One, the kids commit to have “an open mind and an open mouth” – to try new foods. This week they’ve already learned to make Whole Wheat French Toast with Blueberry Sauce (which the kids “hoovered”), and Make-You-Strong Salad with Apple Juice Vinaigrette (one student said, “Chef Barb, I feel stronger already!”).

On the menu today is a dinner favourite: Speedy Whole Wheat Pizza. Barb’s staff, Brandon and Michelle, as well as volunteer Sharlyn and parent volunteers Sukh and Sonny, help the students as they grocery shop around the room and measure, mix, roll the dough and put their pizza together. The kindergarten chefs are excited with their pizza creations, saying it’s the best pizza ever.

Parent volunteer Sukh is the proud dad of two students at Graham Bruce. He says, “It’s a great program. The kids are having fun.”

Julie Cheng’s daughter, Kate, took part in Project Chef a few years ago at Grenfell Elementary. Kate would come home and talk about what she learned, like how to slice an apple so it looked like a star. Now a high school student, Kate is still cooking.

March is nutrition month and also Spring Break – the perfect time to cook with your kids! For recipe ideas visit projectchef.ca/blog/recipes/.

Copyright (c) 2014 Renfrew-Collingwood Community News

 


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Slocan Park notice board keeps community connected

Local artists create a gorgeous salmon-shaped bulletin board with the help of a Neighbourhood Small Grant from the Vancouver Foundation

BY ROB HOWATSON

This beautiful salmon-shaped bulletin board, hanging on the wall of the Slocan Park Field House, is an invitation for neighbours to connect with each other.

This beautiful salmon-shaped bulletin board, hanging on the wall of the Slocan Park Field House, is an invitation for neighbours to connect with each other. Photo courtesy of Rob Howatson

When it comes to community building, you can never have too many bulletin boards to help spread the word about upcoming neighbourhood events.

Problem is, aside from libraries and community centres, the city offers few legal spaces to display notices. There are about 200 or so municipality-approved poster cylinders – metal bands that wrap utility poles – located in the city, but they tend to be restricted to the busiest arterials. And, as the Vancouver Public Space Network points out in a letter to Mayor Robertson’s Engaged City Task Force, commercial poster companies quickly and repeatedly blanket these word rings with their paid advertising. This leaves little room for neighbours to tape up their block party invites.

Fortunately, some community-minded Renfrew-Collingwood residents have found a way to provide at least a little space for grassroots notices. Local artists Carmen Rosen and Suzo Hickey applied for a Neighbourhood Small Grant from the Vancouver Foundation to create a gorgeous bulletin board shaped like a chum salmon. The functional art piece hangs on the wall of the Slocan Park Field House, an effective location given its proximity to the busy 29th Avenue Skytrain station.

Suzo says they chose a fish shape for the piece in recognition of Still Creek that used to flow through Vancouver’s eastside until much of the waterway was culverted in the early 1900s. Sections of the creek still run on the surface in the Renfrew Ravine, near the Grandview Highway and in Burnaby. In 2012, a record number of chum found their way up the creek to spawn, despite the fact that until recently the creek was considered one of the most polluted streams in B.C. and little fish activity had been reported there in the past 50 years.

“This project was a great way to share local history with the neighbourhood,” says Suzo, “but more importantly we invited area residents to help decorate the notice board’s fishy frame with steel washers, copper washers and bottlecaps. And in doing so, we provided a  great opportunity for people to meet and share experiences, which I think is the best way to build community.”

The eye-catching bulletin board is managed by the Art House in the Field Collective, which uses the Slocan Park field house as studio space for visual art classes, costume design, music and photography.

Neighbourhood Small Grants Project – Application deadline April 7, 2014

Collingwood Neighbourhood House has once again partnered with South Vancouver Neighbourhood House to host the Neighbourhood Small Grants and Greenest City Neighbourhood Small Grants project this year. Pairs or small groups of residents are encouraged to apply for a grant from $50 to $1,000 to improve your neighbourhood socially, culturally or physically!

Please go to vancouverfoundation.ca/nsg  for more information and to apply. All applicants are encouraged to apply online. If you cannot apply online, paper applications can be picked up at the Neighbourhood House beginning in March 2014. Online application opens on March 3, 2014. Application deadline is April 7. For further information contact Sheri Parke at sparke01@shaw.ca or reception at Collingwood Neighbourhood House, 604-435-0323.

Copyright (c) 2014 Renfrew-Collingwood Community News