March 15, 2012
Greetings from Camden, NJ!
It is hard to believe that we are in the middle of March already. The temperatures this week in our part of the world have reached 70 each of three days. That is hard to believe for the week before spring begins. However, it has been three weeks already that Andrea Ferich, the Center’s Director of Sustainability Initiatives, and her helpers have been planting seedlings in the greenhouse. At full production, the greenhouse will produce 13,000 seedlings of heirloom vegetables and native plants. That work of planting began when the temperature was just about freezing, not exactly the most comfortable time to be outdoors, but being in the greenhouse makes that temperature insignificant.
Not only is the greenhouse a hotbed of activity (no pun intended!) but so are the gardens. The Emerald Street Garden is undergoing its normal transformation from the dormancy of winter to the cauldron of new, emerging life that is Spring. The community garden is also undergoing a remarkable transformation as it is readied for the annual St. Patrick’s Day celebration: planting potatoes! It is hard to imagine all the hands that have had a part of play in the preparations of the garden for the reception of potatoes this coming Saturday. First, the land had to be cleared and the beds readied, with deep trenches on each side. This was accomplished by the students and staff of Neumann University who spent a week at the Center earlier this month. They got down and dirty in the garden, creating the space for plentiful potato production. Next, the potatoes have to be prepared for the planting. This was done by Andrea and her Junior Farmers. In fact, as this is written, several pairs of hands are deftly moving over the potatoes which will become the roots that can sustain us so well. Finally, there are all those hands that will gather this Saturday, at 1PM, to do the potato planting. This is not just a mundane chore that one can do quickly and be done with. It is a ritual by which community is built and nourished. Many hands come together to plant potatoes on a beautiful Spring day in Camden, NJ. The produce of this planting will feed many mouths, as the potatoes are prepared at the earthen breadoven near our greenhouse. Those potatoes will become pancakes, French fries, mashed, roasted or stuffed with broccoli and cheese. Those potatoes will become sustenance for those who walk our neighborhood, who worked the land, who cultivated the potatoes as they percolated in the ground. It is a community effort to bring forth food from the earth, to prepare it and to enjoy its nourishment. And the community is not just a human one, but it includes the sun with its life-giving rays, water with its empowering touch, the nutrients of the soil that provide the substance of the potato, and the breath of God, the air, whose oxygen powers the transformation of water, sun and soil into the golden nuggets that fill our hunger. It is a remarkable team effort! On Saturday, we will sing, and dance, and eat and get our hands dirty, and laugh and remember and breathe and tell stories. This is our St. Patrick’s Day celebration.
We hope you can join us. We hope you will continue to support the work of the Center. It is amazing to think what the community of earth, and air, and water and sun, along with human labor, can do to transform matter into life-giving nourishment. It is amazing! Join us in the work of transformation! Each of us does our bit, and the world, and us, is transformed, made more capable of being bearers of God to those around us, the most profound work of transformation that the universe makes possible.
Peace to you and yours.
Mark Doorley, Ph.D.
President, Board of Trustees
The Center for Environmental Transformation
NEWS AND NOTES
1. JOIN US! Saturday, March 17th, 1PM for the annual St. Patrick’s Day potato planting. Meet at 412 Jasper St., Camden, NJ. See flyer for more information. Or visit our Facebook invitation.
2. Community Supported Agriculture(CSA) in Waterfront South in Camden, NJ! The Center has partnered with GreensGrow of Philadelphia to create a CSA in Waterfront South. The pick up will be on Fridays between 4-7PM. What is a CSA? It is a way to distribute the risk of farming by local farmers more broadly with the people who enjoy the fruit of the farmers’ labors. The way it works is that a CSA member pays up front, and then each week (Fridays) they pick up their share from the end of June til the end of October. A share is a box or half a box of fruit, vegetables, dairy products, and other items produced by local farmers in southeastern Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey. For more information you can visit this website. Feel free to contact Andrea Ferich at aferich@gmail.com for more information.
3. April 7th is the first Saturday of April, but it is also in the middle of the Easter Triduum, the holiest time in the Christian calendar, so there will not be a work day at the Center. However, on March 31st, the church of Sacred Heart engages in a fairly extensive cleanup of the area, including the streets, in preparation for the Easter Triduum. The work begins at 9AM, with a lunch available for workers at Noon. Join us if you can!
4. THE JOURNEY OF THE UNIVERSE. This is a new movie out, produced by physicist Brian Swimme and theologian Mary Evelyn Tucker. Mary Evelyn Tucker is the speaker for our fourth annual Thomas Berry lecture which will be held on Sunday, October 7, 2012 at 3PM at Sacred Heart Church. To prepare for this event, we are hosting a screening of this movie at the South Camden Theatre on the corner of Jasper St. & South 4th Street in Camden. The date is Sunday, June 24th. SAVE THE DATE. More information will be forthcoming.
5. This past week the Center welcomed its newest set of chicks who soon will take up residence in our beautiful chicken coop, and begin supplying us with wonderful eggs every day. We got a variety of species. There are 3 Aracana, 1 brahma, 1 Speckled Sussex, 2 barred rock, 1 Rhode Island Red, 1 golden boot feathers and 1 queen stachies. Soon you can come visit them, escorted by our very own Chicken Cowboys.
6. Enjoy two videos produced by Andrea Ferich, Director of Sustainability Initiatives. Through these videos we hope to get the word out about the promise of Camden and its people. You can find them here and here. Pass them around to your family and friends.
7. We are always looking for members to join us on our Facebook page, and to join our email distribution list. Please find us on Facebook, and send this email along to those in your network who are interested in the environment.
8. This past week we had students from Neumann University join us at the Center. They were fantastic. They worked in the school, painted the new gym on South Broadway, prepared the gardens for potato planting and worked in the greenhouse. Below are some comments we heard:
“I feel different.. planting trees, making it possible for people to eat more healthy food by growing it in their neighborhood.”
“The first time I came to Camden, I was very much afraid… this year I’m not wasting time with fear.”
“We were going to go to Philadelphia for dinner one night, but some of us objected that we ought to support the people of Camden by going somewhere in Camden for dinner. We went to Corinne’s! It was fantastic!.”
“The team work necessary to do the painting job in the gym was demanding, but we did it, with patience and support for each other. If we weren’t a team before that job, we are now!”
“The children we met in the garden are very happy. I didn’t expect that, given where they live, and the challenges of where they live.”
“In school, I heard a child say he didn’t like school; a peer said to him, “How can you not like school and grow up not knowing anything.” I was impressed by the desire to learn and be successful.”
“I learned that if we had not been here, the children would not have had gym class as two teachers are needed to take the children outside, and only one was available. I was definitely needed today.”
“The 5th grade class was so welcoming to me. One child said “I wish you could be my sister!” It was overwhelming to receive so much love and warmth.”
“I videotaped two boys in the greenhouse. One wanted to be a rapper when he grew up. When I asked the two why they came to the greenhouse they said, “Because it is a safe place and it helps them stay out of trouble.””
“There was a group of us who worked three days straight in the community garden. Each day we saw lots of kids coming out of school, playing in the park. One group looked rather intimidating, but when they found out what we were doing, they got very excited and thanked us. Looks can be deceiving.”
“Playing with the kids was great, but talking with them was even better. That day the odor in the neighborhood was particularly bad. Rather than just accept it as a given, the kids started strategizing how they can end the odor. It was amazing!”