Testimonials Needed for Community Garden Grant-Friday 1/13 Deadline

Dear Friends,

As some of you know, we are applying for the Centennial Garden Grant ($2,500-$10,000) and the deadline for applications is Friday.

The application requires the qualifications of participating garden coordinator and volunteers.  The grant stresses community, neighborhood, children and science.

I would like to include some garden participants' or blog readers' statements in this application.  Statements from children would be greatly appreciated as well.

If you have time to send me a short note about your experience with Dandelion, it would add some woomf to our application.

Wish us luck and many thanks for your support and involvement!

Poki

Garden Coordinator

505-796-6006

poki@nodilus.com

Bios of volunteers so far:

 

Poki Piottin - Garden Coordinator

Poki Piottin brings a life-long of experience building community environments (see full bio here).  For the past three years, he has been focused on urban farming, working with the EntreAmigos Community Center (San Pancho, Mexico), DragonFly School (Santa Fe), Synergia Ranch Organic Farm (Cerillos) and Dandelion Ranch Community Garden (Santa Fe).  He brings to each of these projects a keen sense of organization, promotion and leadership, as well as a love of sharing knowledge and building healthy child-centered community. For the past two years, he’s been actively working with Juaquin Lawrence Hershman, a master horticulturist and biodynamic gardener with 40 years of experience creating food gardens throughout North and Central America.

Lawrence Hershman – Master Horticulturist and bio-dynamic gardener

Lawrence Hershman aka “Juaquin,” has devoted the past 40 years to caring for the earth and her inhabitants by educating individuals and communities to grow healthful, organic foods. His expertise spans the entire spectrum of soil preparation, composting, recycling, garden design, seed production, and propagation. His greatest emphasis and interest is in educating and working with others, in particular children and adolescents. He’s currently involved in a variety of community gardens and design projects in Santa Fe, and in the past has offered his expertise widely throughout the Western hemisphere. He has received numerous grants and awards for his gardens, including Best Garden in Colorado from the prestigious National Landscaping Association, and in Santa Fe, where he won an award for the Best Garden in 2011 shown on Home and Garden TV.  (see Juaquin’s website)

Richard Bernard - Plant Breeder & Seeds Expert

Richard Bernard brings a strong professional experience in plant breeding and seeds through a fruitful career in the seed industry, mainly with Harris-Moran Seed Company in California, a subsidiary of the Limagrain Coop in France. He then became the Research & Development Manager for Seeds of Change, an organic seed company once located in Northern New Mexico. He has an educational background in plant biology and horticulture.  Through his travels in many parts of the world and exposure to different rural environments and cultures (see resume here), he brings a cross-cultural and creative, but still very structured approach to the local and educational projects, that have now become his main focus. He lives in Santa Fe county with his family

Joan Henderson – Volunteer science teacher

Joan Henderson is a science, math, and art educator and has worked at Monte del Sol Charter School for 10 years. She has also been involved in school gardens since she started working in education and has been Monte del Sol's garden club teacher since the inception of their school garden and club 5 years ago.  Joan is also an enthusiastic volunteer member of Dandelion Community Garden in Santa Fe and works on a number of its committees. 

Barbara Powell – Yoga teacher and volunteer

Barbara Powell, aka Yoga Ma Barbara, has been teaching and practicing yoga and meditation for the past thirty years via classes and retreats throughout the world.  Workshops that she has co-led with Juaquin Hershman are called Earth Journeys: Garden Yoga, and emphasize the importance of a sacred approach to honoring the bounty offered up through the earth, as well as a mindful attentiveness to working with our bodies in the garden (see Barbara's website)  

Bella Hecht Cloude – Herbalist and substitute teacher

Bella Hecht Cloude  spent many summers leading herb gathering classes for children and elder hostel at Malachite Farm School in Southern Colorado. Along with Dr Ting who know owns an herb farm and has a private practice in Sante Fe, New Mexico , she developed herbal formulas for patients at a rural family medicine clinic  called "La Clinica"  She later co founded a nationwide organic and wildcrafted herb tea company- Wahatoya Herb- whose blends were based on the formulas developed at the clinic. Bella has a certificate of Master Herbology and a substitute teachers license.