Article on Shared Grant Making in the Chronicle of Philanthropy

RSF Social Finance and the shared grant making initiative

Today RSF Social Finance sent a link to an article just published in The Chronicle of Philanthropy on the topic of shared grant making. The article summarizes our group process last February and illustrates how shared grant making is a powerful tool in developing new philanthropic pathways and outcomes for nonprofits.

The Waldorf School received our grant monies to learn how to better connect our students' work in the gardens to the residential populations at Laguna Honda Hospital and St. Anne's. Earlier entries discuss the research and programming that have grown out of this grant.

Sprouting Lettuce Seeds, January 18th, 2012

The seeds are just beginning to sprout.

You can see a few poking their heads out of the soil. Initially I was keeping the seed flats at St. Anne's in our cold frame. However, the threat of a very hungry banana slug led me to bring them into my garage for safer and quicker sprouting indoors.

I have a simple set up with a "daylight" fluorescent light and a fan. I place the seedlings just under the light for 12 hours a day. I have the light and fan on a timer. The fan is important to produce hearty, strong seedlings. Seedlings that are grown without adequate light and breeze can often turn "leggy" and pale. When growing indoors, you want to replicate the outdoor environment as closely as possible, while still providing them the boost that starting the seeds indoors can bring (namely warmth for quicker germination time). For the sake of visibility, in this photo the seedlings are 6 inches or so from the light source, but ideally they should sit as close as 2-3 inches below it. Create a set up that allows you to either raise the light as the seedlings grow, or, lower the height of the items they sit on to keep the ideal distance between light and plants.

One other recommendation I have is to water your cell packs from the bottom up. I let mine sit in a tub of water, one inch or so high, until the soil is moist all the way to the top. This can take several hours depending on your soil's moisture retention quality. I find I need to repeat this process once every 5 or 6 days. It's a very thorough watering and doesn't disrupt the seed or young seedling with soil displacement that watering from above can create.

Planting lettuce seeds, January 12, 2012

Lettuce Planting

Kindergarten 2 planted lettuce seeds for the garden when they came to St. Anne's in early January. In the Tower Garden, we have a smaller raised bed dedicated to salad greens. I like to have a rotating crop of lettuces here. Lately, the Third Graders have been harvesting several heads, primarily the Little Gem variety, to make salads for the residents. So, we need to get some more seedlings going to fill in the holes.

Dagmar and the children planted many varieties, several hundred seeds. You can see the cell pack here filled with dirt and beneath it, the seeds.

I like to plant a variety of lettuces. Here's a sample package for a trusted variety:

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds has an incredible array of vegetable and flower seeds. They have a close by store in Petaluma, called The Seed Bank, as it's located in an old bank right in downtown Petaluma. I highly recommend a trip if you're looking to stock up for your own garden. They specialize in open-pollinated, heirloom varieties from around the U.S. and in some cases, the world.

Resident Focused Garden Projects

As I've mentioned previously, this school year our work in the garden is geared to better serving the residential population at St. Anne's. Recently the children have completed some projects that make it easier for the residents to enjoy the fruits of our labors (literally!).

The first grade replanted our strawberry plants that we got last year from Hill of the Hawk Farm in Big Sur. The strawberries now live in pots right on the main Jeanne Jugan patio where many residents can enjoy them, even in their wheelchairs if need be. The berries surround our lemon tree which also lives there.

On Friday the first grade heard a story from the Queen of Workenwonder that detailed a contest she held to find a place to plant carrots that would be safe from the disruptive behavior of moles. It turns out the troll's suggestion to plant the carrot seeds in pots won, and so we carried out the Queen's wishes by planting carrot seeds in pots.

This not only keeps the carrots free of roaming moles (a real issue at times in our garden), but also enables us to grow them on the patio where the residents can enjoy seeing the carrots come to life. Importantly, however, I reminded the students that one can't just plant any carrot in our medium sized pots, it has to be a small variety. We planted "Little Finger", which when full grown resemble an adult thumb. This led to a very interesting discussion about those little carrots one can purchase at the store in a bag. Some children thought those were a freshly picked variety of small carrot, but others knew that in fact those "baby" carrots are really just cut and polished bits of large carrots.

The Third Grade helped harvest and bag herbs for an herbal tea mixture this winter. Our tea contains nettles, chamomile, spearmint, peppermint, lemon balm and oregano. We grow all those herbs between St. Anne's and the Grade School Campus, but we don't yet produce enough of the mint, nettles and chamomile for all the tea we needed, so I made up the difference from Rainbow Grocery's bulk organic tea aisle. With our newly enlarged herb garden, next year we should be able to produce all our tea ourselves.

The tea has a lovely taste, and it now is available for the residents in the Ice Cream Parlor at St. Anne's. This is a nice room off the main lobby where residents and guests can help themselves to coffee, tea, pastries, and yes, ice cream.

Frittrasses: January 3, 2012

Each time the second grade comes to the garden, I relay a story from Ms. Beetle. Ms. Beetle is a character that the children met last year during their first grade visits to the garden when they heard the Tales of Adventure. Ms. Beetle is a beetle of course, who came to St. Anne's to live after she lost her job downtown as a chef. She retains a keen interest in cooking and looking after her garden friends. Her stories for the children comprise a collection I've named The Memory Kitchen.

In second grade the children cook as part of their job rotation. Each visit they make something different, a recipe that has as its main ingredient something that in season from our garden. This week those ingredients are leeks and wild onions. The recipe actually comes from a book called Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi, an accomplished vegetable-oriented chef in London. The title of Ottolenghi's recipe is "Leek Fritters", but I've changed the recipe's name to "Fritrasses" instead.

You can read the story behind the recipe and its name here. The fritters are delicious, by the way!

Happy new year, Second Grade!

Who, among you, likes to invent things? Who feels like they’re always full of great ideas for solving problems in creative ways? Well, I’m proud to say that I consider myself a beetle of big ideas and full creativity. Not only that, but as you might have guessed, I have a big heart as well.

Let me share with you one of the inventions I am most proud of: Frittrasses! You see, dear Second Grade, as you remember I’m sure, I used to work downtown San Francisco in a very fancy restaurant. I had a good life there, working hard, dining well, spending my days with my friendly colleagues in the kitchen. However, there was one little bit of sadness to my life while I lived downtown, and this was due to the fact that in order for me to walk from my home to the restaurant, I had to pass along many streets which were crowded with critters who had no home.

Yes, it’s sad to say, but there is a part of our great city where many critters just like me, or the common garden snail, the slugs, even some butterflies and moths, live out their lives without homes on the streets. If these homeless critters are lucky, they’ll bed down in a park, where at least they’ll find soft space among the greenery of trees and grass. But many of them are old and weak, and must lay their heads at night along the hard concrete, wrapping their bug legs around themselves or weaving a coat of slime to keep warm.

Nights after work I would pass these critters as they bedded uncomfortably down. On occasion I would stop to talk, to offer some company and a listening ear. I often brought food with me from the restaurant to share. One old stick bug, his nickname was Branch, he liked to tell me stories from his childhood, from the time when he was small and flexible, able to climb up any tree trunk and hide on any branch. I asked him finally what had happened to make his old body so bent and brittle. He told me that life in the city had been hard on him, and once, the tree he was hiding in had been trimmed, and he and the branch fell to the ground, the branch landing on top of my friend Branch. That accident left him crippled and unable to climb trees again. Imagine the difficult life of a stick bug who can’t climb trees!

In the mornings I often brought my friends hot cups of tea to make their start to the day more bearable. Daisy, an old lady bug with one broken wing, was usually the first person I saw. She usually slept in a crack near the wall of my apartment, trying to shelter herself from the wind. Daisy gulped her tea down and neatly wiped out her cup, handing it back to me so I could use it again. Daisy didn’t like to talk much, but over several years I learned her story. Daisy had lived her good years with 100’s of other lady bugs in the Botanical Gardens in Golden Gate Park. They fed together on plump aphids, played together on the rolling green lawns, slept in the sweet smelling shelter of the tropical flowers. One day, however, just as Daisy was about to settle down and start a family of her own, a large storm blew into town. Daisy had been out that morning, and was too late taking shelter in her normal garden spot. The wicked winds picked her up and carried her toward downtown. As the wind roared around her she held her wings open, hoping to ride the lashing breeze safely down to the ground somewhere. Unfortunately, she was not so lucky. The wind carried her at full speed into the side of a tall office building downtown, breaking one of her wings as it pressed against the glass. She fell to the ground and limped to safety, but has never since been able to fly off to greener places, and so does the best she can downtown.

As the winter holidays approached one cold year, I decided to do something for my homeless critter friends. I decided to knit them each a blanket with which to keep warm and comfortable. Unlike you, I had never learned to knit, and tried to teach myself how to work those needles and yarn into something wonderful.

I went at it for hours and days, and dear Second Grade, you should have seen me: all tied up in knots, yarn balls rolling everywhere, needles flying and poking my thighs, blisters on my finger tips, and nothing that looked even close to a blanket. Knitting was proving very difficult for me indeed.

I began to worry that I would have nothing to offer my kind, needy friends for the holidays. I knew what they needed: food and comfort, but my knitting was a complete mess and would prove hopeless as a gift.

I took to my kitchen and began to cook which always made me feel better. I had eggs and flour and spices and milk. I had just a few leeks in my cold storage. I decided to whip up some leek fritters for supper. The cooking process brought me great joy, and before I knew it I had six plump leek fritters on my plate just waiting for me to enjoy them. They looked like a little stack of yummy pancakes just sitting there.

The sun was setting as I began to feel full. I decided to take my two extra fritters downstairs to give to Branch and Daisy. When I got to Daisy she was just packing her things away near the crack, preparing to lie down for the night. When she saw the fritter in my outstretched hand, she took it with a smile and said “Thank you! This is wonderful!” I was just about to apologize that it was no longer warm, when I saw with surprise that she laid my delicious leek fritter on the ground and proceeded to lay her own body on top of it.

“Daisy!” I exclaimed. “Why, what are you doing? That’s meant to be your supper!”

“My supper!?” answered Daisy. “I thought it was a new mattress to lay my weary back.” She continued to lay on top of the leek fritter, with a contented smile on her face. “You know,” she added, “this does smell might tasty” and she leaned her head to the side and took a small nibble. “I’m eating my mattress!” she exclaimed with glee, “and it tastes so good!”.

I stood there not sure what to make of this. “Well, goodnight Daisy,” I said. “I’m off to see Branch now.”

“Mmmm, bye,” Daisy chewed and dozed, all at once.

When I got to Branch, I held out the fritter to see what he would make of it. He took the plump little pancake out of my arms and laid his right down on the sidewalk. “A green mattress” he sighed. “How kind of you. And it smells so good I could eat it!”

“Well, Branch” I replied, “You can.”

And this, dear Second Grade, was the beginning of my new food I call “Frittrass”. You know, half fritter, half mattress? Once I saw how much Daisy and Branch loved their frittrasses, I made more and more for all the homeless critters in my neighborhood. I noticed that each frittress lasted about three nights, before the critter ate so much of it that there was no soft part left to sleep on. I saw many frittrasses that were eaten into the exact shape of the critter’s body, so that it was still just barely a mattress.

These frittrasses were my golden deeds, dear Second Grade. I made frittrasses for as long as I lived and worked downtown. Here at St. Anne’s, we manage to find each critter a home, no matter how needy he or she might be. We all take care of one another in this garden, so I haven’t needed to make any frittrasses. But do you know, this holiday season I got my recipe out and made some to take downtown, for there are still many critters there who have no soft place to call home.

Dear Second Grade, I realize these frittrasses will be too small to keep your big bodies comfortable, so for now, I thought you could just make some for eating, in honor of this season of Golden Deeds.

Enjoy them, and please think about ways you can be of help to others in need.

Sincerely,

Ms. Beetle

November and December, 2011

As Fall draws to a close we try to get as much planting done as possible so the new plants can take advantage of the wetter weather to come. One of our big projects was to replace our two year old straw bale bed. Two years ago we build a good-sized straw bale raised bed to grow various crops. One year it held a rotating collection of greens, the second year we planted grain crops there. Straw bale beds are made by lining up straw bales end to end to form the perimeter of the bed shape you desire, then lashing it together with wire, and finally, filling it with soil.

Our previous bed had lasted two good years before it started to compost itself and collapse. We saved that soil, turned the old straw bales into our compost piles, and made room for this new one. You can see Kindergarten One working on it here.

K1 also planted flats of favas and sugar snap peas, both of which do just fine in our mild winter conditions. Those seeds are now 6 inch tall seedlings and in the process of going into the ground in various beds both at St. Anne's and on the Grade School campus.

Second grade finished the work on our new, expansive herb garden (courtesy of the RSF grant monies), and K3 planted a stand of garlic. Now we need to sit back and wait for that rain to come!

A long standing tradition we have for the kindergarten gardeners, is to create a winter offering to our bird friends at St. Anne's. I tell a story each year about a lonely farmer learning that his bird friends are about to fly away for the cold winter months, and how he figures out a way to give them a going away treat to honor their friendship and provide much needed nourishment for their long journey.

As I tell the story, I make the pinecone bird feeder just as the children will do when the story is over. We are now in our sixth year of this gift giving, and as December rolled around I noticed a greater than usual quantity of birds hanging around, I think waiting expectantly for their feast.

Sure enough, as the three kindergarten classes made their pinecones, the children could see the birds hovering around the proceedings in the trees. The bird song was loud and excited. Once the children hung their feeders, within minutes the birds were on top of the pinecones, happily picking off the seeds and nut butter. The pinecones were all completely cleaned off within 2 to 3 days of hanging. When the children return to the garden in January, they will run around looking for their pine cone and be delighted to find it bare.

Pumpkin Fairy Houses, October 2011

When the First Grade comes to the garden each Friday, they are greeted with a letter from the Queen of Workenwonder. Workenwonder comprises the grounds of St. Anne's.

These letters help connect the children to their roles and responsibilities at the garden. For example, the adventurous tale of Sir Trowel instructed how to properly weed the flower garden paths. Another story, told about an old sow bug, stressed how work can build community and self esteem.

On our visit before Halloween, the Queen invited the children to build pumpkin fairy houses for the garden fairies. You can read her letter below and see the stunning creations the children made.

Dear First Grade,

Today, my first grade workers, we honor our dear frisky friends, the garden fairies. I’m sure you’ve seen them here and there: the flash of color on a hummingbird’s neck, the sparkle of sunlight on a falling water drop, the spectacular green of a new leaf; the fairies abound and the beauty they bring to our garden here in Workenwonder knows no bounds.

Today is the last Friday of October and so it is the day the fairies look forward to all year. For it is the day they move into their freshly decorated pumpkin homes. It’s a tradition here in the Queendom, our gift to the fairies for all the splendor they bring to us each day.

The job of decorating their houses falls to you, first graders. Each group will decorate one pumpkin fairy home to make it comfortable and beautiful for a fairy to move in.

This is a surprise for the fairies, remember dear children. So go about your work quietly and with great focus. I’ve hidden the pumpkins around the garden so the fairies won’t find them until they are ready. Carefully follow your directions and you will discover your pumpkin hidden on our grounds.

When you are finished with your little home, we’ll take a look at all the others, and then, when you turn your backs and head to school, those fairies will delight in unpacking their little suitcases and making your pumpkins their homes.

Enjoy, and serve the fairies well.

Sincerely,

The Queen of Workenwonder