photo by Laura Kiev - Laura (at) makedocreative (dot) com

~ We never take for granted those who most deserve our gratitude: our volunteers! ~

This year’s Greening Flatbush was one of our biggest undertakings to date. We found ourselves adding more twists like the sustainable art component, live music, and a tasty community meal, but faced being short-staffed for this adventure. Since our non-profit organization is run by local volunteers, we relied on the help of other community volunteers and groups like New York Cares and TimeBanksNYC to produce a successful event.

photo by Sheryll Durrant

~ How beautiful a day can be when kind hearts touch it! ~

Although the weather wasn’t on our side, the positive feedback we received from those who attended and participated was awesome. Everyone had a fabulous time at the event, we all networked with great people and organizations, and the donations we received helped cover the cost of Greening Flatbush.

The success of this event is due in large part to our wonderful volunteers and their efforts. For all the volunteers listed below, we couldn’t have done it without you!

Adam Weber

Allison Braham

Athena Bernkopf

A. Victoria Hunter (TimeBanksNYC)

Brian Batka

Carole Silverman (TimeBanksNYC)

Cori Carl (New York Cares Team Leader) and 10 New York Cares Volunteers (Shift 1)

Dolores Henry (TimeBanksNYC)

Elena Tenchikova (TimeBanksNYC)

Ellen Lehman (TimeBanksNYC)

Emmelyne Louis

Engin Karabagli

Ilana Yamin

Jamey Ellis

Jean Baptiste Joseph (TimeBanksNYC)

Jimmy Ng (TimeBanksNYC)

Karana White

Kevin Butrick (TimeBanksNYC)

Laura Vladimirova

Madeline Schwarz

Metsha Renois (New York Cares Team Leader) and 12 New York Cares Volunteers (Shift 2)

Mona Kidd (TimeBanksNYC)

Natalia Sucre

Phil Shipman

Rosalia Lucero

Sonaz Safari

Stephen Anh

Tamara Leighton

Tracey Sharpe

Tricia Ang

Veena Muthusamy

Veena’s Mom and Aunt

Vivian Vivas

And a special thank you goes out to the talented Community Meal Specialists:

David Cohen
718 Collective – Berlin Reed, Jesse Gold, Cresta White
Barry Schwartz
Margaret Dunn-Carver and Jeff Campoli

~ We (heart) our volunteers ~

SF Team

Greening Flatbush is back, Sunday March 25th. Get involved!

Sustainable Flatbush will host our 4th annual Greening Flatbush: Garden Where You Are, on Sunday, March 25th at 2pm.

The event will be held at the historic Flatbush Reformed Church, host of our compost and gardening initiatives, located on Flatbush and Church Avenues.

This year, Greening Flatbush promises to be better than ever — an event the entire family can participate in and enjoy. Our annual extravaganza celebrating community gardening, neighborhood greening, and urban agriculture will feature, from 2 – 5pm, hands-on workshops, interactive demos, DIY projects, creative arts, and live entertainment, presented by Sustainable Flatbush and a curated roster of community-based groups. The day will culminate in a delicious Community Meal from 5 until 7pm.

What’s New at Greening Flatbush 2012

In addition to interactive displays from a wide variety of community organizations (check out info and photos from last year’s event!), Sustainable Flatbush will offer workshops on Gardening with Native Plants, Composting, Community Engagement, and Solar for Community Gardens.

There will be live entertainment and a delicious meal prepared for the whole community. Like our first Community Meal on January 28, which attracted over 120 people, this is an opportunity for neighbors to meet neighbors and to share, learn, and build relationships around sustainable living in our communities.

Why We Do It

Greening Flatbush: Garden Where You Are engages and empowers people from all over Brooklyn and beyond to participate in creating sustainable urban neighborhoods. Our goal is for YOU to discover (or create!) a project within walking distance of your home where you can get involved in making your community greener — whether it’s by learning to compost, joining a CSA or community garden, adopting a tree, or growing flowers on your windowsill!

While bringing more visibility and participants to sustainable neighborhood-based projects, Greening Flatbush will also be a great opportunity for all of us to get acquainted with like-minded organizations and people, form partnerships, and strengthen the growing network of environmental stewardship in Brooklyn.

You can be part of this event!
Click here for information on how to get involved as a volunteer or sponsor.

Greening Flatbush is free, with a suggested donation of $10 for the event and the community meal.

Details

WHAT:
Greening Flatbush: Garden Where You Are
WHEN:
Sunday, March 25, 2 – 7 pm
WHERE:
Flatbush Reformed Church
890 Flatbush Avenue (corner of Church and Flatbush Avenues) [map]

Let us know you’re coming! Please RSVP here.

Partner with us – Become a Sponsor

We offer a range of sponsorship opportunities that helps your business or organization gain enhanced visibility, brand awareness, and access to potential customers from all over Brooklyn.

Join the Party – Be a Volunteer

Volunteers are the heartbeat of what we do and we all have fun together. Join us for a rewarding experience and amazing networking opportunity.

On Wednesday, June 15th, Prospect Farm and Sustainable Flatbush are proud to present Brooklyn Dirt: Monthly Talks on Urban Farming and Gardening.

Dirt Talk Five: Permaculture

With Speakers Dan Miner and Olga Kuchukov

June 15th, 2011

7 – 9:30 pm

Downstairs @ Sycamore Bar and Flowershop, 21+

1118 Cortelyou RD, BK (Q train to Cortelyou)

$5 suggested donation (proceeds benefit Sustainable Flatbush & Prospect Farm)

——-

Dan Miner has been involved with a variety of urban sustainability projects as a volunteer organizer with Post Carbon Institute and the Peak Oil NYC Meetup, and as past Chair of Sierra Club NYC. He wrote a 2008 report about how NYC can expand support for its climate change initiatives by preparing for higher and more volatile energy prices, and recently promoted the City’s white roof painting project in western Queens, referring 15 buildings to the program. At his day job, he assists Queens businesses as SVP of Long Island City Partnership. Dan completed a Permaculture Design Certificate program at Hancock Permaculture Center. He will discuss how the Transition movement’s organizing model and permaculture can be applied to NYC, and next steps in urban agriculture.
www.beyondoilnyc.org.

Olga Kuchukov has lived 34 plus years in NYC wondering why things are the way they are and how can they be better. As a massage therapist and solo sustainability warrior, she understands that change will come with a deep integration of thoughtful intention and habit, along with a healthy dose of practical new skills. After tuning in to the reality of our oil-dependent life, she traveled to Australia to help her friends who are building a transition town situation on their 6-acre property an hour north of Melbourne. She also visited the 2.5 acre food forest home of the co-originator of permaculture, David Holgrem. She will present her impressions along with viewings from the instructional DVD, Establishing a Food Forest with Geoff Lawton.

Sustainable Flatbush brings neighbors together to mobilize, educate, and advocate for sustainable living in their Brooklyn neighborhood and beyond.
http://sustainableflatbush.org/

Prospect Farm is a community group in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn that is working together to grow food in a formerly vacant lot, with the mission toward creating a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Farm that can feed and serve our community.
http://prospectfarm.org

Greening Flatbush 2011 – held this past Sunday, February 27th – was a huge success! Thank you to everyone who came out and to everyone at the workshop tables.  We had an amazing turn out, over 100 participants!

After much time and effort put into decorating and preparing our room at the Flatbush YMCA, we were able to sit back and enjoy all the great knowledgeable people who came to do workshops! From learning how to grow our own mushrooms, planting using plastic bottles, learning about urban farms in the area, the new garden to be opened on Church Avenue, sprouting our own seeds, how to make the best use of trees in our area, and the oh-so-popular Earth Dumplings,  it was a day packed with exciting info.  Attendees enjoyed a great raffle and snacks and a fun time was had by all.

If you missed out we hope to see you next year and once again thanks to everyone involved!

Click here for more photos from this year’s Greening Flatbush!

.

East 4th Street Community Garden, Kensington, Brooklyn, photo by Flatbush Gardener

Campus Road Garden at Brooklyn College

East Village community garden, Manhattan

There was also talk of composting, rainwater harvesting, permaculture, urban agriculture, and many of the other sustainability concepts that I for one have been hoping for a location to demonstrate and educate the community about (myself included!). It’s great to learn that other folks in the neighborhood share the same goals.

A tour of the site is scheduled for this Sunday afternoon… stay tuned for details.

Rebecca’s container gardening demonstration

Last Sunday’s event, “Greening Flatbush: Garden Where You Are” was a huge success! The Sustainable Flatbush Gardening Committee assembled a stellar program of speakers and demonstrations on topics including Container Gardening, Urban Composting, Street Trees, Permaculture and more.

Mela and Sandra talk trees

Karla advocates for worm composting

We can’t wait for spring to get our hands dirty and start planting up the neighborhood!

Park(ing) Day on Cortelyou Road (story below!). Photo by Keka

For our second event we celebrated Bike Month with a program of Streetfilms (curated by yours truly) and a guest appearance by their creator Clarence Eckerson. In keeping with our theme of overcoming weather challenges, Clarence’s flight from the West Coast was delayed by severe rains and while waiting for him we conducted a discussion on Congestion Pricing with Livable Streets luminaries Paul Steely White of Transportation Alternatives and Aaron Naparstek of Streetsblog. Clarence’s honorarium was a vegan cupcake.

Event #3, an Urban Permaculture Lecture with former Flatbush residents Wilton Duckworth and Joan Ewing of Green Phoenix, packed Vox Pop with permaculture enthusiasts who exchanged ideas on how to apply this sustainable design practice to city living.

Then we worked with Lower East Side Ecology Center to create the first e-waste recycling event south of Prospect Park: Cortelyou Road Electronics Recycling diverted a truck full of discarded technology (and its accompanying toxins) from the landfill. Many thanks to Christina Datz-Romero for her pioneering work to make New York City more sustainable through LESEC’s recycling and composting programs, and for helping me stake out the perfect spot to park the big red dumpster.

In July we teamed up with the Green Edge Collective for Event #4, Eating Sustainably: a meetup and discussion on Sustainable Food. The Green Edge ladies, known for their Eco-Eatery tours and Supper Club community potlucks, kept the discussion lively as topics ranged from healthy food shopping to plastic bags to the environmental implications of consumption. Lots of food for thought (ouch).

I spent most of August on the West Coast, playing music, visiting family, and touring Oregon’s Willamette Valley by bicycle with a group of sustainability-minded vegans. Who knew quinoa was such a useful grain?

We started Autumn off right by participating in the neighborhood’s biggest street festival, the Flatbush Frolic, with a table full of materials promoting recycling. Eve Martinez from the Department of Sanitation’s NYC WasteLess program brought her full compliment of recycling stickers, brochures, posters, and fridge magnets. (What’s a street fair without fridge magnets?) We got to know our neighbors and I scored my new favorite T-shirt.

On September 21st Park(ing) Day was celebrated all over New York City, the U.S., and Planet Earth… including right here in Flatbush. We occupied a parking space and created a park for the day, complete with real grass, trees, a bench, art supplies, live music… and lots of people, especially kids! (See photo above.) Naturally Streetfilms covered this event, and Cortelyou Road Park is featured in their piece… check it out! This event’s special thanks go to Lindsey Lusher of Transportation Alternatives, who coordinated resources and information for almost two dozen sites all over NYC, and especially to Keka Marzagão, without whom Cortelyou Road Park simply would not have been possible! In addition to providing every possible form of support (moral, creative, physical), Keka insisted that we have real grass, which provided endless wonderment and joy to everyone who visited our park.

Okay, so in October we recuperated. By November we were ready to kick off a whole new level of activities with our Town Hall Meeting. 25 people attended (our magic number, perhaps!), and six committees were established, each with specific goals and projects. We are now holding monthly meetings where newcomers can get involved and committees report on their plans. 2008 already looks exciting, with the R3 Committee’s Post-Holiday Electronics Recycling Event coming up this weekend, the Gardening Committee planning a Spring event in conjunction with the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and the Livable Streets Committee working on a Transportation Conference with Center for the Study of Brooklyn and Transportation Alternatives.

That’s the news for 2007. Much much more to come…

Special Thanks (in order of appearance):
Keka Marzagão (website/logo design, photos, VJ, chief co-instigator)
Jeff Duneman (DJ Drummerman, groove provider for Events #1-3)
Sander Hicks and the staff of Vox Pop
Cacao Arcoverde and Ileana Santamaria (musical magic for Event #3)
Susan Siegel and everyone at Flatbush Development Corporation
Clarence Eckerson and all at Streetfilms
Christina Datz-Romero (Lower East Side Ecology Center)
Carolyn Gilles and the Green Edge Collaborative
Lindsey Lusher (Transportation Alternatives)
Eve Martinez (NYC Department of Sanitation)
Mark Levy (host of Sustainable Flatbush Mothership)
Chris Kreussling (Flatbush Gardener)
Eli Kramer (Brooklyn Junction blog)
Gretchen Maneval (Center for the Study of Brooklyn)
Cycleliciousness blog (inspiration for a bike-friendly NYC)
The Flatbush community for supporting our green future
Brooklyn bloggers for setting high standards of journalism, neighborhood pride, and humor
YOU… for reading

Maitreya Eco-village, Eugene, OR

The trip began in Eugene, where we camped for the first few nights at a place called Dharmalaya. This is a privately owned home with land that hosts a yoga and meditation studio and acts as a community center for concerts and educational events. It is also an experiment in sustainable living, with an organic garden, composting toilets, and greywater reuse system. (More on Dharmalaya, including their ups and downs with the Eugene zoning board, here.) We visited a community called Maitreya Eco-Village, where we received some lessons in green building techniques (specifically straw bale and cob construction) from founder and architect Rob Bolman. We dropped by the factory and showroom of Bike Friday, manufacturer of world-famous sublime folding bikes, and got to take a few for a spin around the parking lot. We also checked out Eugene’s Center for Appropriate Transport, which hosts a community bike workshop and educational programs that teach kids how to build and design bikes and bike accessories.

Center for Appropriate Transport, Eugene, OR

Once this show actually got on the road, the distances each day were pretty significant for my wimpy self. (One point of pride was that I did actually RIDE up the hilliest portion of the trip, albeit at approximately 1.5 miles per hour.) I discovered that I like traveling by bike very much, and am looking forward to doing more in the future. It’s a great way to see the countryside, silently self-propelled, while still actually covering some distance in the course of a day. The weather was fantastic and Oregon’s Willamette Valley is a beautiful place.

Willamette River Valley, Oregon

We camped at organic farms and spent some time with the farmers who shared the reality of their work and lives with our group, including some delicious produce! We got our hands a little dirty on these farms too (though I personally can’t claim to have been very useful). Seeing both the beauty and the difficulty of this life made me more determined than ever to support the people whose labor and dedication brings beautiful healthy food to the rest of us.

Cyndi gives her chickens lots of love!

Next: “How What I Did On My Summer Vacation Changed My Life”... for real!

I had seen ads for a sustainability-themed bike tour last year, but was unable to go at the time. The idea of travelling by bicycle was intriguing to me in and of itself, and the trip seemed pretty affordable by comparison with other supported bike tours (meaning, you camp but your luggage is transported in a van). The itinerary — visits to organic farms, green buildings and permaculture sites — was very attractive. To top it off, the support vehicle runs on biodiesel! What’s not to like? The tour company promotes their trips as

“Holistic – Vegan – Alcohol-free – Intrinsically Political – Community-Building Experience(s)”

… Um, okay… but I must confess I had a few fears about what I was getting into. Prominent among them was that I would be not only the oldest person there, but also the only person who was (a) not a vegan in “real” life, (b) not super-buff in that quasi-anorexic hipster way, (c) not covered with tattoos and/or piercings, (d) politically slightly to the right of anarchist, (e) blessed/cursed with the sarcastic sense of humor that can be a rarity on the West Coast. It’s not that I feel incapable of hanging with a crowd that fits this description (though perhaps not for an entire week), it’s just that growing up in Berkeley has made me somewhat weary of uber-political-correctness. Ironically, this breeding has also made me completely unfit for any other environment. I took a deep breath and sent in my deposit.

Fortunately all of the fears cited above were unfounded. The age range of our tour group was 12 years old to 70! In fact the folks older than me were among the strongest cyclists, usually found sipping cappuccinos at the 30-mile rest stop by the time I straggled in (great role models!). All the participants were really friendly and nice, with interesting lives and stories, some hailing from as far away as Canada and New Zealand. There were even a few fellow New Yorkers, one of whom provided a daily opportunity to make fun of the vegan fare by referring fondly to pastrami sandwiches at Katz’s Deli.

Lunch stop (biodiesel support van in the background)