Rise up and Respect the Bronx!
Free Summer Camp 2011
Come join our exciting camp for 8-12 years olds!
Free for all!
The camp is from July 1st until July 29th, 2011.
Free Organic Lunch and Snacks
The Summer Youth Camp will:
Grow their own plants to improve lung health!
Grow fresh food and sell at the weekly farmers market!
Learn all about the different wild life!
Visit butterflies and their environments!
Have trips to the Bronx Botanical’s children garden!
Canoe in the Bronx River & tree climb!
Make art, giant puppets, have a parade and so much more!
Description of Our Program!
Our camp promotes responsibility and learning through thinking, teamwork and action. We learn and play with nature, rising up to respect who and where we come from.
Call right now to register, early bird gets the worm!
Contact
Aresh Javadi at More Gardens! - 917-518-9987 or aresh@moregardens.org
“Rise Up and Green the Bronx” & the “Moon Eye” Project
2011 Free Environmental Summer Camp
Where would you go to find and learn about thousands of free roaming insects, birds, mammals, and many other types of fauna and flora? Right here in the South Bronx amongst the community gardens, parks and botanicals.
By means of fun investigation and cooperative activities the campers will become educators and spokespersons of the neighborhood.
The intention of this camp is to promote the sense of responsibility in the campers, elevating their degree of conscience on the environment, and encouraging them to respect who and where they originate.
The campers will learn to work in teams to unravel a project for the beauty of the community. Each day they will be able to elect different roles (investigator, photographer, journalist, leader of the team, prompt) that will help them in their explorations and projects.
This is the Seventh year of the summer camp, which was received with great support from community members, making its home in Padre Plaza Success gardens. We are proud to say that we provide a youth mentorship component which trains 4 youths as camp counselors during the summertime. We also employ 3 local community members as staff to support the success of the camp, which helped to strengthen relationships and cultivate resources for this coming year.
We are very excited in bringing the “Moon Eye” project with the Sacred Geometry artist Claudia Montesinos. The project will be taking youth from the city, many of them for the first time, on two overnight trips to connect with the woods upstate and carefully gather materials for crafting the nature-inspired art work.
This camp is free for 18 campers ages 8-12.
The Project will deliver:
Organic (an local when possible) food and refreshments throughout the camp.
Youth engaging in cooperative games & learning
Environmental education about the neighborhood's rich green spaces
Going on day trips to:
Local community gardens and urban farm
The New York Botanical Garden
Bronx River Canoe ride
Audobon Bird Adventure
There will be two overnight upstate camping trips for the “Moon Eye” project.
Campers cooperative work shops on the weekly themes of:
Earth:: Composting, Herbal plantings, Tree of life,
Water: Water Cycle, Filtration, Water catchment
Air: “Moon Eye” Project (air), Herbal infusion, Kite making
Fire: “Moon Eye” Project (fire), Banner-making, Puppet making, Performance
Final “Moon Eye” art opening, “Rise Up” parade and musical celebration.
Our expected outcomes are:
More youth awareness of their power to connect with and improve their green environment.
Connecting with sacred geometry’s power by creating physical art works in our community garden.
Improving the health and well being of each camper and their immediate neighborhood. One example is the campers planting herbs and making teas and herbal infusions to increase lung health.
The adventures and explorations include the following themes:
1) Responsibility and teamwork is presented to the campers. In addition, as the concepts of the camp, the campers play of welcome, and participate in healthy exercises. We introduce the idea to interpret roles, and we do amusing activities to teach the rules of the garden. The gardeners of "SBUG" show us their gardens, and the internal youths direct visits to the garden and to other places of the neighborhood.
2) The plants and the mushrooms: A herbarium and a naturalist direct the campers in a walk to identify the plants. The campers learn the basic structures of the plants, they plant vegetables and herbs, take registration of the different leaves, and creatures that are found in the bushes. The campers also learn how to take care of the gardens, and finally we visit the botanical garden.
3) The birds: A representative of the Company Audubon guides the camp in identification of the birds, carries us of walk learning about the birds and its different trills and calls. We will create cafés and a home for the birds with the organization S.E.E.D.S., and we will create habitats for them in the jardin. This week will be a good opportunity to do disguises and to create art inspired by the birds! Besides, Troy Lancaster, founder of the Sanctuary of Birds Dred Scott welcomes us to its garden.
4) The insects: An expert of the insects meets with us to study the nature of the insects designing decoys and discovering the secret dens (and not so secret) of the insects. The campers will learn to identify the insects with the use of a "key of the insects", on camouflage, and they discover the importance of the role of the insects in the environment.
5) The worms (the guarantee, etc. ..): Preparing guarantee is a fascinating activity! In this week, the children will learn how to do a bucket of guarantee and a box for the worms. Also in this week we are going to think in our projects in service of the gardens and the community. Finally, as a special activity we will be the guests of the Park of Pelham Bay to study the life of the sea!
6) The small mammals: We will learn of our ancestors and other brothers mammals of the Bronx. In the local library, we will learn to do investigation. To learn the behavior of the animals we observe the mammals of the garden and we play to connect and to act like our animal friends. We will carry out surveys of the animals of different places, and we will learn about the alimentary chain by the "play of the network of life". We will begin to create our puppets for our Barbecue of the End of the Summer.
7) Interdependency, Identity and Leadership: The Garden Common Cultural Native Corner meets with us to share something of local history, cultural appreciation and lessons on how touch the drums. We bring native American historians to bring us some of the history of the Bronx and her people. We do interviews with local community gardeners and their outlay. We create maps of the neighborhood with "Green Map". By means of the encounter with the people of the neighborhood, the campers are going to discover their own role in the community.
8) Integration, Recycling, and Reunion Final: The families and head common they are welcome this week in the meantime the campers complete their projects of service and they share them with the group. People in stilts and other actors will meet with us for our parade and exposition of the talents of the campers, celebrating the work that all they did in the camp and everything that we enjoy together. There is a weekend trip and adventure to an upstate farm in connecting to the bigger picture of where our food comes from with a big barbecue and fun games.
9) “Moon Eye” project; Sacred Geometry and harmony with nature: We will work on 2 architectural projects that build relationships between ourselves, the natural world and our community. These hand-made 3-dimensional structures are part of a year-long investigation called the Moon Eye. Youth will work with the elements of air and fire, each as a specific 3-dimensional geometry. Tree limbs and other natural materials that we harvest on our camping trips, along with woven hemp twine, will be our primary materials. There will be an presentation and celebration of these art-work to the neighborhood at the community garden on our final week.
Brief description of the Padre Plaza community garden
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s this park, located on 139th Street between Brook Avenue and St. Ann's Avenue, was a vacant lot in the grip of drug dealers and other criminals. In 1992, the Parks Council, a parks advocacy group, chose the site for a Success Garden--an environmental learning center and community garden. With the cooperation of St. Ann's church, St. Benedict Center, and AmeriCorps members, a landscape architect--using the designs of children from nearby P.S. 30--transformed an eyesore into a community treasure.
Today Padre Plaza features a rustic bridge that spans a small pond “laboratory,” a gazebo, a pergola covered with grapevines, and several small gardens. London planetrees (Platanus x acerifolia) furnish the seating area with shade on hot summer days. It is a source of nature lessons for the schoolchildren and a community gathering place. In order to ensure the park's survival, the Parks Council asked the City to transfer the land to Parks. Padre Plaza became Parks property in 1997.
Padre Plaza Success gardens mission is to continue to promote green spaces with a focus on community support, in particular supporting safe spaces for community members of all ages. Creating this community building spaces supports a commitment by community members to see change for their neighborhood through supporting programs that promote environmental education, food justice, and the cultivation trade skills.
For more Information!
Aresh Javadi - Director, 917-518-9987, aresh@moregardens.org
Leroy Huston - Coordinator, (718) 993-3519, leroyhuston@gmail.com
Mike Young - Padre Plaza Success Community Garden Director, (718) 877-7113 hwork24@aol.com
Claudia Montesinos - “Moon Eye” Project, (305) 542-0497, colibri11@gmail.com
More Gardens! www.moregardens.org
Here is a Youtube video of our 2008 Summer Camp
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