Corizon de Communidad

Mi Familia Vota presented very useful information on the upcoming election. Many thanks for their dedicated volunteers!

Our meeting was short, but we did spend a little time hearing the police update by Officer Gonzales. Commander Crockett is now at the South Mountain precinct.

Liz will be hosting the November meeting.

Over the summer, we learned that Wesley Community Center would be distributing backpacks to the youth in their summer program and if any remained, would be distributed on a first come-first serve needs basis. We knew from the work over the summer with the police officers that many of the participants could not afford to attend WCC. We put the request out to friends, families, and co-workers for 100 filled backpacks. The call was answered! 3 Snaps offered backpacks, Wells Fargo supplied 30 filled packs and boxes of supplies, and generous individual donors all helped us to meet the need. 150 backpacks in total were distributed to the youth in the community along with two large boxes for the teachers at Herrera Performing Arts and Dual Language School. Thank you all for helping the youth get off to such a good start this school year!

Check out our video!

The youth from ADJC also helped dig the holes for the trees graciously donated by Whitfill Nursery and Home Depot the week prior to the event.  Volunteers came together together on April 24 to plant over 100 Native Mesquite trees in Nuestro Barrio. A tree dedication ceremony was held at Herrera Elementary for the 8- 24″ box trees planted, with one being dedicated to Joaquin Olivas, the founder of Los Ojos Communidad, the original community organization. Classes on sustainability and lunch were held in Nuestro Park for residents and volunteers after the event to celebrate Earth Day.

We thought the event was over and done, but we received a large surprise by an additional donation of trees from Elgin Nursery. On June 11, 39 additional, 15 gallon trees and 12- 24″ box trees were distribute to the community. It is not complete! Elgin Nursery has MORE trees for the community that will be distributed and installed toward the end of June.

Many thanks to Arizona Homegrown Solutions, Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections (these guys and the staff are amazing to work with!), Home Depot, Whitfill Nursery, Elgin Nursery, Wells Fargo Green Team, PVCC students and faculty, FreeCycle employees, Kalil Bottling, and YouthBuild for your support of Planting for Peace. Thank you for believing in our community.

Present: Liz and Gilbert Medina, Nicholas Cortez, Estela Ranjel (+! guest), Many Valenzuela, Carlos Avila, Patsy Villa (+2 guests), Kevin Ahearn, Wendy Reese, Michele Ybanez(+1 guest)

Wendy showed the Working For Green video and updated community garden info.

Manny discussed and incident at 1421 S. 13th Place. He had received annoymous  a sofa and uncontrolled burn in a vacant lot and intimidating men. The police did an “educational” visit. The people with warrants were arrested, otherwise no citations given. The sofa has been removed. Manny will try to have graffiti busters attend an upcoming meeting.

Patsy vocalized concerns about harassment, as did Liz. Manny shared that a supervisor should be contacted immediately and give the squat or badge number.

Movie Night will be April 11 at Nuestro Park. Community celan-up with be Saturday, March 13 at 10 am, meet at Nuestro Park. Planting for Peace will be April 24. 100 trees have been donated and there will be a party in the park afterwards.

Carlos updated on VARS. The City is not renewing WD Schocks contract and will absorb the services into the City, contracting out demolition. Over $500,000 will be spent in the 6 month transition period. 107 properties have been purchased this year with 67 being in Nuestro Barrio, properties were sold from $12,000-$350,000.

It was suggested to put something in the newsletter about illegal dumping.

Sheila Gauff won the $25 raffle for attending.

Present: Stacy Roman, Wendy Reese, Patsy and Rosemary Villa, Liz and Gilbert Medina, Nicholas Cortez, Carlos Avila, Manny Valenzuela

Manny provided the CAO report and discussed potential budget changes. He distributed handouts about upcoming City budget hearings. He presented a report on response times for police calls within the neighborhood.

Liz presented information from the previous VARS Community Meeting.

Nicholas announced a community clean-up would happen on February 20 and start at Lewis Park. The bulk trash pick up would be the following week.

Wendy reported on the new gardens that AZHS is helping with and about the 2nd annual Planting for Peace.

Carlos discussed the dust pallative being removed from sidewalks and grading being done for rock. He also announced WD Schocks contract has been extended and there is no notice for when public hearings would be.

Stacy asked if the fundraiser would be held in March. Wendy said she is unable to take the lead. Stacy agreed to have a meeting at her house to discuss possible options.

Next meeting, March 10, 2010.

January 20
(From Jaime)
We spent about 2 hours at Albertos house and had a few joiners – Ben, Denise Quick, and her son Artie. Nicholas also joined us.
We have pictures, measurements, a lot of info from Berto and his wife Esperanza, and a soil sample that I am going to mess around with later today.

By a little after noon we were at Nicholas’s house and everyone else had had to get going, so we took our time, got lunch and went through the questionnaire, took measurements, soil samples, pictures, etc. We talked a lot about what he would like to see happening there.

He had collected a bunch of compost material, and I mentioned I had a lidded bucket from work in the back of my car. So we decided to install a buried compost bucket. He knows it probably won’t be big enough to take all the compost he can generate for very long, but we thought it would be a good demonstration of one way to manage compost in a small area, so he is excited to show his neighbors.

NEXT STEPS…
Alberto’s place – I think we should try to do a raised bed of some sort because of alberto’s physical condition and because there are a bunch of children there all the time that will be helping him. He has an area pretty much picked out, not in his front yard but in his back. If we can build planting boxes tall enough to make it easier on him he will be able to do a lot more. The back area that he would like to use has a lot of materials around, and I have been scrapping a bunch this week too. That back area is visible to the school, which is great, but the immediate gravel yard behind is sometimes used as overflow parking, which creates a lot of dust and noise. So, we can either appreciate that it is visible and work to make people stop parking there (they aren’t supposed to) or we can plant something like string beans, bougainvillea, loofah, or something along that fence to be a noise and dust barrier. I should mention that the area he has picked out was used as a cooking area for a while so there is a lot of charcoal mixed into the soil – I am not sure how big of a problem that might be.

Nicholas’s place – in ground, along fence, starting in front and working eventually to the back. Visibility will be great because adjacent lot is open, but that also means there is no shade and the heat island effect from the gravel will be something to deal with. we may need a lot of shade cloth at least at first. We talked about doing heartier, tallish stuff up along the fence to provide shade for the rest of the veggies. He is ready to get going and i think you pretty much have it right there. Irrigation to the veggie plots is something we could discuss. I have a feeling Nicholas would take the irrigation installation idea and run with it, he is good with stuff like that he might be able to coordinate irrigation at other sites by himself in the future, the technical skills and tools are pretty much there.

Alice has a lot going on in her front yard but wants help. We want to start with a lifted bed along the front and side of her front yard, which will be very visible. The dead space in her yard unfortunately coincides with the water line along that side, so we could prep the soil underneath only so deep, and then build it up on top. A second area closer to her house we could either line or not, but we should put a semicircular bed in. There is a curving path through her yard. We want to do curves and keyholes, so brick seems the logical way to go given her aesthetic as of right now. No neat straight rows of veggies for her. If anyone can do biointensive, succession, or companion planting it will be her. If we set up the beds I have confidence that she will fill them in and experiment with them and make them gorgeous. She likes flowers and has some sunflowers growing, so maybe some bouquet flowers in addition to the veggies? She would enjoy that, while for the other two I think they are excited to eat, eat, eat.

February 18
(From Tami)
We have been working with the kids from Juvenile Corrections to remove the rocks from the side front yard of Nichloas’ house. This task is pretty much accomplished. In the area where the rocks are removed, horse manure has been added to amend the soil, the beds have been raked out and a drip irrigation system has been installed, all with the help from the kids.
We started planting on Thursday the 18th. Tomatoes, basil, cilantro, radishes, and tomitillos have all been planted. We are waiting on the starts from the seeds the kids took and planted. These include chilies, squash, melons, and much more. These will probably go in the ground in the next week or so.
Nicholas has also gotten six chicks to raise and keeps for eggs in his backyard.