Irene Pena is fundraising
Do the Rot Thing
Aqui Estamos! No Nos Fuimos!
Proyecto Jardin Los Angeles is rising, and we want you to come along and grow with us!
Journey with us through the sacred circle of life, death, and rebirth as we rebuild the organization and reactivate our core programs throughout the city of Los Angeles.
Proyecto Jardin invites you to our June Challenge: DO THE ROT THING!
Give what you can to support our Community Compost Hub projects in Los Angeles.
OUR MISSION
Proyecto Jardin is a community-led movement for food sovereignty that promotes regenerative urban agriculture and an equitable regional food system rooted in ancestral foodways & farming practices. Our programming activates the regenerative power of our earth mother to heal broken hearts, restore city soils, and feed mind, body and spirit through meaningful education, soulful work, and radical hope. Our impactful work is made possible through generous donations money and volunteer time provided by hundreds of people, who connect with us in the garden, or online through our advocacy campaigns and fundraising activities.
OUR CURRENT WORK
In 2018, Proyecto Jardin received a small grant from the Cityof Los Angeles Department of Public Works to participate in the city's Food Waste Challenge. We rose to the occasion and in 4 days diverted from the landfill stream 3,662 pounds of food waste to make compost. The environmental impact of this tremendous accomplishment is that we prevented 1.6 tons of greenhouse gases from entering the precious air we breathe.
And that's not all. We also established the first ever Community Compost Hub in Echo Park and launched THE COMPOST ACADEMY, an 8-week Community Compost Maker Certification program that graduated 15 Community Compost Makers on May 26, 2018.
NEXT STEPS: Having successfully completing the Los Angeles Food Waste Challenge, we are determined to keep the momentum going to make sure 4,000 tons of food waste each month never reach landfill.
HOW
With one Compost Hub up and running in Echo Park, and two additional emerging hubs in the early phase of planning and development, we are reaching out to friends and supporters with a very special request to "Do The Rot Thing" and join the compost revolution.
Your financial contributions are needed to keep the Echo Park Community Compost Hub running 5 days a week and support planning and development for two additional compost hubs.
Together, these three Compost Hubs will have a combined capacity to divert and compost up to 16,000 pounds of food waste per month.
WHO BENEFITS
The beneficiaries of Proyecto Jardin's Community Compost Hubs are local youth and elders, neighborhood families and children, small local businesses, and all inhabitants of planet earth who rely on reduction of green house gases to stop global warming. Specific benefits include:
(1) Job Training & Entrepreneur Empowerment: Youth and elders will benefit from job training opportunities available through our partnership with the National Association for Hispanic Elderly and local job training programs for youth. In addition, Proyecto Jardin will offer entrepreneur empowerment education and internships that increase exposure to career opportunities in urban agriculture, community composting, and vermi-culture.
(2) Community Education, Workshops, and Volunteer Days: Neighborhood families, children and schools will be invited to attend free and low-cost workshops, educational field days, and community-wide volunteer work days in the garden to increase awareness about composting, DIY worm farms, and gardening. Proyecto Jardin's THE COMPOST ACADEMY will return to Edendale Grove Garden in Echo Park in September 2018, with space for 25 participants. This 8-week certification course is now offered in partnership with the UC Cooperative Extension. Persons completing the course will be recognized as UC Cooperative Extension Community Compost Makers.
(3) Small Business Education & Coaching: Thirty (30) local eateries, cafes, juice bars and restaurants will receive orientations, professional development training, and staff coaching sessions in food waste reduction "at the source" to support their transition to composting.
(4) Global Warming: All inhabitants of the planet benefit from reduction of green house gases that occurs when we divert food waste from land fill.
HOW FUNDS WILL BE USED
Proyecto Jardin needs to raise $30,000 in June to get this program off the ground.
$7,000: Staff salaries and employee benefits for three people.
1 part-time Project Manager, 1 full-time Compost Hub Coordinator, and 1 part-time Community Compost Maker
$3,000: Program materials and supplies, such as 5 mobile worm bins, food collection totes, garden/pitchforks, brooms, tubs and trash bins, coco coir, worms, and work gloves.
$17,000: Equipment such as a continuous flow-through vermicomposter, 3 electric bicycles, 3 bike trailers, floor scale, fork-liftable tilt truck, and 3 Mac i-pads.
$3,000: Marketing and Outreach/Education and Communications, including Compost Hub membership kit, signage, banners, website update, and shade canopies.
PROYECTO JARDIN LA RISING
Read a brief summary of our existential history below and you'll understand why this; why now; and why you.
2016: DEATH
When the sun set on Proyecto Jardin's urban farm on Bridge Street in Boyle Heights, we quietly packed up our tools, a few seeds and heirloom plants, and took some time to reflect and regenerate. We gathered up our broken pieces and shattered dreams and we looked to earthworm as our spirit guide and and wise counselor. Earthworm is la maestra of new beginnings because she knows that every "beginning" is in fact the newborn child birthed of darker endings that preceded it. Every ending in our lives takes that which no longer serves us and transforms it into rich fertile compost within which to plant the seeds of dreams and new possibles. When the sun set on Proyecto Jardin's urban farm in Boyle Heights, we picked up the pieces of our broken heart, cradled severed roots, and carried the seeds for tomorrow in our heart and head.
2017: DECOMPOSITION
Some say the only way to manifest your dreams is to "stay positive" and focus on what you want to happen next. However, always walking on the sunny side of life prevents us from delving deep into the darkness of our individual and collective psyches to pull out and examine old creations that no longer serve but we still carry. Earthworm knows the path to walking-in-beauty is never puro sunshine and rainbows and nice smelling flowers.She teaches that situations, material objects, and relationships that no longer serve us are relics of a bygone era and ecosystem that must be broken down, dismembered, and recycled into their base elements before they can be reconstituted, reconfigured, and given new life as a rich foundation for new creations. Earthworm teaches us to embrace the littered remnants of the past and engage these as collaborative and co-creative partners for transformative change. Proyecto Jardin carries in its organizational DNA rich historical traditions, core values, and cultural practices that tie people to the land and to one another through intimate interactions with nature and her cyclical life-affirming patterns of life, death and rebirth.
2018: REBIRTH
Earthworm is the midwife of death, decomposition and rebirth, honoring the past for its value and final contribution to the future. Heeding Earthworm's teaching, we embraced darkness as the fertile companion of the light. Reaching deep within and collaborating with all that has come before, we find the essential materials and magical alchemy to create an authentic new beginning. Proyecto Jardin embodies the sacred circle of life, death and rebirth through seasons of change rooted in radical hope and possibility. We invite you to join us in rebuilding Proyecto Jardin, one soil microbe at a time.
YOUR FINANCIAL GIFT to Proyecto Jardin enables the organization to continue our ground-making work by diverting food waste from landfill to make compost and rich humus to heal our city soils.
Proyecto Jardin Los Angeles is rising, and we want you to come along and grow with us!
Journey with us through the sacred circle of life, death, and rebirth as we rebuild the organization and reactivate our core programs throughout the city of Los Angeles.
Proyecto Jardin invites you to our June Challenge: DO THE ROT THING!
Give what you can to support our Community Compost Hub projects in Los Angeles.
OUR MISSION
Proyecto Jardin is a community-led movement for food sovereignty that promotes regenerative urban agriculture and an equitable regional food system rooted in ancestral foodways & farming practices. Our programming activates the regenerative power of our earth mother to heal broken hearts, restore city soils, and feed mind, body and spirit through meaningful education, soulful work, and radical hope. Our impactful work is made possible through generous donations money and volunteer time provided by hundreds of people, who connect with us in the garden, or online through our advocacy campaigns and fundraising activities.
OUR CURRENT WORK
In 2018, Proyecto Jardin received a small grant from the Cityof Los Angeles Department of Public Works to participate in the city's Food Waste Challenge. We rose to the occasion and in 4 days diverted from the landfill stream 3,662 pounds of food waste to make compost. The environmental impact of this tremendous accomplishment is that we prevented 1.6 tons of greenhouse gases from entering the precious air we breathe.
And that's not all. We also established the first ever Community Compost Hub in Echo Park and launched THE COMPOST ACADEMY, an 8-week Community Compost Maker Certification program that graduated 15 Community Compost Makers on May 26, 2018.
NEXT STEPS: Having successfully completing the Los Angeles Food Waste Challenge, we are determined to keep the momentum going to make sure 4,000 tons of food waste each month never reach landfill.
HOW
With one Compost Hub up and running in Echo Park, and two additional emerging hubs in the early phase of planning and development, we are reaching out to friends and supporters with a very special request to "Do The Rot Thing" and join the compost revolution.
Your financial contributions are needed to keep the Echo Park Community Compost Hub running 5 days a week and support planning and development for two additional compost hubs.
Together, these three Compost Hubs will have a combined capacity to divert and compost up to 16,000 pounds of food waste per month.
WHO BENEFITS
The beneficiaries of Proyecto Jardin's Community Compost Hubs are local youth and elders, neighborhood families and children, small local businesses, and all inhabitants of planet earth who rely on reduction of green house gases to stop global warming. Specific benefits include:
(1) Job Training & Entrepreneur Empowerment: Youth and elders will benefit from job training opportunities available through our partnership with the National Association for Hispanic Elderly and local job training programs for youth. In addition, Proyecto Jardin will offer entrepreneur empowerment education and internships that increase exposure to career opportunities in urban agriculture, community composting, and vermi-culture.
(2) Community Education, Workshops, and Volunteer Days: Neighborhood families, children and schools will be invited to attend free and low-cost workshops, educational field days, and community-wide volunteer work days in the garden to increase awareness about composting, DIY worm farms, and gardening. Proyecto Jardin's THE COMPOST ACADEMY will return to Edendale Grove Garden in Echo Park in September 2018, with space for 25 participants. This 8-week certification course is now offered in partnership with the UC Cooperative Extension. Persons completing the course will be recognized as UC Cooperative Extension Community Compost Makers.
(3) Small Business Education & Coaching: Thirty (30) local eateries, cafes, juice bars and restaurants will receive orientations, professional development training, and staff coaching sessions in food waste reduction "at the source" to support their transition to composting.
(4) Global Warming: All inhabitants of the planet benefit from reduction of green house gases that occurs when we divert food waste from land fill.
HOW FUNDS WILL BE USED
Proyecto Jardin needs to raise $30,000 in June to get this program off the ground.
$7,000: Staff salaries and employee benefits for three people.
1 part-time Project Manager, 1 full-time Compost Hub Coordinator, and 1 part-time Community Compost Maker
$3,000: Program materials and supplies, such as 5 mobile worm bins, food collection totes, garden/pitchforks, brooms, tubs and trash bins, coco coir, worms, and work gloves.
$17,000: Equipment such as a continuous flow-through vermicomposter, 3 electric bicycles, 3 bike trailers, floor scale, fork-liftable tilt truck, and 3 Mac i-pads.
$3,000: Marketing and Outreach/Education and Communications, including Compost Hub membership kit, signage, banners, website update, and shade canopies.
PROYECTO JARDIN LA RISING
Read a brief summary of our existential history below and you'll understand why this; why now; and why you.
2016: DEATH
When the sun set on Proyecto Jardin's urban farm on Bridge Street in Boyle Heights, we quietly packed up our tools, a few seeds and heirloom plants, and took some time to reflect and regenerate. We gathered up our broken pieces and shattered dreams and we looked to earthworm as our spirit guide and and wise counselor. Earthworm is la maestra of new beginnings because she knows that every "beginning" is in fact the newborn child birthed of darker endings that preceded it. Every ending in our lives takes that which no longer serves us and transforms it into rich fertile compost within which to plant the seeds of dreams and new possibles. When the sun set on Proyecto Jardin's urban farm in Boyle Heights, we picked up the pieces of our broken heart, cradled severed roots, and carried the seeds for tomorrow in our heart and head.
2017: DECOMPOSITION
Some say the only way to manifest your dreams is to "stay positive" and focus on what you want to happen next. However, always walking on the sunny side of life prevents us from delving deep into the darkness of our individual and collective psyches to pull out and examine old creations that no longer serve but we still carry. Earthworm knows the path to walking-in-beauty is never puro sunshine and rainbows and nice smelling flowers.She teaches that situations, material objects, and relationships that no longer serve us are relics of a bygone era and ecosystem that must be broken down, dismembered, and recycled into their base elements before they can be reconstituted, reconfigured, and given new life as a rich foundation for new creations. Earthworm teaches us to embrace the littered remnants of the past and engage these as collaborative and co-creative partners for transformative change. Proyecto Jardin carries in its organizational DNA rich historical traditions, core values, and cultural practices that tie people to the land and to one another through intimate interactions with nature and her cyclical life-affirming patterns of life, death and rebirth.
2018: REBIRTH
Earthworm is the midwife of death, decomposition and rebirth, honoring the past for its value and final contribution to the future. Heeding Earthworm's teaching, we embraced darkness as the fertile companion of the light. Reaching deep within and collaborating with all that has come before, we find the essential materials and magical alchemy to create an authentic new beginning. Proyecto Jardin embodies the sacred circle of life, death and rebirth through seasons of change rooted in radical hope and possibility. We invite you to join us in rebuilding Proyecto Jardin, one soil microbe at a time.
YOUR FINANCIAL GIFT to Proyecto Jardin enables the organization to continue our ground-making work by diverting food waste from landfill to make compost and rich humus to heal our city soils.
- E
- R
- F
27 supporters
guidestar.org/profile/20-5142259
charitynavigator.org/ein/205142259