Here at Collective Roots, we build breathtaking school gardens - unique open spaces where both our students' minds and our community's spirit can take root. We are also working to change our food system - creating access to local, sustainable produce for the families that need it the most. Please read Wolfram's letter by clicking on the image to the left to learn more. By honoring our valley's abundant past while celebrating a healthy, sustainable future, we are building a food system that is robust, just, and fiercely and proudly local.

As a Guatemalan immigrant raised amidst the sprawling concrete of Los Angeles, attorney Robert Garcia understands how crucial parks and open spaces are to the well-being of children growing up in crowded cities. "Children of color living in poverty have the worst access to parks and schools with five acres or more of playing fields, and they have the highest levels of childhood obesity," he told Carla Hernandez, 17, when visiting Collective Roots' one-acre garden at East Palo Alto Charter School.

The streets of East Palo Alto have seen everything from brick factories to poultry farms to gang shootings, but they haven’t before met anything quite like Rev. Bob Hartley, a known and respected longtime EPA resident. He’s a man with a plan to help the youth in the community give up their weapons – in favor of plants.

He and his wife Clara, an industrious wheelchair-bound woman with a lovely smile, grow a wealth of flourishing vegetables in their backyard and bring a selection of fresh pickings to sell at the EPA Farmers' Market each Saturday.

In line with the USDA’s recent ‘Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food’ initiative, eighth graders at East Palo Alto Charter School held an event called “Fruit Salad Day” for their entire school on Sept. 17, 2009.

The 15 students in the school’s Garden Elective class helped to wash, chop, mix, and serve seasonal fruits donated by farmers' markets in Palo Alto and East Palo Alto to more than 300 schoolmates.

Our next Garden Workday at EPACS will be held Saturday, March 27th, from 9 AM – Noon. 

Please join us at the EPACS garden on March 27th, from 9AM until Noon, for a morning of spring garden tasks.  Enjoy tending vegetables, pull out spent crops, weed, mulch, seed, turn beds and compost, plant, prepare the chicken coop for new chickens and help keep the garden going strong through the winter. Please dress in layers and closed-toed shoes and apply sunscreen!

RAIN: If it is raining, please stay home, warm, and cozy!

To RSVP or to sign up to be a team leader, call 650.324.2769 or email volunteer@collectiveroots.org.