Networks and Links

This is a long list! You may click on any of the main topics listed below to jump down the page to your particular area of interest.

GARDEN BASED LEARNING

YOUTH DEVELOPMENT

FOOD SYSTEM CHANGE

ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION

EDUCATIONAL CHANGE

INNOVATION

SCHOOL HEALTH & WELLNESS

EAST PALO ALTO

BELLE HAVEN

PLANTS

FOOD-CULINARY ARTS

VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES

NETWORKING TOOLS

ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

GARDEN BASED LEARNING

Einstein in My Garden
You have to visit one of Penelope Torribio's websites to begin to grasp the amazing breadth of her work. Try wrapping up hundreds of puppets, interactive live music and performance, way out of the box educational and therapeutic approaches, and shear genius, and you will begin to understand the work of this incredible teacher, artist, and therapist.

Partnership for Plant Based Education
The purpose of PPBE is to support and promote the use of plants as a vehicle for learning across the curriculum in K-12 classrooms nationally.

California School Garden Network
CSGN encourages and supports the goal of having a garden in every school, and seeks to create opportunities for children to discover fresh food, make healthier food choices, and become better nourished.

Green Schoolyard Alliance
The Green Schoolyard Alliance is a incredible San Francisco model for transforming our educational environments. Nan Mcguire, Arden Bucklin-Sporer, and many other dedicated and visionary activists support this effort. CLICK HERE to check out their incredible website.

Garden ABCs
If you want to grow, maintain or improve a school or community garden, GardenABCs is the place to start! Thanks to contributors, they have excellent examples of garden projects, curriculum, children's activities, grants, links and more that are free for you to use in developing your own teaching garden for children or adults. GardenABCs is a forum for parents, educators and community members seeking guidance, resources, fundraising, networking and teaching support to start and maintain learning gardens.

Living Library
Whooaa! If you aren’t already familiar with Bonnie Sherk's work, including her Living Library, then you are in for a big treat.

Quesada Gardens Initiative
The Quesada Gardens Initiative is an amazing movement based in the Bayview Hunters Point Neighborhood of San Francisco. Jeffrey Betcher, is an amazing figure who is creating new dimensions in the world of community gardening.

Garden for the Environment
The Garden for the Environment is an amazing garden and outdoor living classroom. Blair Randall and Suzie Pallidino are the inspired leaders of this organization.

Elizabeth Gamble Garden
The Gamble Garden offers a rich array of programs and provides many learning opportunities for children.

The Edible Schoolyard
The Edible Schoolyard, in collaboration with Martin Luther King Junior Middle School, provides urban public school students with a one-acre organic garden and a kitchen classroom. Using food systems as a unifying concept, students learn how to grow, harvest, and prepare nutritious seasonal produce.

Green Schoolyard Resource Directory
San Francisco Beautiful co-edited the Green Schoolyard Resource Directory and is making it available to the public. (SFB is a co-sponsor of the Green Schoolyard Alliance.) The directory has information to help communities green their school grounds while providing hands-on learning opportunities for children.

Master Gardener
The San Mateo County Master Gardener’s are available for school garden consultations, call the hotline for more information.

A Garden in Every School—California Department of Education
A Garden in Every School Initiative’s goal is to have a garden in the almost 9,000 public schools in California. Over the past ten years approximately 30 percent of California schools have established gardens. Currently, the program funds three regional garden-based learning centers to provide assistance to schools.

Life Lab Science Program
Life Lab Science Program provides training for teachers in our model school garden, the Life Lab Garden Classroom and at school sites across the state. Workshops cover a range of garden-based learning topics including workshops based on our Growing Classroom Activity Guide and Life Lab Science K-5 Garden-Based Science Curriculum. The Life Lab curriculum is science based and has been adapted to language arts. Life Lab also hosts a summer institute program and a regional garden-based science conference in the spring.

Master Gardeners
University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners have offices in most counties in California. Master Gardeners provide various types of gardening support for gardeners in their area as well as extensive training to become a Master Gardener.

California Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom
The Agriculture in the Classroom program hosts an annual fall conference for teachers. Many of the workshops highlight garden-based learning and they have had over 250 middle school teachers involved in their programs. Every year the program publishes a Teacher's Resource Guide available in hard copy and on CD that, along with unit lesson plans and fact sheets on California food products, is provided free.

Junior Master Gardener Program
The Junior Master Gardener Program grows good kids by igniting a passion for learning, success, and service through a unique gardening education. The Junior Master Gardener Program has curriculum for elementary and middle school youth, with hundreds of independent and group learning experiences that can be used in a garden or classroom setting.

California Women for Agriculture
California Women for Agriculture support California Agriculture. The group hosts an annual meeting and also individual members are volunteers in a related agriculture projects. Regional chapters have members who volunteer with school gardens.

California Association of Nursery and Garden Centers
CANGC has many resources available for teachers, members and students in the horticulture industry.

Common Vision
Common Vision runs a veggie oil-powered caravan, and 25-earth educators from Common Vision bring programs to schools that include a performance for the whole school and all-day workshops that include planting up to 25 fruit trees, teaching West African agricultural drumming, and writing garden-inspired earth-conscious
hip-hop.

Urban Sprouts
Urban Sprouts is a nonprofit organization that supports school gardens in urban middle and high schools in San Francisco. Urban Sprouts teaches youth to grow, harvest, prepare and eat vegetables from the school garden, in order to help youth actively engage in school, eat better and exercise more, and connect with the environment and each other. Led by Abby Jaramillo, Executive Director, one of the great leaders in the school garden movement in San Francisco.

Getting Going Growing / Green Fork
Getting Going Growing / Green Fork is a non-profit community collaborative dedicated to supporting School Gardens. Getting Going Growing acts as a resource clearinghouse for help with getting school gardens growing. Get Growing Going connects schools with providers of in kind donations such as garden supplies or irrigation help. Susan Stansbury and Susan Osofsky (see photo to left) are two outstanding leaders in this organization that is advancing the field of garden based learning.

The Center for Placed Based Education at the Antioch New England Institute
The Center for Place-based Education (formerly the Center for Environmental Education) promotes community-based education programs. Its projects and programs encourage partnerships between students, teachers, and community members that strengthen and support student achievement, community vitality and a healthy environment.

The Center for Urban Agriculture at Fairview Gardens
Based on one of the oldest organic farms in California, the Center for Urban Agriculture at Fairview Gardens is an internationally respected model for small-scale urban food production, agricultural preservation, and farm-based education.

City Farmer
Urban Agriculture Notes Published by City Farmer, Canada's Office of Urban Agriculture

Green Teen Community Gardening Program
The Green Teen Community Gardening Program works year-round with youth ages 7 -17 in Beacon and Poughkeepsie, New York. They learn about food, farming, entrepreneurship, and health through hands-on experiences. Participants grow plants and vegetables in their classrooms, on farms, and in community gardens. During the school year, Green Teen holds local programs both during and after school.

YOUTH DEVELOPMENT

John Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities
The John Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities envisions communities committed to the development and nurturing of all young people so that they are actively learning, connected and contributing to community renewal. JGC partners with communities to research, develop and disseminate effective practices and models for developing well rounded young people. By bringing together community leaders and sharing new knowledge, JGC supports them in implementing quality programs for and with their young people.

YUCA - Youth United for Community Action
YUCA is a youth-based environmental action group based in East Palo Alto. Successful in raising awareness about the actions of Romic, a facility that recycled hazardous waste in East Palo Alto. YUCA, the Ujima Security Council, and other community members worked successfully to get the Department of Toxic Substance Control (DTSC), Bay Area Air Quality Management District, and other regulatory agencies to hold Romic accountable to the community through more stringent regulations and enforcement.

YCS - Youth Community Service
YCS has been identified by the California Department of Education as a Service Learning Regional Lead. YCS offers a wide range of programs including support to teachers who are working to use service as a teaching tool to bring the real world into their classroom and make their curriculum relevant. YCS provides training and technical assistance to teachers at elementary, middle, and high schools in the Mid-Peninsula, South Bay, and Santa Cruz regions.

FOOD SYSTEM CHANGE

The Ecological Farming Association
The Ecological Farming Association nurtures healthy and just farms, food systems, communities and environment by bringing people together for education, alliance building and advocacy.

Soil Born Farms
Soil Born Farms allows youth and adults to rediscover and participate in a system of food production and distribution that promotes healthy living, nurtures the environment and brings people together to share the simple pleasures of living life in harmony with nature.

The Fair Food Foundation
The Fair Food Foundation is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and seeks to work with historically-excluded urban communities to design a food system that upholds the fundamental right to healthy, fresh and sustainably-grown food. The Fair Food Foundation (FFF) partners with individuals, groups within communities, community-based organizations, government leaders and others to discuss, develop, and implement a variety of strategies. The FFF encourages local selection, ownership and control of food sources that are environmentally sound, socially just, and economically viable. The FFF supports communities to imagine and realize opportunities that fit their needs.

Discovering the Food System
This guided experiential learning program is designed primarily for youth ages 12 to 18. Given the potential level of complexity involved in conducting a community research project and the community action it may inspire, elements of this program may also be suitable for some undergraduate college level courses.

Food System Change Fact Sheet
Americans enjoy a diverse abundance of cheap food – spending a mere 9.9% of our disposable income on food. However, store prices do not reveal the external costs – economic, social, and environmental – that impact the sustainability of the food system. This fact sheet will help you consider the full life cycle of the U.S. food system in making the connection between consumption behaviors and production practices. View examples of unsustainable trends in the U.S. food system.

Feeding The Cities
Case Studies exploring the role of urban agriculture around the world.

Food First
The purpose of the Institute for Food and Development Policy - Food First - is to eliminate the injustices that cause hunger.

The California Food and Justice Coalition is a statewide membership coalition committed to the basic human right to healthy food while advancing social, agricultural and environmental justice. The CFJC is a member of the national Community Food Security Coalition, and collaborates with community-based efforts in California working to create a socially just, ecologically and economically sustainable food supply. Collective Roots joins with the CFJC to envision a California food system in which all activities, from farm to table, are equitable, healthful, sustainable, and community-driven.

Urban and Environmental Policy Institute/Center for Food Justice, Occidental College
The Center for Food & Justice (CFJ), is a division of UEPI. With a vision of a sustainable and socially just food system, CFJ engages in collaborative action strategies, community capacity-building, and research and education. Click here to view the great resources on their publications page.

Sustaining Ourselves Locally
We work to support and promote an urban community involved in, inspired by, and educated about environmentally and socially conscious living, and to provide a space to model and teach these practices locally.

Food Routes
Food Routes is a national non-profit dedicated to reintroducing Americans to their food, the seeds it grows from, the farmers who produce it, and the routes that carry it from the fields to our tables.

The School Lunch Initiative
The School Lunch Initiative invites local parents, educators, and a nation-wide audience to learn about the changes going on in the Berkeley Unified School District under this unique collaboration of public and private organizations.

Chef Ann, The Renegade Lunch Lady
Chef Ann Cooper is a renegade lunch lady who works to transform cafeterias into culinary classrooms for students - one school lunch at a time. She brings you information to learn about the importance of changing the way America feeds its children.

Chez Panisse Foundation
In 1996, Alice Waters, pioneering cook, restaurateur and food activist, created the Chez Panisse Foundation in commemoration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of her restaurant, Chez Panisse, in Berkeley, California. The Foundation supports an educational program that uses food to nurture, educate and empower youth.

The Food Project
The Food Project is based in Boston and creates fertile ground for new ideas about youth and adults partnering to create social change through sustainable agriculture.

FARMOLOGY
Farmology is the consumer education program run by the Agricultural Awareness and Literacy Foundation. The Foundation is a 501(c)3, founded by California Women for Agriculture in January 2001, to focus on educating consumers about the benefits and importance of American agriculture. California Women for Agriculture is the largest, all volunteer agricultural organization in California with over 3,500 members in 22 chapters. The Agricultural Awareness and Literacy Foundation brings together the strength of California Women for Agriculture volunteers with private, public and government support to create dynamic and accountable consumer education programs.

Sustainable Agriculture

ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION

Canopy
Canopy is a Palo Alto-based non-profit advocate for the urban forest and works to educate, inspire, and engage the community as stewards of young and mature trees.

Literacy for Environmental Justice
Literacy for Environmental Justice was founded in 1998 by a coalition of youth, educators, and community leaders, LEJ addresses the ecological and health concerns of Bayview Hunters Point and the surrounding communities of southeast San Francisco.

Children & Nature Network
The Children & Nature Network (C&NN) was created to encourage and support the people and organizations working to reconnect children with nature. C&NN provides access to the latest news and research in the field and a peer-to-peer network of researchers and individuals, educators and organizations dedicated to children's health and well-being. The work of Collective Roots is featured on a national map provided by C&NN.

Our City Forest
The mission of Our City Forest is to cultivate a greener, healthier urban environment and a renewed sense of community by involving Silicon Valley residents in the understanding, planting and care of the urban forest.

Connect the Dots
Connect the Dots is an environmental nonprofit dedicated to reducing the environmental impact of nonprofit organizations as they deliver their social missions. Connect the Dots aims to serve more under-resourced and critical communities. Connect the Dots seeks to bring about long-lasting environmental and financial savings to nonprofits as they face continuing budget cuts, increasing resource costs, and on-going resource efficiency legislation.You can find more information on their website: www.connectthedotsnetwork.org.

Bay Localize
Bay Localize is building a more self-reliant, sustainable, and socially just Bay Area. They work to catalyze a shift from a globalized, fossil fuel-based economy that enriches a few and weakens most, to a localized green economy that strengthens all Bay Area communities. Bay Localize develops tools that identify local opportunities, connect grassroots groups and policymakers, and advance projects that enhance regional self-reliance, sustainability, and equity.

Linkedin Green Network Group
Are you working in the world of green business, or want to network with the folks already working in the areas of green technology? then click here.

MEERA
MEERA's goal is to support the evaluation efforts of environmental educators. MEERA seeks to meet this goal by facilitating access to relevant information and resources through a single, web-based location.

The Woods Institute
Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, the Ward W. and Priscilla B. Woods Institute for the Environment harnesses the expertise and imagination of Stanford University scholars to develop practical solutions to the environmental challenges facing the planet-from climate change to sustainable agriculture to conservation. To achieve these goals, the Institute brings together prominent scholars and leaders from business, government and the non-profit sector through a series of Uncommon Dialogues and Strategic Collaborations designed to produce pragmatic results that inform decision makers.

The Earth Institute
The Earth Institute’s overarching goal is to help achieve sustainable development primarily by expanding the world’s understanding of Earth as one integrated system. The Earth Institute works toward this goal through scientific research, education and the practical application of research for solving real-world challenges. With 850 scientists, postdoctoral fellows and students working in and across more than 20 Columbia University research centers, The Earth Institute is helping to advance nine interconnected global issues: climate and society, water, energy, poverty, ecosystems, public health, food and nutrition, hazards and urbanization. the Director of the The Earth Institute is Jeffrey Sachs. Jeffrey Sachs is widely considered to be the leading international economic advisor of his generation. For more than 20 years Professor Sachs has been in the forefront of the challenges of economic development, poverty alleviation, and enlightened globalization, promoting policies to help all parts of the world to benefit from expanding economic opportunities and wellbeing. He is also one of the leading voices for combining economic development with environmental sustainability.

Neighborhood Parks Council
The Neighborhood Parks Council in San Francisco is a nationwide trendsetter in open space advocacy. Isabel Wade, Founding Executive Director, is a lifetime advocate and innovator in the world of open space and urban parks. Visit their website that is rich in examples and resources for advocacy and action. Also, visit www.parkscan.org and www.bluegreenway.org.

Bay Area Open Space Council
The Bay Area Open Space Council is a collaborative program of public and non-profit agencies and organizations, providing regional leadership and expertise for the preservation and professional management of important open spaces in and around the cities of the San Francisco Bay Area. A primary objective of the Council is to enhance the region's quality of life, by articulating the region's vision of which lands should be protected as open space through public ownership or conservation easements, and by developing financial and organizational resources to implement this vision.

Center for Eco Literacy
The Center for Ecoliteracy was founded in 1995 by Fritjof Capra, Peter Buckley, and Zenobia Barlow. The Center for Ecoliteracy is a public foundation that supports a grantmaking program for educational organizations and school communities, primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area; convenes networks of its grantees; sponsors projects consistent with its mission; administers donor-advised funds; and manages a publishing imprint, Learning in the Real World®.

Wilderness Arts and Literacy Collaborative
The WALC vision is that “low-income, inner-city students of color achieve greater academic success and grow into an interconnected community of activists as a result of their engagement in a transformative educational model that integrates environmental education and ecological principles with ethnic studies and social justice principles. We envision the dissemination of this model contributing to diversification within the field of environmental education and the environmental movement.”

Sustainable San Mateo
Sustainable San Mateo County (SSMC) was established in 1992 by a group of San Mateo County citizens who sought to create a broader awareness of the sustainability concept. SSMC is an independent non-profit public benefit corporation dedicated to educating the community about sustainability.

Conexions
Conexions develops and promotes win-win solutions for the environment, the economy, and for social systems through programs and by working in collaboration with other organizations and institutions.

1% For The Planet
Collective Roots is proud to be selected as one of the environmental organizations supported by 1% For The Planet, an alliance of businesses committed to leveraging their resources to create a healthier planet. Members recognize their responsibility to and dependence on a healthy environment and donate at least 1% of their annual net revenues to environmental organizations worldwide. The alliance aims to prove that taking environmental responsibility is good for business.

The Eden Project
Talk about heaven on Earth. The website doesn't even come close to describing what is truly one of the greatest environmental restoration projects ever conducted on the planet. Visionary Tim Smit and his team have accomplished something that is unrivaled anywhere on Earth. The world's largest greenhouses are morphed into the bottom of what was once a GIANT hole created to mine china clay. Cornwall, England, was once one of the most economically deprived areas of England. The Eden Project has generated incredible wealth, jobs, and features the best of environmental horticulture, art, education, and more. You have to see it to believe it...worth a trip to England, just to visit this place and then go home - REALLY!

World Centric is non-profit organization working to reduce economic injustice and environmental degradation through education, community networks & sustainable enterprises. Click here to visit their informative website.

EDUCATIONAL CHANGE

Bay Area Partnership for Children and Youth
The Bay Area Partnership for Children and Youth is a non-profit organization that helps schools in the Bay Area's lowest-income communities successfully access public funding and implementation support for a wide range of youth programs. Their mission is to improve the health and well-being of young people and the families that support them.

John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities
Community and youth development go hand in hand: a community only prospers when its young people prosper, and young people only flourish in a flourishing community. The John W. Gardner Center (JGC) at Stanford University, partners with local communities to support their efforts to continually renew themselves, by way of developing well-rounded young people who are successful—intellectually, emotionally, physically and socially—and who in turn are motivated to contribute to their communities, both as leaders and as responsible participants.

INNOVATION

This category of links features organizations and work that creates innovation in fields related to the work of Collective Roots.

Institute for the Future
The Institute for the Future is a non-profit research center is a collaborative partner with Collective Roots and specializes in long-term forecasting, and quantitative futures research methods.

GRID ALTERNATIVES
GRID Alternatives' mission is to empower communities in need by providing renewable energy and energy efficiency services, equipment and training. Since 2001, GRID Alternatives has been working to bring the power of solar electricity and energy efficiency to low-income homeowners, and to provide community members with training and hands-on experience with renewable energy technologies.

TED
TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an invitation-only event where the world's leading thinkers and doers gather to find inspiration. There website is full of interesting and stimulating content from their events.

Fourth Sector
Fourth Sector Consulting, Inc. is a for-benefit company that works exclusively with mission-driven organizations. Fourth Sector measures success by helping organizations working for social change meet their goals and improve the world. Clients include nonprofits, foundations, and public or government agencies and other triple-bottom-line businesses.

SCHOOL HEALTH & WELLNESS

In the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004, the U.S. Congress established a new requirement that all school districts with a federally-funded school meals program develop and implement wellness policies that address nutrition and physical activity by the start of the 2006-2007 school year.

Model School Wellness Policies. This excellent resource site provides model school wellness policies. The site is sponsored by the National Alliance for Nutrition and Activity.

California Project Lean provides you with a wealth of resources, evaluations, articles and materials for promoting healthy eating and physical activity in schools. Learn more about CPL and how they can help you.

Guide for Creating Health & Wellness in Low Income Schools. A great guide published by the Food Resource and Action Center.

EAST PALO ALTO

East Palo Alto Economic Development Plan

Stanford Community Law Clinic

The Stanford Community Law Clinic is a direct-services clinic serving low-income people in and around East Palo Alto, an economically challenged community four miles from the law school campus. With an emphasis on trial-level skills—including fact investigation, legal research, client counseling, and negotiation—students represent clients in employment, housing, and criminal-record-clearance matters.

Whole House Building Supply

Government Organizations and Elected Officials Serving East Palo Alto

Recreational Organizations

Nonprofit Organizations

Faith Based Organizations

Health Care Organizations

BELLE HAVEN

Belle Haven, a neighborhood of Menlo Park adjacent to East Palo Alto, is located in a triangular area to the north of Highway 101. It is bounded by the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board railroad line to the north, Willow Road to the east, and Highway 101 to the south. Click here to view a map.

PLANTS

Summer Winds Garden Centers
725 San Antonio Road
(at Middlefield Rd)
Palo Alto, California 94303
(650)493-5136

FOOD-CULINARY ARTS

Cook Street is a world class chef cooking school. Work with top chefs and take advantage of International partnerships.

Food Hygiene legislation requires all food handlers to receive appropriate supervision, and be instructed and/or trained in food hygiene, to enable them to handle food safely. Click here to information about an online food hygiene and safety training course for food handlers.

VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES

Volunteer Match makes it easy for you to find a volunteer opportunity that fits your interests, skills and schedule.

One Brick is a 501(c)3 non-profit volunteer organization that brings volunteers together to support other local non-profit organizations by adopting an innovative twist to the volunteer experience: they create a friendly and social atmosphere around volunteering, and after each volunteer event -- which typically lasts only 3 to 4 hours -- they invite volunteers to gather at a local restaurant or café where they can get to know one another in a relaxed social setting. Through their volunteer projects, One Brick provides non-profits with the much-needed labor to carry out their visions. At the same time they also foster an environment in which to meet new people, both socially and professionally.

NETWORKING TOOLS

EPA.net

Community Netorking and Communication

Facebook (Choose Collective Roots as Cause of Choice)

Linkedin (Seach site members that reference "Collective Roots")

Picasite Visually discover websites by their thumbnails.

Wordalus (online dictionary, networking resource)

ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Net Impact

Net Impact is an international nonprofit organization with a mission to inspire, educate, and equip individuals to use the power of business to create a more socially and environmentally sustainable world.

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