Gratitude, Thankfulness, Appreciation, Gratefulness. 

These are just a few words that express A Living Library and Life Frames, Inc.'s sentiments towards its generous donors, partnering schools, hardworking teachers, and engaging students.  We feel lucky and grateful for the giving nature of A.L.L.'s strong garden community, and these sentiments can not be expressed enough.

In January, OMI/ Excelsior and Junipero Serra Branch Living Library & Think Park's students welcomed in the New Year, 2013, with much needed reflection on the bounty around us. Upon returning from the winter break, students shared highlights of their vacations of celebrating time with family and friends over meals, travels, and holiday celebrations. Our students discussed the importance of articulating appreciation, and how we can show appreciation, and share our gratitude at school and at home.

While our youngest students practiced their reading and writing skills through hand-made, Thank You Cards, with full illustrations, our older students took their introspection skills a step further, and developed beautiful poems of gratitude.

Students were able to find quiet and healing spaces in our OMI/Excelsior and Junipero Serra Living Library Gardens  for inspiration in peaceful surroundings, which helped them reflect upon the love of their families and appreciation of A.L.L. Most students expressed appreciation for the love of their families; even the 5 yr. olds knew how important love is !

 By the end of January, we turned our eyes towards the Garden where our OMI/Excelsior Student Stewards Mentors and After School classes learned about an ancient companion planting trio, Corn-Bean-Squash.  They harvested and prepared a feast to pay homage to the bounty of the land.

These Three Sisters, are traditionally planted together and work to support one another in providing nutrients, structure, or protection to the others. In legend, the Sisters are always to be grown, eaten, and celebrated together, and thus exude environmental, nutritional, and cultural sustainability.

This year our Three Sisters had a true blue star, the Hopi Blue Corn; a many hundred year old corn variety originating from the Hopi territory of the Four Corners.  Hopi Blue Corn not only boasts increased nutritional value over common yellow and white corns but it is also a cultural idol signifying the rising sun, the beginning of life, wisdom, and understanding (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopi_maize).

January's Meal of the Month is a Three Sister Succotash       

Ingredients:

-1/2 medium Cinderella Pumpkin, de-seeded, peeled, and cubed (any of your choice can be substituted)

-2 cups Pinto Beans, cooked

-1 cup Hopi Blue Corn kernels, fresh

-1 tbs. Olive Oil

Pre-cook Pinto Beans from dry storage by soaking them in a deep pot of water  overnight. When beans are plump, boil them in excess water for 30 min-1 hr.  Add subtle flavors, such as garlic, onion, salt, and pepper to taste. Or, buy pre-cooked beans. Heat a pan with olive oil. Add pumpkin cubes; as they cook, their color will brighten, to a deep orange.  When pumpkin is soft, and easy to pierce, add fresh corn off the cob, and cooked beans.  Stir constantly, while beans and corn are warming.  Sprinkle with seasoning if desired, but other flavors really don't need to be added to this hearty, complete-protein meal.

Cheers to Land.  Cheers to Life.  Be Grateful for it all, and Enjoy !

[caption id="attachment_3713" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Enjoy your Three Sisters Succotash[/caption]

 Submitted by Courtney Calkins, A.L.L instructor

At the OMI/Excelsior and Bernal Heights Branch Living Library & Think Parks, December meant many things for us; a celebration of plentiful resources, familial traditions, winter vacation, and the seasonal solstice; all came together through much hard work and enjoyment.  In some stories, the Winter Solstice signifies rebirth, where the shortening of daylight appeared to be the death of our sun; a natural resource that all life follows.  In many traditions, when the sun rises on the morning of the Solstice its presence is marked by celebration, and from this day forward the sun seems to grow in strength (truly growing only in hours of daylight/day).  

This past December,  A Living Library’s OMI/Excelsior Branch Student Stewards celebrated the end of their semester-long A.L.L. Mentorship Program with a Winter Solstice Party on December 21^st, the first official day of winter. The Solstice made it the darkest work day in our Gardens, but this would never keep our students away from a celebration of their hard work.

Our first Winter Solstice Party shared global practices of many, with a feast, music, and artwork.  Our students were encouraged to combine healthful garden cooking skills with their favorite family dishes, and they created a wide array of foods, such as: garden fresh kale chips, homemade pesto pasta, and even established, a learn-how-to-make sushi station ! Food and festivities were shared with everyone who had helped out in the A.L.L. Gardens throughout the fall semester. As a parting gift students created holiday art projects that taught the importance of reusing natural resources from the garden. From Seasonal Stars and Garden-Dye Tree Drawings to the Stewards’ tee-shirt printing of student-designed logos, that boasted “We ain’t no Couch Potato!” all students were able to create art work to take home for the holidays. Spirits were high and the laughter was tangible as the sun set into the darkness of the longest night of the year.

This celebration was just a small token of appreciation that we could give our Student Stewards after the countless hours they spent creating, beautifying, and teaching younger children about A.L.L. and the Gardens over the past four months. A reflection of our students’ work ethic can be seen, in that the group as a whole received $500 in stipends for their collective 470+ hours learning and loving the Gardens.

Many students were thrilled with the aid this would give them in family holiday shopping! The growing strength and vitality of our Student Stewards After School Mentorship Program will be seen in the commencement of the program again in January.

 

Thank you everyone for all of your   hard work this year, including our funder, DCYF.

Happy Holidays and Best Wishes for a New Year of exploration and experience!

Submitted by Courtney Calkins, A.L.L. Instructor