Sustainability at PPS

This month we’re highlighting the benefits of local gardening and food initiatives in Portland Public Schools and beyond, as we move into SPRING PLANTING SEASON. Access to nutritious and delicious local food is an environmental justice issue, and a key pillar to sustainable living.

Environmental and Human Health Benefits of Garden grown food vs. Industrial Agriculture:

Industrial agriculture poses many environmental harms from pesticide pollution, to erosion and major soil degradation, to food waste at an estimated 30-40% of total food supply, to transportation emissions. There’s a common misconception that industrial food production is still more efficient than small-scale farms and gardens, but you can read this article to learn why that is not the case. Gardening is a wonderful alternative to industrial agriculture.

PPS has over 65 school gardens!! Here are some of the benefits of gardens in schools:

• Increased access to fresh foods with better taste and higher nutrition

• Building Community - school gardens provide a gentle social environment

• Mental health and Soil-induced euphoria– Gardening can reduce anxiety and stress, improve depression, and may help lower cancer risk. Being in fresh air improves mood and brain chemistry. Skin contact with soil microbes increases serotonin production and is one reason many gardeners are such happy people!

• Broadening Picky Eaters’ pallets – Seeing where foods come from and having the opportunity to grow for oneself can help some picky eaters overcome food aversions.

• Growing your own food can provide a sense of security, resilience and preparedness when industrial food systems are disrupted.

• PPS Nutrition Services contracts with Growing Gardens and Grow Portland to connect gardens to cafeterias and to give extra harvest to students struggling with food insecurity.

• Education – School gardens are a great hands-on teaching tool. Over 12 of our school garden sites have year-round garden programming with organizations like Grow Portland and Growing Gardens, as well as many after school gardening clubs, such as those supported by the SUN after school program.

Here’s a cute video of one of these programs in action.

Did someone say gardening? How about farming? How about…vertical aquaponic farming that uses a sustainable closed loop system to grow produce that is donated and sold in low-income communities?

Now add over a dozen students from Jefferson High School with some building materials and a bit of instruction, and you’ve got something special: An aquaponics tower, 4 levels high and 80 feet long, built entirely by Jefferson High student interns that produces vegetables that are brought back into communities needing access to local, fresh, affordable produce.

Through a brilliant partnership between the Hopscotch Foundation, Live Local Organic, and Jefferson High School, Jefferson students spent two months, at the Live Local hangar just past Oaks Bottom in SE Portland. They took up saws, hammers, measuring tape, and – we presume – an instruction manual to construct an aquaponics tower large enough to grow 7,000 plants at a time!

Through the program, students were paid for their work and learned advanced construction skills. And they learned something even rarer: skills and knowledge about the future of urban and climate-resilient agriculture.

“You’re gonna learn how to build stuff you never did before and you’re also helping the community out,” said Jefferson student D’marieon. “So yeah, would 100% recommend.”

The growing system is a closed loop – fish produce nutrients from their “waste” (can you really call it waste in this case?) which fertilizes the plants. As the plants consume these nutrients, they filter and clean the water, which goes back into the fish tanks. Because it is self-contained and built vertically, aquaponics can be grown anywhere: the freezing cold of Minnesota to an island in the Pacific Ocean to a small piece of land in an urban food desert.

Staff at the Hopscotch Foundation are working with partners to figure out how to expand the program by securing sites accessibly located in the Jefferson High School and McDaniel High School neighborhoods for new aquaponics towers to be built and maintained by students, who would also harvest and distribute the produce. The program teaches job skills, feeds the community, and pushes forward an amazing solution to fighting climate change at the local level.

As Hopscotch Foundation founder Dave Gunderson says, “This is a ‘checks-all-the-boxes’ program.”

Want to learn more? Check out the video!

The Lent Elementary school garden has a new brick plaza! Although the plaza is new, its origins go back years.

In 2015, Lent celebrated the completion of an amphitheater built with funds from a grant to the Lent PTA. As a fundraiser, the PTA sold engraved bricks to Lent families and school supporters that were to be used to create a plaza in the amphitheater. The project encountered unanticipated difficulties and the bricks languished for years in the basements and garages of a succession of PTA presidents.

In 2021, the PTA was able to construct a covered kiosk in the garden to inform the school and the community about the garden and garden events. The PTA president at the time suggested that the engraved bricks she had in her garage would make a nice brick plaza under the kiosk.

Then, the scope of the project expanded. Engraved bricks were added for each of the Lent principals from 2003 to present (7 in all) and for other people who have been instrumental in the development of the garden since its founding in 2012 (13 in all). Those 13 people include the garden founder, Jesse Hunter (now a teacher and garden coordinator at Woodstock Elementary), Nancy Bond (PPS Resource Conservation Specialist during the early years of the Lent garden), leaders of the two organizations that have used the garden to teach Lent students about the natural world; Anna Garwood with Growing Gardens along with Bethany Thomas and Sarah Woods, the co-founders of Ecology in Classrooms and Outdoors. Each brick in the plaza honors a person who has made a difference in making the Lent garden what it is today. To paraphrase an old adage, it takes a community to build a school garden.

This Spring, the PPS office of Climate Justice and the office of Energy and Sustainability are hosting a student climate fair!

When: Monday, April 24, 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Where: Portland State University, Smith Memorial Student Union
Who: PPS students, green community organizations, non-profits, partners, and businesses, teachers, community activists, and more.
More to come: We will be sending out an official invitation and sign up form soon!

The fair will bring together students, community climate organizations, and green businesses and partners for a day of learning, resource sharing, and connecting. Students will have opportunities to build project or internship proposals with participating organizations, Oregon Green Schools will host an in-person student voices panel, and PPS staff will provide updates on the state of the PPS Climate Action Policy.

We are currently looking for organizations and businesses that would like to table at the event or students or classes that wish to host "peer education tables" to present on projects they have worked on. If you are interested, or have questions about attending, please email sustainability@pps.net.

Looking for a summer internship? There are all kinds of amazing farm internships around Portland. Check them out!

• Zenger Farm Internship & Apprenticeship

• Red Truck Homestead

• Rogue Farm Corps has several farm apprenticeship sites in the Portland area

• Portland Parks and Rec Youth Conservation Crew (ages 14-18)

• Social Media Intern with Growing Gardens

Know of others? Let us know at sustainability@pps.net and we'll share the info.

Fun Fact: According to a 2021 study by Statistica, Portland, Oregon has the most community gardens of any city in the U.S. with ~4.45 gardens per 1,000 residents!

February is Black History Month, so let’s talk about the local history of Black community gardens and racialized access to land and food sovereignty.

• This NYT article features six Black authors reflecting on the power of connecting to land through growing food and tending gardens.
• Portland Black Gardeners project is about the experiences and oral histories of Black community gardeners in Portland, including the displacement of Albina’s community gardens and present-day microaggressions in Portland’s predominantly White community gardens.
• Listen to the 1619 Project’s 5th Episode: The Land of Our Fathers for a story of racial discrimination in farming in the U.S.
• Read this article from OPB for information on Oregon’s land use policies that limited Black farmers, and how BIPOC-owned microfarms offer a solution.

Here’s a list of local BIPOC-owned/led farms and gardening initiatives that you can get involved with or support:

• Chalchi Farm LLC, Brown/Indigenous Owned on Wapato Land, Hablamos espanol.
• Flying DogHeart Farm is a QT Indigenous, Disabled Veteran Owned Farm that’s part of the Raceme Farm Collective. Flying DogHeart Farm focuses on connecting Black and Brown people to land and relationshipto plants, through plant medicine and herbalism, raising rabbits, and offering workshops and consulting.
• Scrapberry Farm is a tiny herbal farm on unceded Wapato territory (Portland, OR) that is also part of the Raceme Farm Collective.
• Black Oregon Land Trust (BOLT) is “dedicated to ensuring that Black communities in Oregon have secure and affordable land access, sustainable agricultural skills, and the protected ecosystems needed to grow economically, environmentally, and culturally thriving communities”.
• Mudbone Grown is a part of BOLT and the Feed’em Freedom Foundation. Mudbone Grown is “in the business of growing food, community health, business, and community culture around delivery of the triple bottom line to historically absent or barriered communities”.
• Black Futures Farm is a community farm on 1.15 acres with 17 different fruit trees, vegetables, flowers, medicinal and cooking herbs. BFF writes, “Our aim is to implement the best methods of growing food, taking the best of what we can from our ancestral practices while being a part of innovation”.
• NAYA’s Community Garden “centers Indigenous Traditional Ecological Cultural Knowledge, also known as regenerative agriculture” and provides Indigenous people. NAYA’s has a market garden with kale, lettuce, arugula and collard greens to basil, dill and parsley, as well as zucchini, cucumbers, tomatillos, beans, eggplants and a variety of both hot and sweet peppers, as well as a Three Sisters garden, a First Foods garden and a medicine Garden that all feature traditional foods.
• Inter-Tribal Gathering Garden at Cully Park is a 36,000 acre public park project based in traditional indigenous wisdom, and created a place to commune, cultivate indigenous foods and materials for cultural practices and traditions, and revitalize the associated knowledge, skills and ethics in an urban landscape.

PPS Climate Justice & Sustainability’s two incredible AmeriCorps members (Cal Verstrate and Hannah Skutt, who both help write your favorite newsletter each month) spent MLK Jr. day last month hosting an AmeriCorps service day for their 15-person Portland cohort.

The service day started with a screening of the documentary Priced Out (free on YouTube), about the story of racial housing justice and gentrification in Portland. The cohort spent the morning discussing climate gentrification, ideas for fighting back against Portland's history of racist housing policies, and the intersection of policing and gentrification.

The cohort felt the heaviness of the topic, and agreed that one of the best things we could all do was to lean into opportunities to talk about the harm of gentrification, the history of North and Northeast Portland and displacement of Black communities.

In the afternoon, the group cooked up 30 meals of vegan pasta primavera (at just $2.66 per meal) to donate to Feed the Mass (https://www.feedthemass.com/), helping fight food insecurity and food waste in Portland.

“It is so easy for non-Black folks to take the long weekend for MLK day, maybe post an MLK quote about non-violence, without challenging racial discrimination and inequities that endure today, and without changing dehumanizing behavior,” said Hannah. “This was my first time deliberately engaging with a full day of service on the MLK holiday. I have no idea how I spent previous MLK days, and in contrast, this one I'll remember forever.”

Join Portland Parks Urban Forestry and the Portland Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority to celebrate Black History Month by learning Black environmental efforts in Albina and beyond. Come have a snack, make a friend, and learn about other ways to get involved with trees through the Urban Forestry Division and local environmental nonprofits! For more info and to register, click here.

When: Saturday, February 11, 11:00AM - 1:00PM

Where: June Key Delta Community Center (5940 N Albina Ave, Portland, OR 97217)

Green Lents' goals are to grow food, build community, restore ecological relationships, and share in the harvest... And they welcome you to join your neighbors in caring for this beautiful and abundant community orchard. All are welcome! No sign-up necessary. Masks optional.

Children under 16 must be supervised by an adult.

Questions? Contact getinvolved@greenlents.org

When: Every 3rd Saturday of the month, 9:00AM-12:00PM January - November

Where: Malden Court Community Orchard 7677 SE Flavel & 87th Portland, Oregon

Bring: Your own gloves, water, and dress for the weather

The Arctos School of Herbal and Botanical Studies is hosting a seed starting workshop in February. This workshop will explore the art of growing medicinal plants from seed, getting participants all set up to start a healing herbal garden of their own! Learn from Gradey Proctor, an experienced botanist who founded the Medicine Garden. For more details and to register for the workshop, click here!

When: Wednesday, Feb. 22, 1:00 - 4:00PM

Where: Gradey’s farm in Oregon City

Cost: $60-75, sliding scale

February is a great month for starting to prepare your garden for the growing season. Here are some February garden tasks, and resources for more information:

• Clean and prepare your garden beds, test soil health, incorporate cover crops or other organic matter into soil.
• Prune rose bushes, fruit trees, grapes and berries
• Peas, Arugula, Spinach and Asparagus, Broccoli, Cabbage, Kale, and Onions can all be seeded outdoor in February
• February Garden To-Do List
• Portland Nursery’s Veggie Calendar
• Oregon Tilth’s Planting and Harvesting Calendar
• Oregon State University’s February Garden Calendar

PPS has a new volunteer opportunity called Project Community Care! Through Project Community Care, community members help beautify our school grounds with tasks from weeding, to picking up litter, to spreading mulch around flower beds. FMI or to volunteer, email communitycare@pps.net

Does your school have a developing or existing quality opportunity for students to directly experience the natural world, such as an edible garden? If so, why not become Oregon Green Schools (OGS) certified via their gardens and grounds track! The OGS certification process is more accessible than ever before, so it’s an amazing time to apply. To learn more about their garden and grounds track and to apply, click here. If you would like support with your application, please email sustainability@pps.net.

PCC offers affordable community garden, nature, and yard classes! You can register for classes like Mushroom Foraging for Beginners, Hummingbird Gardens, and Indoor Succulent Gardening. Most of these classes are single session, and will happen in late February or March. Class fees generally range from $29-45. See the full list of classes and register by clicking here!