Conference Information

Download Conference Brochure as PDF

Online registration AVAILABLE http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/114812. Refund policy: $25 fee for refunds.

Regular Conference Registration fees available until August 1.

2010 ACGA CONFERENCE AGENDA
LOUDERMILK CENTER, 40 COURTLAND STREET SE, ATLANTA, GA 30303
(SCHEDULE)

Pre-Conference Workshops
Theme: "Growing Healthy Children From The Ground Up!"
Targeting Childhood Obesity

This full day pre-conference session will explore how community gardens can support communities and schools in reducing childhood obesity. Program examples to be presented are applicable to a variety of community gardening settings.

Pre-Conference Objectives

• Present key facts and figures for childhood obesity e.g., poor nutrition and physical activities.
• Discuss the promising practices and measurements to prevent childhood obesity through community gardening.
• Discuss community gardening initiatives that improve access to healthy food for children and families.
• Explore community gardening models that work and how results are demonstrated.
• Describe how best to engage stakeholders and key partners as active allies in community gardening and childhood obesity initiatives.

What Will Attendees Gain

• New participants will learn about the promising role of community gardening in "growing" healthy children.
• Experienced participants will participate in hot topics related to community gardening, local food systems, nutrition and physical activities.
• Attendees will have the opportunity to share their own field experiences and practical applications in gardening, healthy eating and childhood obesity initiatives.
• Participants will receive a free copy of multidisciplinary community gardening and obesity resources on CROM.

Continuing Education Credits (CHES, RD)

Applications have been submitted to award Continuing Education Contact Hours for (1) Certified Health Education Specialists and (2) Registered Dietitians. Fees are inclusive with pre-conference fee. It is anticipated that the pre-conference will be worth up to 6 CECH.

Luncheon 12:30 pm - 1:30 pm

Keynote Speaker: Fulton County Department Health and Wellness Director:
Dr. Patrice Harris

Social Networking @ Loudermilk Center
Arriving early, join us for some wine & cheese

Registration
Breakfast snacks served from 8am-9am

Welcome: Yolanda Walker, Ben Tracy & Jason Helfin

Words From ACGA President & Vice President
Bobby L. Wilson & Bill Maynard

VIDEO MESSAGE FROM:
First Lady Michelle Obama

Networking/Break

Title: Organization of a Garden to Sustain Economy: Community Gardens in New York City
Speakers: Carolin Mees, Institute of Architecture and Landscape, Graz Technical College, Graz, Austria & Edie Stone, Green Thumb Community Garden Program, New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, New York City, NY

Description: Preservation of public land for community gardening in inner cities is necessary to sustain economic cycles. During economic depressions, community gardens provide quality of life and additional food supplies. If the gardens' elements are organized effectively, spatial use for food production can be intensified. Organization helps not only to sustain community gardens during economic depression but possibly, also to maintain them as permanent urban institutions during times of economic boom.

Title: Garden To Table: Fighting Childhood Obesity from the Ground Up

Speakers: Gretchen K. Schulz, Med, RD, SNS & Jessica Schulz Roth, MPA, AICP, Atlanta, GA

Title: Environmental Contaminants in Urban Gardens: Identification of Hazards and Effective Solutions
Speaker: Patrick Shaw, Better Waverly Community Organization Greening Committee, Baltimore, MD

Description: This session will overview the 'urban myths' as well as the very real threats lurking in city soils. Community gardens are cropping up in cities all across America, and often challenged by generally infertile soil and a vast array of toxic substances which could potentially contaminate food and/or workers.

Title: What Can You Grow in a Square
Speaker: Amanda Edmonds, Growing Hope, Ypsilanti, MI

Description: Bring food gardening down to the least common denominator and engage gardeners while doing so. Learn about Growing Hope's Four Square Society and community participation in tracking garden harvest and impact, based on four by four foot raised beds. Leave with tools to help you track and evaluate your garden.

Title: Creating Habitat for Beneficial Organisms, Insects and Wildlife in Urban and Small Spaces
Speaker: Christof Bernau, UCSC CASFS Apprenticeship, Santa Cruz, CA

Description: In this session, participants will explore who are beneficial, their many types and the many roles they play in the ecology of gardens.

Title: Greening Your Garden - Integrating Cisterns, Bio-Swales, Pervious Paving and Other Green Infrastructure Elements in Community Gardens
Speaker: Sean J. Murphy, Southeastern Engineering, Inc., Marietta, GA

Description: A detailed look at the products, systems and methods by which community gardens can be made to have a smaller footprint on the environment. The session will focus on the typical elements of each system, how they work, what they typically cost and how to integrate them into a garden/park.

Luncheon
Special invited speakers:
Woodbridge by Robert Mondavi, Spokesperson
Whole Food Market Spokesperson
Walt Disney Spokesperson
USDA People's Garden Spokesperson

Title: Educational Community Gardens
Speakers: Kyla Zaro-Moore Southeastern Horticulture Society, Atlanta, GA & Veronica Watson, ECOPAAT, Atlanta, GA

Description: Community gardens are as diverse as they are numerous. This workshop allows 3 different gardens to present how their gardens share educational programming with their community.

Title: Working with Vegetables Garden Projects in Rural Native American Communities
Speaker: Rhonda Burrows, S. Dakota State University, Rapid City, SD

Description: The session will focus on networking, culturally-sensitive resources, and more.

Title: Monarchs and Milkweed
Speaker: Karen Garland, Georgia Conservancy, Canton, GA

Description: Learn about the Monarchs Across Georgia's Pollinator Habitat Certification program. Also learn how to identify, propagate, and grow Asclepsia that are the Monarch caterpillar's only host plant.

Title: Abundance: Gathering Support For Your Garden
Speaker: Lucy Bradley, North Carolina State University Extension, Raleigh, NC

Description: Tired of begging for money? Inspired by an amazing vision that you could realize if you only had funding? Learn specific steps leading to sustainable abundant support from individuals, the media, policy makers and donors. Learn to tell your story compellingly, to identify and engage supporters and to generate the resources you need to excel.

Title: Designing Community-Based Farms & Gardens, A Growing Movement
Speaker: Farmer D, Farmer D Organics, Atlanta, GA & Sean Murphy, Southeastern Engineering Inc., Marietta, GA

Description: Community Farm and garden design charrette and inspirational session on opportunities in the field of community based farming and gardening.

Title: Eradicating Food Deserts in Urban Communities
Speakers: Della Spearman & Youth, Dorcas Youth Demonstration Gardens, Atlanta, GA

Description: This workshop will explain the process of eradicating "urban food deserts" to preventing unhealthy eating which can lead to childhood obesity. As years progress the number of "urban food deserts" increases in number and size. Some of our nation's largest cities and urban areas including Memphis and Detroit are adversely affected by lack of access and quality grocery stores. Through education and community gardens beginning with our youth, communities and families can be revived and sustained for long-term healthy living through food prep classes, nutritional information and simple recipes to encourage families and community meals.

Title: Fund Raising 101 for Community Gardens or Start-Up Organizations
Speaker: Gwen Hayes-Stewart, Gateway Greening, St. Louis, MO

Description: Fund Raising 101 for community gardens or start-up organizations.

Break

Title: Growing the Outdoor Classroom Movement
Speaker: Karen Garland, Georgia Conservancy, Canton, GA

Description: Creating places of educational value that will foster creative play, inspire a sense of wonder, and encourage good citizenship is a no-risk investment. Connections will be made to the natural world by participating in hands-on activities. Resources will be provided.

Title: Using the ACGA Website to Support Youth Education
Speaker: Jennifer Leonard, The Skills Library, Boston, MA

Description: An interactive discussion of the ways the ACGA website can support youth education.

Title: Service-Learning as a Means to Enhance College Students Understanding and Appreciation of Supported Agriculture
Speaker: Nancy Laplante, Neumann University, Aston, PA

Description: Undergraduate nursing students' participate in Service-Learning projects, working at an organic CSA. Service activities include research of crops grown, preparation of information sheets for members, and work in the gardens themselves. Students connect their service activities to nursing research, future clinical practice, and social issues impacting them personally and professionally.

Title: Growing Food Access: Garden Education at the Food Pantry
Speaker: Stephanie Solomon, Mother Hubbard's Cupboard, Bloomington, IN

Description: In this session participants will begin with an interactive activity highlighting the relationship between the cost and quality of food available to low income populations. The goal of this activity is for participants to understand the discrepancies between low-cost "fast" foods and whole foods. This activity will provide a foothold for a presentation on providing access to high quality whole foods to the most vulnerable in our communities.

Title: Gardens For Business: Running an Urban CSA Program
Speakers: Kamal Nuri, Truly Living Wellness Farms, Atlanta, GA & Rachel Kaplan, Gaia Garden, East Atlanta, GA

Description: Community Supported Agriculture has created a sustainable model for small-scale farms at the rural-urban fringe, but Truly Living Well Natural Urban Farms brings the food to the people right in Metro Atlanta. Find out about the challenges and opportunities of developing a business out of growing food in the city.

Title: "A Side Dish No More: How to Make Veggies Your Super Superstars" Speakers: Marcia Berlin & Deborah Geering, Atlanta Regional Commission, Atlanta, GA

Description: This workshop will show how to prepare meals where seasonal vegetables take center stage on your plate. Join us for this fun and informative cooking demo and become inspired to make healthy and delicious changes to your lifestyle.

Title: Training New Urban Growers
Speakers: Jonathan Tescher, Georgia Organics, Atlanta, GA & Kyla Zaro-Moore, Southeastern Horticultural Society, Atlanta, GA

Description: As demand for local sustainably-produced food increases, so does the need to grow more growers. The skills needed for urban agriculture differ than those for rural farming, and new training programs are popping up to help meet this need.

Taste of The South and Silent Auction @ Atlanta Metro Urban Farm
Come join us in a night of Southern Food sponsored by Whole Food Market, Good Wine by Woodbridge by Robert Mondavi, and lively entertainment.

Registration
Breakfast snacks served from 8am-9am

Clarkston Tour (5 Gardens) Meeting gardeners from Burundi, Bhutan, Somalia, Bosnia and tour the oldest continually operating community garden in Metro Atlanta.

Decatur Tour (5 Gardens) Visit the two highest profile community gardens in Metro Atlanta, including one 501(c)3 with paid staff, one city operated, one senior tower garden, one faith-based donation garden and one high school garden. Two of these gardens have honey bees.

Northeast Tour See gardens with exceptional esthetic qualities in city and county parks, a private gated apartment community (operated by a large corporation), and a horticulture therapy food garden run by master gardener volunteers for people with severe neurological disabilities.

Southwest Tour Visit the Atlanta Community Tool Bank, an innovative approach to community building. Also visit community gardens that have programs for disadvantaged kids, reclamation of abandoned land, and a community garden that moved three times, and is better than ever.

City of Atlanta Bike Tours (Limit: 20 riders, $20 fee) Experience a street-level experience of a cluster of the gardens in the afternoon Southeast tour. These gardens are all within a few miles of each other, so all bike skill levels are welcome. Bikes and helmets are provided.

Title: It's More Fun with Friends: Facilitating Family-Based Clubs in the Community Garden
Speakers: Katie Grimes, Madeline Grimes, & Amelia Grimes, Our Savior Community Garden, Dallas TX

Description: Step into a day in the life of a family-based gardening club to experience some of the best practices involved in structuring and inspiring your multi-generational and mixed age group. Then get down to the nitty-gritty as we discuss the nuts and bolts of start-up, operation, and retention.

Title: From Community to Healing Garden: Multiple Purpose of the Community Spaces
Speakers: Davorin Brdanovic, Community Gardens Association, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bill Pierre, American Friends Service Committee-AFSC, & Daniel Winterbottom, University of Washington, Seattle, WA

Description: The interdisciplinary Community Gardens Association team presents the developments and findings of the ten-year experience of the practice in the community gardens throughout Bosnia & Herzegovina.

Title: Culturally Appropriate and Nutritionally Dense Crops For Community and School Gardens

Speaker: Christof Bernau, UCSC CASFS Apprenticeship, Santa Cruz, CA Description: In this session, we will discuss a range of culturally relevant high nutrition crops ideally suited to small gardens. Participants will examine, through story, images and the plants themselves, the ethnobotanical history, methods of growing, preparing, preserving, and the nutritional value of a broad range of vitally important crops.

Title: Gardens without Borders: Lessons From a Community Garden For The Homeless
Speakers: Don Boekelheide, Urban Ministry Center & Erin Cheever, Americorps/Vista Volunteers, Charlotte, NC

Description: A community garden for the homeless addresses food security for the poorest of the poor, and offers a place where friendship, creativity, and healing can take root for people both homeless and homed. This is the story of the community gardening program at Charlotte, North Carolina's Urban Ministry Center.

Title: Strategies to Support & Sustain Community Gardens: Lessons Learned in Working Toward a Garden-Friendly City
Speakers: Jessica Guffey & Susan Leibrock, Sustainable Food Center, Austin TX

Description: Interested in how you can facilitate the creation of community gardens in your city? Come learn about how Sustainable Food Center has spearheaded this process in Austin by creating a communication & advocacy coalition and through policy recommendations to City Council. Participants are invited to share strategies from their cities.

Title: Fair Trade and Urban Gardening
Speaker: Ben Tracey, Alabama Southern University, Orange Beach, AL

Description: Bridging the two movements to defeat the consumer-producer gap.

Break

Title: Using Media To Promote Your Community Garden
Speakers: Richard Hoffman & Donyale Reavis, Spring Garden Pictures, Philadelphia, PA

Description: This interactive presentation is designed to educate attendees about the power of media to generate support for their community gardens. We will screen the short film "Fridays at the Farm", discuss its worldwide impact on the CSA farm movement, and share specific tools to increase the visibility of our gardens.

Title: Chicago Victory Gardens: Yesterday and Tomorrow
Speaker: LaManda Joy, The Garden, Chicago, IL

Description: Does gardening history repeat itself? A model for large-scale urban community gardens exists from Chicago's comprehensive WW2 plans. From education and organization to morale and city ordinances, this inspiring story could be a springboard for the future.

Title: Making More Gardens: Cooperation/Collaboration In Challenging Times
Speakers: Leslie Pohl-Kosbau, Portland Community Garden & Jenny Holmes, Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, Portland OR

Description: How schools, parks, congregations, agencies and businesses in neighborhoods are supporting community gardens in Corvallis and Portland Oregon. How typical non-profits, governments, businesses and congregations can find common ground to grow food, improve diets and support healthy neighborhoods.

Title: Initiating Neighborhood, Village and Hamlet Farm Communities
Speaker: Greg Ramsey, Village Habitat Design, Atlanta, GA

Description: This presentation will introduce participants to strategies for preserving land and creating farm/garden based conservation communities with introductions to our various communities.

Title: Building a Farm School Program
Speakers: Amanda Manning, Georgia Organic, Atlanta, GA & Atlanta Public School & Decatur School Representatives

Description: Want to get local, healthy foods into your schools? Learn from the experience of two school systems in the Metro Atlanta area who are in the process of incorporating local foods and school gardens into their school.

Title: Just Food Can Can: Fruity & Delicious
Speaker: Classie Parker, Just Food & Green Thumb, New York City, NY

Description: Preserving the harvest. Come and learn how to preserve your fresh fruits and vegetables the old-fashioned way. Samples and recipes will be given. Come and enjoy the ambiance of the session by learning how to boogie.

Annual ACGA Luncheon
Board Annual Reports & Presentations

Henry Tour (4 Gardens) Learn how a 501(c)3 created a "fee for services" arrangement with the county council. One emphasizes active senior living, one is for residents of public housing, one is family friendly and one is hared with a church.

Southeast Tour has a broad range of approaches to community gardening progressive youth engagement, a mission for disabled adults, an arts community, privately held land with a conservation casement, chickens and goats, and the first community garden in a city of Atlanta Park.

West Tour emphasizes the utilization of community gardens in education. We'll visit an urban CSA farm that offers classes to the public, three very different and unique schools that incorporate gardening into curriculum, and we will swing by a traditional neighborhood garden.

Decatur Tour (5 Gardens) Visit the two highest profile community gardens in Metro Atlanta, including one 501 c3 with paid staff, one city operated, one senior tower garden, one faith based donation garden and one high school garden. Two of these gardens have honey bees.

Title: Online Resources For Sustaining Your Community Garden
Speakers: Sarah Toton & Micah Wedemeyer, DoLeaf Inc., Decatur, GA

Description: In this session, participants will learn about online gardening resources for building their internet presence. They will also learn how to set up their own DoLeaf store and we'll take some time during the session to help participants individually on how to set up their store and list a plant. We will also give them advice on plant packaging and shipping, USDA regulations, and doing outreach for their store.

Title: Feeding People & Cultivating Communities In Rural Georgia
Speakers: Brooks Franklin, Justin Tyson & Karen Bentley, Sustainable Mountain Living Community, Rabun Gap, GA

Description: Learn how diverse organizations in this mountain county use low-cost initiatives to strengthen their community�from field and garden to classroom and table. Projects include: community gardening and commercial kitchen initiative; culinary tourism events; sidewalk growers' market; soup kitchen, nutritious food giveaway; and gardening and environmental education for all ages.

Title: Teaching people to build communities-Building Healthy Communities Through Community Gardens
Speaker: Kristin Graf, Wookiye Gardens, Beavercreek, OH

Description: Going beyond the garden and teaching people how to do more than grow the food: cooking, sustainability, food storage, and community outreach. When you teach someone how to farm, an entire community can eat.

Title: Got Hummingbirds: Attracting and Studying Hummingbirds in the Outdoor Classroom
Speaker: Kim Bailey, Georgia Outdoor Classroom Council, Cumming, GA

Description: Learn all about hummingbirds' habitat needs, migration, and adaptations through engaging hands-on activities, inquiries, and active games. Discover how to attract hummingbirds to schoolyard habitat gardens.

Title: Rainwater Harvesting
Speakers: Rick Walker, Rain Catchers, Kernsville, NC

Description: Understanding the reasons and benefits of collecting, and reusing rainwater.

Break

Title: How Does Your Garden Grow? - Journaling Made Fun and Easy
Speaker: Bonny Hajducko, Broward County Farm Bureau, Margate, FL

Title: Building and Rebuilding Community through Gardening in the Bronx
Speakers: Ursula Chanse & Sara Katz, Bronx Green-Up, The New York Botanical Garden, & Catherine Wint, Bronx Manhattan Land Trust, Bronx, NY

Description: Bronx Green-Up and Bronx Land Trust will show you examples of the successful redevelopment of Bronx community gardens, and inspire others to work and sustain these precious spaces in their city. We will take you through the transformation of abandoned lots and provide ideas on how to spur the enthusiasm and effort of community groups and residents.

Title: Federal Support for Community Gardening & Advocacy 101
Speaker: Betsy Johnson, ACGA Advocacy Committee & Community Food Security Coalition Urban Agriculture Committee, Boston, MA

Description: Learn and become involved in the new efforts underway to get the federal government to provide support for community gardening and urban agriculture.

Title: How and Why to Keep Bees in Top Bar Hives.
Speaker: Christy Hemenway, Gold Star Honeybee, Bath, ME

Description: Learn why this matters! This introductory workshop will demonstrate this natural, green method of keeping our important pollinators healthy. Discussion includes preliminary chemical contamination research findings and the emerging natural beekeeping movement.

Title: Gardening For Grades: Successful Standards-Based School Garden Technique and Curriculum
Speaker: Trina Hofreiter, Keep Orlando Beauitful, Orlando, FL

Description: Gardening for Grades is a curriculum published by Florida Ag in the Classroom. Come meet the author and learn about the school gardening programs in Central Florida, and how they've improved standardized test scores. In addition, teacher workshops that promote the curriculum will be discussed, as well as lessons learned.

Title: Seattle P-Patch a 37-Year Partnership of Gardeners, the City and the P-Patch Trust
Speaker: Rich Macdonald, Seattle P-Patch Community Garden, Seattle, WA

Description: For all of its history, Seattle P-Patch has relied on a simple formula for growth. A healthy program relies on gardeners, non-profit advocacy and city support. Three recent examples involving funding, a threat and commitment to social justice illustrate that the health of community gardening still rests on work of each group.

Film Night Out @ Atlanta Botanical Gardens
Showing of Dirt.

Also, conference attendees are asked to bring short video/electronic pictures about your community gardens. All videos might not be shown.

Registration
Breakfast snacks served from 8am-9am

Title: Growing Healthy Kids: Community Garden with Obesity Prevention in Mind.
Speaker:Maria Hitt, Orange County Partnership for Young Children, Chapel Hill, NC

Description: This will be an informational session sharing knowledge gained from 3 years of establishing new community gardens to serve immigrant families with young children. Attendees will receive information about recruiting, teaching and measuring the effects of community gardens. Evaluation methods and results of this obesity prevention project will be shared.

Title: Nourishing the Kids of Katrina.
Speaker: Bill Maynard, Sacramento Area Community Garden Coalition, Sacramento, CA

Description: Food, Health and Nutrition: preventing obesity, especially in children, community food security, nutrition education, cooking from the garden, food preservation, local food systems, "slow food", school lunches, horticultural therapy.

Title: Trees in Community Gardens
Speaker: Robert Hamilton, North American Fruit Explorers, Wali Williams, Environmental Educator, & Robby Astrove, Environmental Educator, Atlanta, GA

Description: Community gardens are sun-seekers, but carefully planned tree plantings can enhance community gardens in a number of ways. Learn from the experts about planning, care, and education about incorporating trees into your garden for food and the environment.

Title: University-Garden Partnerships
Speaker: Caitlin Keesee, Michael Dale & Rachel Abraham, Emory University, Atlanta, GA and Kyla Zaro-Moore, Southeastern Horticultural Society, Atlanta, GA

Description: As community gardens become more ingrained in neighborhood culture, working with local colleges and universities is a great way to leverage their resources to improve your garden. Emory University Fellows will present their summer immersion project in discovering how a community garden is perceived and used by the neighborhood.

Title: Land Trusts and Garden Preservation.
Speaker: Betsy Johnson, South End/Lower Roxbury Open Space Land Trust, Boston, MA

Description: Learn about the pros and cons of land trusts as a means to protect community gardens and discuss alternatives.

Title: Animals in Community Garden
Speakers: Jonathan Watts-Hull, Oakhurst Community Garden: Chickens, Cassandra Lawson, Decatur High School Community Garden: Bees, and Jen Cleere, The Goat-op: Goats

Description: Ever wonder how to incorporate animals into your community garden? This workshop will present how bees, chickens and goats can become an integral part of your community garden.

Post Conference Community Gardening Tour: Suburban Gardening

This Post Conference is FREE to the first fifty people that sign up
This tour will offer participants a glimpse into one of the hottest trends in today's community gardens-expansion into suburban areas. The three gardens featured on this tour have all been built within the past two years and are located in the Atlanta suburbs. Whether you're starting a new garden of your own or just want to see how today's community gardens are developing. You don't want to miss this tour. In addition to the tours, participants will be treated to a brunch that highlights both the garden harvest and delicious cuisine of the Deep South.

PAYMENT SUMMARY

Please circle one:      Regular Attendee      Presenter      Student

TOTAL