Week Two

Garden

Basil Plants

Tomato Plants

More Pavilion Shots

I stacked all of that. 

This week flew by in comparison to the first week. I am very excited that we managed to get zucchini, squash, and a couple varieties of sweet and hot peppers in the ground this past week. 

The plants are all looking a bit shabby now and really need to get into the ground as soon as possible. It is difficult finding the time in the day to work on the garden and continue to deconstruct the pavilion. This past week I have become very accustom to having a hammer in my hand and pounding out nails for hours. 

Rennie is much better with a crow bar than I am so we have a bit of a system down thus far. There is still much to be done with the deconstruction because there are concrete blocks holding up the remaining lumber and underneath that there is a good amount of gravel and trash that will need to be cleaned up to plant more vegetables soon. I hope I can see all of this happen over my time in Greensboro. 

This experience has truly allowed me to see how fortunate I am to work in the University setting. The University may not always have the environment on its mind but there are enough people and money floating around that I can usually get what is needed and get it quickly... Things aren't like that in Greensboro. Time moves ever so slowly and the things that I take for granted (i.e. planters and hay) are donated or salvaged. This has been a great lesson for me to learn and I am proud that I am having to opportunity to learn it.

Rennie, Ryan, and I went to model for some pictures in a HERO/Rural Studio home that is in Sawyerville on Friday. I have never felt so much compassion and force to stay active in a community before. There were houses we past that I were one room and had a patchwork on screen to allow air in and out of the room. I was mortified that people were living in this condition. I guess I always think of shantytowns in far away places not one hour south of my house. Rennie told me that is what she thinks of when she thinks of Alabama. It's crazy to me that people from across the United States think of Alabama that way. I grew up in this suburb of Birmingham and honestly had no idea what the "real" world is actually like. The thing I kept thinking about was what the education of these kids I saw must be like. I would like to look into that more and perhaps do some volunteer environmental work with the local schools through SGA. 

Anyways...

JJ, the UA PhD student, Lydia, and I are going to work out some sort of schedule next week (Monday-Wednesday) to go test water quality in various places (I am assuming). I am excited to get to help her and learn more about what she is doing down in the Black Belt. 

The Pie Lab opened this week. The guys have sold a good bit of pie... it seems that there are people going in and out constantly. I am glad for them, what they are doing is really cool. There website is www.pielab.org.

I will post when I can again. 

Best,

Justinn

Week One

The Garden

Deconstruction of the Pavilion
Old Building 
Back side of HERO

Plants

My first week at HERO was exhausting but worthwhile. Waking up at 7 AM has been an adjustment but I have learned a great deal about the world thanks to NPR on the way to and from the HERO office. I come home exhausted every day, which is a nice feeling.

On my first day, I was given a grand tour of the HERO campus and the surrounding HERO houses like the Rammed Earth house. I learned there are three main restaurants in town: a pancake house named Flava, Mustang Oil (a gas station + restaurant), and a Mexican restaurant. 

There are many more interns and workers at HERO than I expected. There are five VISTAs (I still don't really know what they do), one girl from Michigan, Rennie, who is also working on the garden, and four boys from Brooklyn working on the Pie Lab. The Pie Lab is located on the HERO campus and these students are working with Project M and HERO to create a delicious way for the residents of Greensboro to discuss crucial town tensions over pie. The guys have done a great job creating an aesthetically pleasing place to eat and work in the community.

The home of the garden rests over a former home/trailer. We began the week by hoeing the area for the sunken beds while watching for old sewage pipes,crumbling bricks, and bits of broken glass. It took all last week to ensure the garden was thoroughly hoed and glass-free. It was unfortunate we could not use a tiller but the local urban cowboy, Johnny Parker, informed us his tractor wasn't getting anywhere near the bricks in that garden. I guess I don't blame him, it was time consuming none the less. 

This garden will provide food to the HERO workers, VISTAs, interns, and I am assuming a small percentage of the Greensboro community. 

We have the following vegetables, flowers, herbs:

• rosemary
• 2 types of basil
• corn
• sunflowers
• arugula
• collard greens
• zucchini
• squash
• 3 types of tomatoes
• 2 types of peas
• hot peppers
• sweet peppers
• and more...

Meanwhile, there is a large pavilion to the left of the sunken beds that needed to be deconstructed. We began to deconstruct the building by removing the metal roof and removing the supporting beams for the roof. Removing each nail and screw from each piece of wood from the supporting beams took ages. Some of these materials will be used to build a community kitchen where the HERO staff and friends can have a place to cook together with the vegetables.

Today, I incorporated a half of a pickup truck bed of manure into the three sunken beds and cultivated the previous dirt and manure together. With the great deal of rain the great state of Alabama has seen lately the beds needed the extra support and the sand I added as well. 

There will be a five-six raised beds behind the sunken beds that have been created thus far that will house the rest of the vegetables. We have not begun building these beds yet, but hope to do so soon... We hope to create the beds out of charred cedar. This will repel insects and avoid unnecessary wood treatment.

Tomorrow, I began my work with JJ, a UA PhD student who is examining water quality in Hale County. I am anxious to learn more about what she is doing...

I will try to add some pictures and the plans for the garden/community kitchen soon... I will update as soon as I can.

-Justinn

Responsibilities at HERO

I am so very excited to have the opportunity to be a Hale Empowerment Revitalization Organization (HERO) intern. Interning at HERO will grant me opportunities to do the following things:

• Design and Build "Edible School Yard" on HERO campus.

• Participate in design/build charette for campus design master plan including rental pods and community kitchen

• Mentoring & tutoring for the Youthbuild program

• Organization and distribution for monthly HERO food pantry

• Mentoring at Pie Lab (small business start-up model)

• Organizing 2 community events for youth

• Coordinating volunteer groups for construction

I am looking forward to participating and implementing these programs over my five week internship at HERO. HERO is doing great things in Greensboro and I am really excited to contribute in any way I can. 

Beginning May 25, I will be assisting a UA PhD candidate that is studying water quality in Hale County in conjunction with HERO.

I start interning on Monday, May 18. I will be in Greensboro at 8 AM each morning and get off at 4:30 PM each day. 

I will post soon.

-Justinn