Month: April 2017

Seaside Garden Club Welcomes the Backyard Growers on Tuesday, April 11

~ kwillwerth

The Seaside Garden Club welcomes the Backyard Growers on Tuesday, April 11, 7 pm at the Manchester Community Center. Guests are welcome, $5 fee.

Backyard Growers (BYG) is a grassroots organization helping to reshape Gloucester’s relationship with food. We provide resources and support to establish vegetable gardens and accompanying programming at homes, housing communities, organizations, and schools. In the end we create life-long gardeners inspired by the power of growing one’s own food. Our mission has remained consistent since our inception, with new mission-driven programs and initiatives added each year to continue reaching a broader swath of our community over time.

Urban farmer Lara Lepionka founded Backyard Growers in 2010 as a way to help her neighbors stretch their budgets by growing their own food.  Since those first gardens were built, Backyard Growers has grown exponentially to include a suite of programs serving a broad segment of Gloucester’s low- to moderate-income residents with a focus on serving children and their families. From a school garden program operating district-wide to bring over 1,500 students Pre-K through high school out to their school gardens each year, to evening cooking classes for new gardeners, Backyard Growers aims to make access to gardening and fresh, healthy food an easy option for Gloucester residents.

During the 2008 recession Lara Lepionka and her family tore out their postage stamp lawn and started an intensive urban micro-farm, feeding their family of four and creating a model for urban farming in Gloucester, MA. Having caught the gardening bug, Lara founded Backyard Growers in 2010 with a $6,000 budget, helping a handful of families in her neighborhood start their own vegetable gardens. Her ultimate goal: creating life-long gardeners inspired by the power of growing one’s own food.

She has developed Backyard Growers into a grassroots non-profit organization with an annual budget of over $250,000. Backyard Growers provides resources and support to establish vegetable gardens at homes, housing communities, non-profit organizations, and public schools, and offers accompanying programs and initiatives that promote a love of fresh, local produce. Prior to her role as Executive Director of Backyard Growers, Lara has worked for the past twenty years in the non-profit sector focusing on education, the arts and food justice issues. Visit their website for more information: http://www.backyardgrowers.org/

Mark your calendars for our very popular annual plant sale and auction on May 9th.  We conclude our season in June with a Pot Luck and Book Club discussion.

Get social with the Seaside Garden Club and keep up with the latest news and happenings!  We welcome your photos, questions and ideas! Join our Facebook group Seaside Garden Club Facebook Group  and follow our blog: Seaside Garden Club Blog.

Take Back the Night 4/10

~ Gloucester Health Department

Please join us on Monday, April 10th at 6 PM at the Gloucester Police Department for a march and rally led by Mayor Romeo Theken to protest sexual violence. Together we can demand an end to this horrible crime.

For more information, please contact Public Health Nurse, Kelley Ries, at 978-325-5266.

Jeffrey Bolster at the Cape Ann Museum

~ Cape Ann Museum

Jeffrey Bolster and “The Mortal Sea”

Saturday, April 15 at 2:00 p.m.

Join author and Professor of History at the University of New Hampshire, Jeffrey Bolster, for a discussion of his book The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail (Harvard University Press, 2012).

Cost is $5 for Cape Ann Museum members / $10 nonmembers (includes Museum admission). Registration required; please call (978)283-0455 x10 or register online at Eventbrite. For more information email info@capeannmuseum.org.

Jeffrey Bolster, The Mortal Sea

About The Mortal Sea, from Harvard University Press:

Since the Viking ascendancy in the Middle Ages, the Atlantic has shaped the lives of people who depend upon it for survival. And just as surely, people have shaped the Atlantic. In his innovative account of this interdependency, W. Jeffrey Bolster, a historian and professional seafarer, takes us through a millennium-long environmental history of our impact on one of the largest ecosystems in the world.

The Mortal Sea is available in the Museum’s Online Shop.

Backyard Growers hosts April Break Garden Games & Crafts for Kids

~ backyardgrowersgloucester

Looking for fun kids activities over April break? Bring your child to Backyard Growers for a morning of games, crafts and stories. Your child will celebrate the coming of spring by learning about pollinators, making garden art and planting with their very own herbs! On Monday, April 17th from 10:00-11:30am, we will be doing activities with elementary age children while Tuesday, April 18th from 8:30-10:00am, activities will be geared toward Preschool and Kindergarten age kids. Each program is $20. To find out more and sign your child up, please visit www.backyardgrowers.org. We look forward to playing and growing with your child over April break!

April Break Programming