Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation

Michelle Knapik, Environment Program Director

Once inside the unassuming entrance of Roberta’s, if you can cast your gaze past the wood fired stove and pizza gurus, let your olfactory senses take in something beyond the sweet aroma of ricotta pancakes sopping up maple syrup, and put down your mason jar of local beer, you will see, hear and experience the backyard urban oasis – a farming oasis that is. But don’t look out, look up. There is where you will find the first of the rooftop greenhouses.

The hoop greenhouse is built on top of a shipping container that is fitted out as a radio station (more on that later). Another captures waste heat from the condenser unit for the walk-in refrigerator.

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Michelle Knapik, Environment Program Director

I spent last Friday afternoon at the latest in the series of Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) Food System Stakeholder meetings.  This one focused on the indicators of a sustainable food system.  What that means in less wonky terms is what are our “food values” and how do we measure them.  Put another way, if we, as individuals, are what we eat, our food system is a reflection of what we value  . . . or is it?  I’ve written in past blog posts (link here , here and here)  about the disconnect between agri business and what we eat, and whether we know much at all about where our food comes from, how it was produced, and what impacts it has on the earth.  But in this meeting on indicators I came face to face with food values. (more…)

Molly de Aguiar, Program Associate

Tomorrow we’re cleaning up (composting!) the remnants of our garden, and we’ll be talking as a group about the lessons we learned from our first year of urban gardening as well as planning for what we’d like to accomplish next year.

For me personally, it was such a treat to watch the green roof grow this year, to pick fresh strawberries and cherry tomatoes at lunchtime, and to see the bees and butterflies come to our flowers. And there’s nothing so restorative during the busy work day than to eat lunch in the sunshine,  surrounded by the trees, flowers and grass—one floor up!

Here’s a look back at our green roof this first year in our new offices, starting with what it looked like before it was planted (November 2008) to the present. Pretty remarkable, don’t you think?

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Dodge has announced its new guidelines. Please visit our website for full details.

We want to connect with you! Follow us on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook (where you can see more garden and roof photos).

Molly de Aguiar, Program Associate

On my block, there are four houses across the street from us. One of the houses is unoccupied, and the other three each have giant trampolines in their backyards. My husband and I had the same reaction when we realized this – couldn’t our neighbors have bought one trampoline that they all shared?

When I saw this story about NeighborGoods on Re-Nest last week, it made me think of the trampolines.

NeighborGoods is a newly-launched online marketplace which encourages people to get more use out of items they – or someone nearby – already own by lending, renting, borrowing, buying or selling stuff among their neighbors.

Why buy a brand new snow blower, when you can rent or borrow one from the neighbor? Why throw away your kid’s bike when you can sell it to the family down the street who wants it? Makes sense, right? And it keeps more trash out of landfills and more money in your pocket. NeighborGoods facilitates these kinds of transactions while also fostering a sense of community and sharing and reminding us that we can live less wasteful lives.

Micki Krimmel is the force behind NeighborGoods. She’s well-known for her Web 2.0 work which focuses on sustainable community development and authentic, participatory community dialogue. She was instrumental in leading interactive media efforts for Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth and formerly worked as a columnist for WorldChanging.com – a website and its founder Alex Steffen whose work we follow here at Dodge.

Unfortunately for most of us, NeighborGoods is only available for southern California, but I know you can already imagine how useful a site like this would be in your neighborhood. If you’re interested in starting your own neighborhood sharing system, here’s another post from re-nest featuring the book The Sharing Solution, which teaches you how. Shareable is another useful online resource, which covers a wide range of topics about sharing beyond exchanging tangible goods.

If you’re already on Twitter, you can follow Dodge, NeighborGoods, Micki, Alex Steffen, Worldchanging and Shareable. If you’re not, what are you waiting for? Sign up and see what everyone is tweeting about!

Wendy Liscow, Program Officer

One warm, crystal clear morning in August, I was lacing up my hiking boots with great anticipation. Not only was I going to get to leave my more formal foundation program officer uniform at home, but I was also going to a site visit at the South Mountain Reservation to meet the Student Conservation Association’s Newark-area service corps. I had been to visit the crews last summer at Newark’s Branch Brook Park and was blown away by the high school students’ enthusiasm and the skills and knowledge they had accumulated over seven busy weeks. This visit promised to be equally gratifying.

As I pulled into the Dog Park parking lot, I was welcomed by the Student Conservation Association’s Newark Project Director Renee Winslow who escorted me into the woods where 30 sweaty, dirt-covered teens eagerly greeted me. They immediately showed me the trail they had been restoring and regaled me with the adventures that went along with this arduous task. They had been moving huge rocks, digging ditches to divert rainwater, rerouting trails, cutting brush, and removing invasive plants. They had endured the heat, the rain, and the bugs to literally, and figuratively, arrive at the other end of the trail with a great sense of satisfaction. This experience was an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity (though in a few cases it was a thrice-in-a-lifetime opportunity, since several students were returning for the third summer) that changed their entire relationship to nature and the land. See for yourself:

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