Benefit Concert From the Roanoke Times Current 12/16/10

WEDNESDAY (12-22-10)

The Gregory Brothers

The creators of the No. 1 viral video on YouTube (Auto Tune The News' "Bed Intruder Song," with Antoine Dodson) are also a soul and R&B act. The group comes home to Radford nearly every year to play a Christmas show for the home folks. It's that time again.

Details: 7:30 p.m. Ken Farmer's Auction House, 105 Harrison Street, Radford. $10 suggested donation, to be split between New River Valley Women's Resource Center and Beans & Rice, Inc. thegregorybrothers.com, youtube.com/show/autotunethenews

The Big Sale

We had the big sale of items from Radford Florist Saturday December 4. Actually it started on Thursday the 2nd with pre-sales to folks who knew about it and wanted to shop early and ended last Saturday with one person buying and removing the remainder.  We had tons of very high quality new Christmas decor that was available at a steal. Tons of garland, greens sprays, table top trees, poinsettias. The biggest spenders were church women coming to pick up items to decorate their church. The sale moved right along on Saturday from 8AM-10AM when the parade started. After that there was a trickle until the snow started arounfd11:30 and then it pretty much halted.  Nonetheless this was a huge success. We raised $800.50 through this sale at no cost to us. 

Not only do we have Jeff Corbon and Curtis Graham at Radford City Florist to thank for the idea and the items--Thank you, thank you, Jeff adn Curtis--we also must thank Linton Leary, his son Sam, and the folks at New River Rental for providing a portable sign to advertise the event and four 8 foot tables which we desperately needed given all the items we had.  Thank you , Linton and Sam.

The big job was cleanup.  We had boxes and boxes to be broken down and taken to recycling, hunks of stuff on the floor to sweep up, and then vacuuming.

Thanks to Chris, my husband, who broke up boxes and got them to recycling on Friday while we were at food distribution, most of the big stuff was gone when we had to dive in. Kendra, Geena, and Kayla got the floor swept and vacuumed and got rid of the smaller boxes. We now look presentable again and we have $800.50 we didn't have before. Stay tuned for more hunger relief items.



Fantastic Christmas Items Sale

We've just gotten all the Christmas items for our sale on Saturday amd they are excellent quality, in excellent conditition and staight from the storage room of Radford City Florists. Thank you Jeff and Curtis  We have greens including:

• wreaths
• picks
• garlands
• pre-light table top trees
• topiary forms (floor and table size)

We have floral picks appropriate for Christmas, figurines, lights, candle holders, tapers, ornaments, wrapping paper, ribbon and more. Come down Saturday and help us feed the hungry while you get excellent quality items at great prices.



Congratulations!!!!!

Eric Bucey (director the Pulaski office) and his wife Dannah Card had a baby girl 11/11/10 at 9:36 PM, 9 lbs and 1 ounce named Nina Athene.

VT Drama Folks Volunteer with Beans and Rice

You MUST support this production (see below) since they are supporting us.  About 3 weeks ago Dorothy (Dor) Cosby Atkinson from the School of Performing Arts and Cinema at Virginia Tech contacted me with a request to volunteer with us on Monday and Friday at Food Distribution.  She said that all the members of the production The Good Person of Szechuan were trying to do some volunteer work in the spirit of this play. If you know Brecht, you know he pushed having a social conscience. She has come with five volunteers and were they a help.

Dor at the Fire House

Now they are setting up a booth at Opening Night for Geena Cammorata one of our AmeriCorps VISTA staff to handout info on our programs.  They are also doing a meal-in-a-can (soup, chili, stew) canned food drive to help us. WOW !!!!!
                                                      

The Good Person of Szechuan

By Bertolt Brecht

November 5-6, 9-13, 16-18 at 7:30pm; November 6-7, 13-14 at 2pm \\ Squires Studio Theater

In The Good Person of Szechuan, German playwright Bertolt Brecht meshes elements of Chinese opera, Brooklyn lingo, World War II-era socio-economic struggle, and gutsy cabaret-style songs. Into the impoverished city of Szechuan come three traveling gods, touring Earth to find just one “good person.” They find Shen Te, a kind-hearted woman living as a prostitute to pay the rent. When a “gift from the gods” allows Shen Te to open a tobacco shop, her generosity is quickly abused, so Shen Te invents a cutthroat male alter ego whose sole priority is business. With a modern translation and musical score, 3rd year MFA director Dor Cosby Atkinson directs this darkly comic and explosive piece of theater.

For ticket info go to:    http://vtsopac.wordpress.com/tickets-3/

Radford Rotary and Beans and Rice Team Up to Fight Hunger

Beans and Rice is a community economic development organization who's philosophy is to meet the community needs. Part of our philosophy is to listen to the community. We did not set out to be a hunger relief agency but right now we are moving deeper and deeper in to just that. 

In July the Radford Rotary Club applied for a 50/50 matching grant to district Rotary to help develop a weekend food for kids backpack project.  In August they were awarded $3000.00 from District Rotary which the local club must match.  The funds will provide weekend food to children enrolled in our after school program which serves close to 60 children at McHarg and Belle Heth Elementary Schools.

After some comparison shopping we've settled on Walmart as the food source and are buying by the case. There are parameters on the food that we put in the backpacks that make shopping a little interesting. The food must be in child size portions, easy to open with little or no preparation, and need no refrigeration.  A major concern is this. If an older sibling or adult is required to prepare the food or has access, they will take the food for themselves.  This really limits some options.  We  have set up an ordering system with Walmart. Pam Linkous in Groceries has been so very helpful in setting up the system that is easiest for us and Walmart.

 This past week we received our first delivery. Linton Leary, treasurer of Radford Rotary and owner of New River Rental, met me at Walmart with a truck. His son Sam met us at our office with a fork lift to get the food off the truck. Why a fork lift?  There was a whole palette of food.

Linton with the palette of food that shifted in the truck.

Sam got the palette down with Linton keeping it from sliding

Keeping track of this food is quite a challenge.   Since we are buying by the case, we have s sheet with units per case, a sheet with inventory of all loose units and all case units, and a sheet with bar codes to order from.

Right now part of the office looks like a food storage facility.  All purchasing and inventory control is being done by me and Kendra.



Back packs for McHarg were provided by Highlander Helpers, a club at Radford University started by Victoria Sabin.  Additional backpacks are being sought by the Radford University Soccer Club under the guidance of Coach Mark Reeve. Every Thursday members of the Radford Rotary Club and the Radford University Social Work Club are packing 50 plus backpacks with 8-9 items, including: fruit cups, applesauce cups, two past/meat/vegetable bowls, a snack pack of raisins, granola bars, fat free pudding cups, 100% juice boxes and Gatorade.  Beans and Rice After School Staff get the backpacks to the schools. RSVP volunteers are helping distribute the backpacks on Thursday afternoons at the end of the program as well as some RU student volunteers. 

From left to right we see Anne Churchill from Radford Rotary, Leitisha Walker RU Social Work Club, Mark Tapp Radford Rotary, Russell Churchill President Radford Rotary, and Jessica Rose President RU Social Work Club.



Beans and Rice in Roanoke Times

See the article at the Roanoke Times on the soccor team gathering backpacks for Beans and Rice, Inc.http://www.roanoke.com/news/nrv/wb/264462

Also, see the article in today's Current on JC Penney fundraising for After School Programs.
http://www.roanoke.com/news/nrv/education/wb/264463

What have we been doing?

It's been a busy busy time for the Radford Beans and Rice office.  The new After School Program at Belle Heth is up and running.



See article in Roanoke Times Current  http://www.roanoke.com/news/nrv/education/wb/261205 for the article and more pictures. 

We also start the Weekend Food for Kids Backpack Project with backpacks for the children enrolled at our McHarg ASP.   We are doing this project with the help of some RU student club Highlander Helpers. This has all grown out was a class project of Victoria Sarbin  Last week they packed 25 backpacks with a single microwaveable serving of ravioli, a cup of mandarin oranges, a cup of strawberry applesauce, a box of apple juice, a box of orange juice, a granola bar, a fibre bar, and a box of yogurt raisins. We did the shopping and they did the packing.  This week we are adding another microwaveable serving so there will be two lunches.

Highlander  Helpers have also been instrumental in acquiring the backpacks. A big "good job" to them and all the help they have given this project.

Right now we are buying most of our food through Walmart but hope soon to be getting food from Feeding America SW VA. This has been a challenge to get straightened out.  Right now we are spending between $150.00 and $200.00 per week for 25 back packs. Next month we will be doubling that cost when we  expand this project to the Belle Heth program. Currently we have $600.00 of FEMA funds for this project and then we will move on to the $6000.00 grant from district Rotary that Radford Rotary club applied for and received. 

The big job for me over the past week has been finalizing the Speer Fund grant from the Presbyterian Synod of the Mid Atlantic.  This grant is for a new handicapped accessible community garden in the lowest income section of Radford, a block from the firehouse food distribution.  The two big items we really really want are

12' x 12' greenhouse

Wheel chair accessible raised beds.

We have been given access to city land by the City Manger. This land can not be built on due to a storm drain running diagonally across it. We will be putting in a base for the greenhouse and a patio area made up of pavers on a four inch base of #10 dust.  The layout will look something like this.



We've priced out the cost of the greenhouse, the wheelchair beds, lumber for raised beds, and the pavers and the cost for those come to $7,049.22.  The Speer Fund will fund $7,000.00 of that. Doris Hendrickson our Board President and I met with Session of the Presbyterian Church of Radford on Monday who unanimously voted to support this project. Their vote  was a must since a local Presbyterian Church must be both a sponsor of the project and active participants in the project. Thanks so much to the Church and the members of Session.

We will also need the #10 dust which I priced at $226.00, potting soil and fertilizer which prices out to $436.00 and then tools, hoses, etc which I am estimating at $600.00.  We may need a load of top soil to fill 10 raised garden beds in addition to the potting soil for the wheelchair beds which will mean another $250-$300.00.  The value of the land is $18,500.00 and the City Manager has promised water access which is valued at approximately $2,000.00.  If needed the city will also put in fencing and Leland Cypress.

We really want to make this more than a community garden. We want it to be a community center/park which helps develop a sense of community and self sufficiency as well as providing fresh food.  I envision paths, benches, plantings, and food beds all coming together. You'll be hearing a lot more about this as the project unfolds. 

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Orientation August 28 @ 10:00 am, New River Competitiveness Center

Classes begin September 7th

For more information, contact:           Sam Hensley Orientation: New River Competitiveness          shensley@beansandrice.org Center on Saturday, August 28th at 10am          540.980.4111 Classes begin on Tuesday, September 7         246 North Washington Ave.                                                                               Pulaski, Virginia 24301

 

Benefit Yard Sale

Help Feed the Hungry!
Beans and Rice Benefit Yard Sale
Saturday August 28th 8AM-1PM
Radford

Office Furniture
Apartment Furniture
Electronics
Great stuff !!!!

                                                     

                                                     

                                                                  

                                                            

                                                                          

                                                                   

Food Fairness August 14th Farmer's Market:Duck Lottery

One of the activities we are sponsoring on August 14th at the Food Fairness event is a "duck lottery."  This is meant to be fun, educational, and a bit of a fundraiser. We are floating a flock of ducks in a wash tub with the names of food on their bottoms.

These plastic ducks are perfect for the job. For a dollar folks can pick two ducks. If the foods on the bottom of the ducks go together to make a meal, then the player gets to choose a rubber ducky from our great variety of duck personages.

Aren't these just the cutest and don't you want to come play.  Winning combos include:

• macaroni and cheese
• peanut butter and jelly
• pasta and sauce
• beans and rice (of course)
• soup and crackers
• tuna and tuna helper

The idea is that these foods can make a whole meal with little or no additional food. Too often people give food that is not very usable.  These  folks mean well and what they give is totally OK food, it just does not provide a meal.  Our fave example of foods that are not very helpful are black olives, cranberry sauce, pumpkin puree, and (the biggie) marinated artichoke hearts.  These scream leftover from a holiday meal and they also need a lot of other foods to make them work.  Another set of faves is cans of green beans, creamed corn, and peas. Yes they are good foods. Yes at holidays churches and other groups ask for these to round out holiday dinner boxes. BUT, on a day to day basis, most people would not open a can of green beans, a can of creamed corn, and a can of peas for lunch.  Finally, the all time winner are those little cans of tomato paste.  Wow, do they need help to make a meal.  When you are hungry is this what you would eat or is this what you want your grandma to be taking out of the cupboard for dinner since that's all there is. If you wouldn't eat it, then why expect others to eat it.

So come down to the farmer's market on the 14th prepared to play.  We'll love seeing you and you know you want a rubber duck. 

Noah and His Women

 Noah with his women at the fire house

In back, left to right: Vicky Collins and Laura 

Row two: Heidi, Kendra, Jamie, Valerie and Kayla

Front: Noah and Geena

All are Beans and Rice staff except Vicky (Director of Radford City DSS) and Noah.

 
Rob and Fay Solomon (long time supporters of Beans and Rice, thank you, thank you) have a son Noah who is about to have his bar mitzvah.  As part of his service project he has been volunteering with Beans and Rice on Monday and Friday. He also plans to donate any monetary gifts to three organizations and we are one of them (again, thank you, thank you).  Noah is a a great help. We all love him.

Food Fairness August 14th Farmer's Market

You have got to agree that this is a way cool poster and its for a way cool event that will be sooooo much fun and sooooooo interesting.  Beans and Rice is a co-sponsor. We'll be there.  I hope you will too. BTW, the poster is the work of Zetta Nicely aka Mizz Bozzy Pantz who is in charge of pulling this together. Zetta is in the Psy.D. program at RU and also is at the Farmer's Market every Saturday. Get to the Farmer's Market and check it out and talk with Zetta about this event.

Busy, busy, busy !!!!

                   Office looking east.                                          

                                                                                                          

Office looking west

Ok. We are finally set up in our office. If you put the two pix together you get the total front of the office. Check out our sign, our big pot of flowers and the black bags which hold some of the tomato plants from our container gardening project. 

Container gardening project
We dove into this in mid May during the move and of the 30 families that signed up to grow vegetables, 21 actually participated. We have been going back every two weeks. A few plants had to be replaced, but most of the plants are thriving and growing. Some families actually expanded the project on their own to more plants. We'll keep you up dated on the ultimate success of this. But I can say that the total cost was $1,331.77 for bags, fertilizer/soil, and plants.  If we include our demo garden (the equivalent of three households) the cost per household is $55.49.  Not bad for a whole summer project, I say.   Yes we could have done it cheaper with dry wall mud buckets (suggested by master gardeners) but this would not have worked nearly as effectively. First of all, low income families do not like getting  what they see as castoffs, which is exactly how they would have seen the dry wall buckets. Secondly, the whole pre (cleaning and drilling holes) and transportation/storage (we had 90 grow bags, think of 90 buckets) would have been really challenging. 

New Staff/Old Staff
We also have been maxing out at food distribution.  Our record day is now 105 households. The average for June was 75 households per distribution.  Fortunately we are joined by three AmeriCorps VISTA Summer Associates.

This Heidi (Valerie is in the background) who has graduated from Tech and lives in Blacksburg.  

Jamie is a senior at RU and will be graduating in social work. She was an intern with us in the spring. Once again that is Valerie in the background. Hey, Val what's up with the background shots.

This is Kendra. She's an RU grad and will be staying with us as an AmeriCorps VISTA starting in August.

This is a great crew and they have really dug in.  Of course there is also our existing AmeriCorps VISTAs. 

Valerie has been with us for two years and will be finishing up her time with us in July. She has been in charge of the After School Program at McHarg.

Laura has been with us for the past year and will also be moving on in July.  She was in charge of our Willow Woods programs.

Kayla has been with us for the past year also at McHarg which she will be taking over for her second year. She comes from Laurel Fork and is the person who hooked us up with the Society of Saint Andrew and the Hillsville Farmer's Market.

Backpack Project

We are moving into another project as a partner, the backpack project which will send home food to the most needy children for the weekend. Radford Rotary has applied for a district grant of 50/50 local and district funds of $6000.00.   Since we are trying to target 100 children this would provide only $2.50 per child for a weekend. We really, really want to make this more food than snacks, and as nutritious as possible.  We hope to triple our funds.  Our other partner is Radford University students.

Expansion to Belle Heth

We are also working to expand our after school program to third and fourth grade at McHarg.  Right now everyone is on board with this, Rob Graham the acting Superintendent, Jack McKinley, the principal at McHarg, and Lenore Wilson, the school food services supervisor.  What we need to make this happen is a bus driver.

Summer Program

In partnership with Belle Heh, McHarg, and RU we put together an summer program Monday-Thursday at Belle Heth after summer school in the AM.  RU's graduate program in special education under Kenna Colley provides interns who do practice teaching in the AM and then partner with us to provide educational experiences from noon until 3PM. This is a big event and leaves staff pretty exhausted after a few days. 

ME

Finally, its that time of year.  I have been spending every spare minute on the preparation for the annual audit.  Phillip Martin our CPA is great to work with but the gathering together of records and invoices, etc is tedious and time consumming. Phillip now has everything and I can take some time to do the fun stuff like work on the blog :) 

More on the Radford Move to 1608 W Main Street

Today I finally finished getting everything out of my old office and giving it  a quick clean.  There was really no way to clean clean this place because it suffered from multiple problems, including mold and mildew on the walls.  The only reason I ended up with this as the main office was that we had set up a computer lab in the space on one side and our Youth Leadership program in the space on the other side. This meant we had a package deal for rent making the whole thing fairly inexpensive.  When we shut down the other two programs there was really no place available for me to move to that I could justify the expense for just my office. So I stayed despite the smell, lack of heat, bad wiring  (half the time the lights did not come on), truly screwed up telephone lines (half the time the phone didn't work) leaking ceiling, and hole in the floor.

The old office, aka the troll cave.

This picture made it look brighter than it actually was in that the door was open so there was enough light to get the picture.

Last fall I decided that this simply could not go on and started looking for something for myself.  I signed one lease but that wasn't working out and time dragged by while the owner of the property I had agreed to worked on something else.  Then, wow!!!  The little building that used to be a bank and currently  was a flower shop opened.  The rent for the whole building was $800.00.  We could have the whole building with off street parking.  If I closed the program at Willow Woods and moved the staff down from there, it would mean a net saving of $24 in rent plus only one utility bill, one phone bill, no cable cost, and all of us in one building, making for better supervision.  We had been talking about whether keeping the programs at Willow Woods going was cost effective. But, we also had an obligation to Willow Woods and its manager who had really supported us in the early days.  I took this to the executive of the board and the decision was to consolidate the offices and close Willow Woods. Although economically this was the best move, I did not feel good about abandoning Willow Woods and I dreaded telling Jennifer Collins, the manager.

I talked with her the week before May 1 which was not only the deadline to tell we were going but also when I was leaving for two weeks.She talked with the main office and we agreed to shrink the program back down to one apartment and they would pay the electric and the internet access. We would keep the food pantry and the computer lab there as well as adult education classes. YES.

The week of the 17th we got serious about moving. That Thursday the Willow Woods staff moved all of their offices down into a large common office area. The following Sunday with the help of Drew Dodson, a board member, Sam Hemsley, from the Pulaski staff, and my husband Chris, we got the bulk of \my office furniture moved.  Thank you, think you Drew, Sam and Chris.  All week I had been talking a car load of stuff whenever I went up or down main street. Then Friday and today Chris and I got out the last. I had kept a small computer stand and chair there since both the phone and internet were still accessible there.  

In the new space we have about 30 feet of large plate glass windows facing the street, ten foot ceilings, and lots of space. I have a two room suite with a largish "library" behind my office and then the office. 

As you can see I haven't even gotten the painters tape office the drawers.  Tomorrow for that while I wait for the Verizon man.  I have a wall of three windows  8' X 4' . No more troll cave.  Mr. Chapman,the new landlord and really nice man, is closing up the archway into my office with a locking door (15 lite) and a wall.  He's just about done with that. 

We have space for a conference table (anyone have a conference table and chairs they don't need?) and we are setting it up with a large dry erase  board and screen. We'll have a media cart with laptop and portable projector. Two baths. A utility room. A room for food storage with freezers and frigs. And, the large staff room.  What a huge difference.

You all better come see us and see how great this is.

Beans and Rice is on the move.

I've been off on vacation for two weeks and have come back to gearing up to move our main office and consolidate our Willow Woods offices all into one building.  We're moving to 1608 W. Main Street. The new building will be all our with off street parking behind the building. We all working like fiends to get this done by the first of the month.  More as we make the move and get our new container gardening project going.

What a day,what a day!!!

Food distribution has really picked up with the warm weather and the increase in produce.  Yesterday we had 79 families.  When we got there at 10AM there were already over 55 people waiting for tickets. We had two truck loads of food that was cleaned out by the time the last people were coming through. I had thought with the new influx of produce that we might not being going down to Hillsville Farmer's Market this year. Not so. We'll need that produce as well. Vicky is predicting we'll hit a100 families soon. Valerie says 120.  Each time we see five or six new families. Thanks to our two RU guys Ian and Ronnie we had enough hands.

Thirty families have signed up for the container gardening project. We'll be ordering the containers by the end of the week and Kayla and I have been working out how much of what seedlings to buy. We had pretty much decided not to do leaf plants but an article in the Roanoke Times this AM points out that leaf lettuce does very well in containers, grows quickly from seed, and can be replanted during the growing season. We may have to rethink that one.

Watch for an article on Food Distribution. Amy Matzke-Fawcett from the Roanoke-Times Current was there.  A very nice person. Talked with me and Vicky and shoppers who were willing to talk.  May is our one year anniversary for start up and the Current plans to run an article on what we've done. Watch for it and I'll put a link to it in the blog.

In the meantime Eric Bucey (director of programs in Pulaski and one of the original founders with me) and I have been working on an application for 6 Summer Associates from AmeriCorps VISTA.  This was due Wednesday and we got word Friday we were awarded them. These people will be with us for two months.  Radford will get three and Pulaski three.  The Radford SAs will be working with the container gardens, helping with food distribution, and Belle Heth/McHarg Summer Program.  The three in Pulaski will help with TIES ( more on that ) and MeadowView.

Food Distribution gets a mash note

Vicky Collins, Director of Radford City DSS and a major part of Food Distribution, and I were invited to present a short power point on the Food Distribution at an event this last Thursday.  Bobby Nicholson, who is a City Council member,wanted us to attend the event entitled Food Security and Sustainability in Our Rural Community: Addressing Hunger in the NRV. At some point we also became presenters. This "food summit" was sponsored by The Center of Student Engagement and Community Partnership of Virginia Tech, The Community Foundation of the New River Valley, and The Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance.  There were five local presentations and we were last with a focus on Collaborative Networks.There were also international presenters there as part of a larger conference at Tech.

I got together a power point of 28 slide which combined brief text with photos. It focused on the following areas: the collaborative effort, the sources of the food and how acquired, the actual distribution, lessons learned and challenges, the next steps and the big dream.  It was very well received and we got many compliments.  What was truly amazing was the note thrust into my hand by a young man who didn't even speak and hurried off.

I only got a chance to say thank you and he was gone. Vicky took one look and said "we got a love note." This deeply touched me.  To have this total stranger who was with the international group express such appreciation means more to me than the awards I've received.  What a gift. This not just for Vicky and I but the whole team.

BTW, today we had 70 shoppers and two truck loads of food.  Dave Moore, one of the drivers, said that soon we would be getting dairy products as well. WOW!!!!

This afternoon I had to shop at WalMart and stopped personally to tell Pete, one of the zone managers, what a difference the produce had made and that today we fed 70 households.This really made an impact on him.

Executive Director Receives Award

Thursday evening at a banquet at the German Cub on VT campus in Blacksburg I received the NRV Leading Lights Award. For the full story go to Roanoke Times Current at:
www.roanoke.com/news/nrv/community/wb/242988   I'm very honored to receive this award.
The banquet was excellent.  The German Club is impressive as a building and all the speakers were marvelous.  Paul Torgersen, the former President of Tech, told an hysterically funny story of how he was mistakenly credited for keeping Coach Beamer from leaving. Clearly, once the media get a hold of a concept it becomes truth whether it is or not. He has given up trying to change "history" and now graciously accept thanks. Mr.Pearson loved the crab cakes.

Grand Valley State University here this past week

Last week we hosted Grand Valley State University from Michigan for their alternative spring break. All the students were education majors so they really wanted to work with the ASP.  They did but not as much as they have liked since public schools were closed Monday and Tuesday for Easter break.  Monday and Friday AM five of the ten helped with Food Distribution (see them unloading above) which was really great since both days we had a lot of food and a lot of folks. They also worked on the computer refurbishing project (we give these to low income families) and the listing of the items from the storage unit (yes, its empty and we are out from under that rent).for Craig's list. They labeled and measured all the items and took a picture.  Tuesday afternoon they worked at Mountain View Cometary with Sarah Carter pulling weeds and removing stumps.   I did two workshops with them, one on community development and one on issues of poverty.  Thursday AM they had an economic tour of Radford and Pulaski.  Each night we took turns cooking for them, Sunday I did beans and rice :); Monday Kathy did chicken, potatoes, green beans, and corn bread; Laura and Kayla made pizza Tuesday;and Valerie made spaghetti Wednesday. Thursday we got them subs which unfortunately we paid for twice (I found out today--got to get that straightened out).
These were a great group of kids and we really thank them for all their work for us.

Food Independence Project

Assorted Grow Bags from Gardener Supply

A big part of Beans and Rice's philosophy is to "meet immediate needs while working for long term soultions."  From Food Distribution we have learned when given a choice our shoppers definitely want produce.  In the fall we surveyed the shoppers and 80% plus said they would be willing to try vegetable gardening if they had some assistence.  Laura Tuller our AmeriCorps VISTA for Willow Woods has written a grant to the Community Foundation of the New River Valley to obatin grow bags for a container gardening project. From her proposal: "Grow bags will be used because they are light, portable, durable, and easy to store. We will obtain soil, fertilizer and seedlings from local vendors. The supplies will be distributed to participants with instructions and the option of a mentoring partnership with an experienced gardener. Each participant will receive four containers and a variety of vegetable seedlings according to preferences listed on interest surveys."   

Why have we chosen these bags?  From the Gardener Supply Catalog(http://www.gardeners.com/ )  "For years now, gardeners in England have made the most of very limited garden space by growing in plastic bags placed on steps, patios, and landings. After achieving terrific results ourselves, we've made two immpovements. First, our Grow Bags are made of patented, double layer polypropylene fabric instead of sheet plastic. This felt-like fabric "breathes" better, so plants won't suffer from heat build-up, over watering or poor aeration."  From another site in the catalog: "In our oxygen-permeable Grow Bags, the main root is "air pruned" when it reaches  the sides (rather than becoming pot bound). That causes it to absorb masses of nutrient-absorbing lateral roots, making the whole plant healthier and more resistant to disease and drought."  In Googling grow bags we found they have been pioneered in areas where people have no access to land and/or the soil is poor.  Our folks  are apartment dwellers, some lack transportation, and many have physical mobility issues.  These light portable bags seem ideal.  Further, some users have reported putting the grow bags on rolling plant stands which would allow for movement to follow the sun. 

As you can see from this multi pocket container the gardening can be quite space tight.  Also, for someone with limited mobility, they could sit on a stool and handle several plants at once.  There are also bags that are specific to types off growing.                                                  

My own experience with container gardening has been spectacular.  In Summer 2009 from just four bell pepper plants on my balcony, I obtained enough peppers to freeze 5 gallon bags of chopped peppers.  The value of the number of peppers far exceeded the costs of setting the containers up.  We also had plenty of tomatoes (in a bad tomato year).  My basil harvest was also great.

Starting with 80 bags (4 X 20 families),  the cost of the bags alone will run over $1,000.00.  In addition we will need soil, fertilizer, and seedlings.  From Laura's proposal:  "The Food Independence Project is a new initiative for Beans and Rice, Inc. It is being started to address pressing issues of hunger in the city of Radford, while simultaneously working to help families help themselves instead of relying solely on hand-outs or basic social services. It is seen as a step towards the possibility of developing a Beans and Rice, Inc. Community Garden for low to moderate income families in the future. The two major goals for the project are to get twenty families involved in the first year and to generate interest for future gardening seasons.

The project will face several challenges. Because the target population has, for the most part, no gardening experience, an established mentoring program will be critical to ensuring its success. Beans and Rice Inc. plans to use its own staff and the help of the Master Gardeners of the New River Valley.  Follow-through by participants is also of concern. By starting with a fairly simple and low maintenance project, we hope to foster success and feelings of accomplishment for our participants so that they are more likely to take the project on independently.

Good Friday Food Distribution

Over the last two weeks food from WalMart for Food Distribution has jumped phenomenally and this is mostly due to the addition of produce.  Good Friday we had two truck loads of food with 17 cases of bananas. The big challenge is to get it all unloaded, sorted, bagged (loose produce like green beans),organized, and distributed.

With good weather our numbers have also jumped back up.  This past week we have been at or near 60 households each day. We are seeing new faces each week. Once we see a new face we tend to continue to see them if not every time, quite often.

 I think there are several things that make this unique. First, there are no questions asked and we do try to ake as human as we can. I hand out the numbered tickets for line up and the most I ask is if people are in the same household.We have only one shopper per household to keep things as fair as possible. That's it. We have learned the first name of many of the shoppers and call them by name, ask after them if they are not there, and say we missed you when they show up again. I have one or two that share more with me, even to the point of calling my office.  The second thing is that a household can shop every time. Thirdly, we do it twice a week. Fourthly, people can actually "shop" for their food. We don't control what you get, just how much you can take. Fifth, we get the food and distribute it all within a one hour time frame.  Although people do wait a longer time than one hour--many come as early as 8:30 to be at the front of the line when we hand out tickets at 10 AM, they don't have to come any earlier than 10 AM.  Many people get their ticket and then leave to line up at about 10:45.  We try to keep the line moving as quickly as we can once we start at 11 and usually we are wrapping up in 20-30 minutes.

Although the addition of produce has created a challenge, its a challenge we all embrace. The quality of the food we provide is just as important as the quantity. Fresh produce is so very vital to the folks who shop with us.  Many are diabetic, many have heart conditions, some are vets from Viet Nam with multiple health issues, many are elderly.  Everyone needs good nutrition but these groups are particularly needy of better nutrition.

One of the most exciting moments for me Friday was a woman who asked whether we were going to do what we surveyed them about in the fall.  We had asked people if they would grow vegetables if we helped them. Over 80% said yes but they have no land. So, we are putting together a Food Self Sufficiency project using container gardening with soil, fertilizer,and seedlings.  Stay tuned for that project. We've applied to the Community Foundation of the NRV for some funding. More on that later.  In the mean time thank you WalMart and keep that produce coming.

Financial Fitness

"I WAS CAUGHT BEING GOOD" Coins= Bravo Bucks

Financial Literacy is a big part of the Beans and Rice After School Programs.  The AmeriCorps VISTA positions we have exist because we have the Virginia Individual Development Account, a two for one savings program for adults.  All of the VISTA positions in some way have to address financial literacy and try to promote savings.  For children in the Willow Woods and McHarg Elementary Programs this has been a challenge. 

Children in general have:
• little experience with handling money,
• often can not discriminate quantity of coins from value of coins,
• have not yet acquired delayed gratification behaviors,
• do not understand where money comes from and how much things cost
This is particularly true of low income children who have few if any role models for handling finances wisely.

Our fiinancial literacy project takes two forms with these After School Programs, Bravo Bucks and Financial Fitness.  To both encourage good behavior and to teach about the value of coins we developed a the  reward system of Bravo Bucks.  These are coins (see above photo) that are given through out the program for positive behavior. Each color represents a different monetary value.  We learned that the children preferred many coins, even if of the lowest value, rather than one or two coins of much greater value.  This was a first challenge. The children love getting lots of coins which they keep in a little bag or little fanny packs. They like to take the coins out and touch them, stack them, and compare who had the most. This is where the issue of quantity of coin over value of coin became obvious. Service learning students from Math Ed classes at Radford University were instrumental in devising ways to help the children with this issue.  The children are allowed to "spend" their coins at the Bravo Bucks store which we have two to three times per semester.  This "store" is stocked with little things children love to own but frequently don't get a chance to, especially if they are low income.  The items vary in value and children learn delayed gratification through finding out that if they save their coins and don't buy immediately they can get more expensive items later.  We are trying to teach them delayed gratfication and the concept of saving. 
 
The second program that is related to financial literacy is Financial Fitness. This nationally recognized set of eleven  lessons are done with the children to further help them develop their financial capacities. The children are pre-tested and post-tested. In Fall 2009 we measured the following increase in financial fitness among the children in our After School Program at McHarg.

Results from the first pre-test came back dismal. Of the 30 tests administered the average score was 62.8%; with the lowest being 27% and the highest being 100%. The results of the post test showed a vast increase in scores. The average score of the 29 test administered was 89.8%; with the lowest being 47% and the highest 100%/ The average test was increased by 31 points. The most improved score being that of a 1st grade female who’s pre-score was 27% and post-score was 100%. We have just administered the pre-test for the next set of lessons and results have not been calculated as of yet. However, the students are already looking forward to the post-test.

We think they have now reached the point where they have:
• Ability to discriminate quantity of coins from value of coins

• Ability to delay gratification
• Experience with handling money

We wish to start a new step, actual educational savings accounts for the children by comverting the Bravo  Bucks into real money. We have applied to the Community Foundation of the New River Valley for seed money for this project.  We plan to convert saved Bravo Bucks into real dollars if the child agrees to start a savings program toward educational needs. To encourage the children we will make these accounts part of our matching IDA program.


Beans and Rice will set up the account with Beans and Rice as the guardian. No one, including parents, will be able to access the child’s account without the written approval of Beans and Rice and funds will go directly to the vendor/provider of educational services or materials through a cashier’s check. Beans and Rice has matching funds to match the savings of the child two to one. Pay outs from matching funds goes directly to the vendor as well.

Beans and Rice has had nearly ten years of experience with IDA programs since 2001 through CDBG funds for Pulaski and the City of Radford. We are currently the VIDA intermediary for the New River Valley. We started our YIDA program in 2004 with Handy Youth. Our YIDA program has been very successful. One Youth is currently paying for her college tuition from this program. We have the banking contacts and in house procedures extant to manage this program. This program is part of our stated goal of helping low income families acquire assets and gain capacities.

After School Program McHarg Elementary

Beans and Rice runs an After School Program at McHarg Elementary School during the academic year. Teachers and adminstrators at McHarg identify the children for the program. This program targets the most a)academically, b) emotionally/behaviorally, and c) economically challenged children in the school. Two AmeriCorps VISTA members oversee this program, Valerie Badley and Kayla Peery.  The rest of the staff is made up of interns from the Social Work Department (more on them in another post) and Service Learning Students from various classes. All are from Radford University.  We have 50 children in this program.  The size is limited by the number of children we can handle in one trip of one school bus. In the program we serve a snack provided by the school,

   

                                              the children get homework done

                                                                          

sometimes with tutoring

we have storytime which is always very popular

Sometimes a young person just has some quiet time

Sometimes they just need to cut up a little

and sometimes they are just friends

In good weather we have recreational time in the playground, if not we have organized activities in the multipurpose room at the school.  The program runs Monday through Thursday from school dismissal to 5:15 when we start getting the children on the bus for home.  We have had this program at McHarg since Fall 2006.  We also have a Summer School Program that combines McHarg and Belle Heth children.