As we turn 20 this year we find ourselves in the need for a permanent office. Having grown from a volunteer-run organization to a countywide nonprofit with a seven-person staff; we feel the need to settle in. However, we will always be very grateful to the Heritage Presbyterian Church in Benicia for providing a part-time office for the last few years.
For our new office, we envision a safe and beautiful place where we can create and exhibit the solutions we’ve been teaching and demonstrating for two decades. These may include a permaculture garden, sustainable water techniques, solar energy and maybe even chickens. We need a shared workspace and a place to gather around a table for large team meetings. Ideally, this space would serve as a place to teach public education classes. Along with a separate area to house the ever-growing tools and equipment for our landscaping and cooking classes, promotional materials and office files.
While we are open to ideas, we envision a small house in a residential area or a larger shared space with a commercial kitchen. We are intrigued with the idea of an agrihood – is anyone in the county exploring it too? For locations, we are looking at the central county (Fairfield / Suisun) or southern (Vallejo / Benicia), and we are open to different options ranging from a lease to a property donation.
If you have any ideas, leads, suggestions or something to share – please drop us a line at info@sustainablesolano.org.
Benicia Community Gardens Annual Meeting on February 18, 2017
After a brief welcome by Marilyn Bardet, Board President, our executive director, Elena Karoulina, explained that the Benicia Community Gardens and Orchard are now part of Sustainable Solano. In the past few years Elena and the Board have added many new initiatives, including 7 food forests in Benicia and consumer supported agriculture programs to supply residents with sustainably sourced vegetables, meat, fish, and other food products. The food forests have saved an impressive amount of water. These accomplishments caught the attention of Solano County officials, who asked our group to bring some of these programs to other parts of Solano County. So the name change reflects the new and broader mission of bringing sustainable food (in many forms) to Solano County.
The group then heard from the coordinators of Avant Garden, Swenson Garden and the Community Orchard. Avant Garden is almost full, but many of the beds at Swenson are empty. The Share plot at Avant Garden provided over 700 pounds, an impressive amount of food! All 3 coordinators requested increased participation in work days. As discussed last year, people who did not provide the minimum hours last year will be charged extra this year. Annual agreements were signed and the annual fees were collected. Agreements and fees for 2017 are due by March 21. Contact your garden coordinator if you missed the Feb 18 meeting!
Sustainable Solano would like to share a video that a friend, Kristian, made! It certainly highlights the most meaningful moments and makes us reflect on how moving of an experience this was for us.
Join us in co-creating a world that works for everyone. Whether you were with us for the Awakening the Dreamer Symposium, or you want to learn more about how you, with your own unique values, skills, and concerns, can commit to creating the change you want to see, a good place to start with with the Game Changer Intensive. Offered by Pachamama Alliance, it is a seven-week online course designed to educate, inspire, and equip you to be a pro-activist leader, a game changer in your community.
Sustainable Solano is partnering with Pachamama Alliance and Solano County libraries to offer, in conjunction with the online session, regular meeting spaces for residents of Solano County to meet, build, and support our communities together. If you are interested in registering, please submit your interest here. Pachamama and Sustainable Solano will contact you with more information according to the respective cities that you live in. For any additional information, please contact info@sustainablesolano.org.
As I am looking back at the eventful and transformative year of 2016, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all people who helped co-create Sustainable Solano: the Board, our volunteer leadership team, our funders and supporters, and all of you who made a personal commitment to make a difference, to participate in something bigger than ourselves, to nurture heart-based initiatives for the good of the whole.
In 2017 we will continue to refine and shape the vision for the organization, to deepen our understanding of our current situation and to develop strategies to help making Solano County more environmentally and economically sustainable, socially just and personally fulfilling place to live and work.
We will continue with meaningful conversations in the community, beginning with a seven-week “Game Changer Intensive” offered by Pachamama Alliance as a follow up to the Awakening the Dreamer Symposium. Everyone can participate in this program! Our goal is to provide opportunities for face-to-face meetings in Solano County allowing us to deepen the connections we felt so profoundly with each other at the Symposium and to engage with each other in new and existing initiatives that facilitate change at the local level and beyond. Learn more and to register.
We invited professional landscapers, both established and new, to explore our Land Caretakers Program. Sustainable Landscapers Association of Solano County is forming now – please email info@sustainablesolano.org if you are interested in learning more.
Calling all the players in Solano local food movement to get to know each other and to join our efforts to create a robust, healthy, inclusive local food system in the county. We are planning to have a Solano Local Food Summit in the spring of 2017. If you are interested to learn more, please email info@sustainablesolano.org.
For cooking classes and talks on healthy, local food throughout the county, please check our calendarregularly (and let us know if you would like to promote your efforts of brining wholesome local food to our communities through our website and newsletter).
I am looking forward to see you at these upcoming programs and events. Please let me know if you have suggestions, ideas or questions. I wish you a peaceful and restful holiday season!
In gratitude,
Elena Karoulina
Executive Director
Sustainable Solano
Save the Date: Awakening the Dreamer Symposium Comes to Solano County
Are you ready for a deeply transformative experience? On December 3rd, 2016 from 10am-2pm, the Awakening the Dreamer Symposium comes to Solano County at Solano County Events Center in Fairfield, offering a dynamic multimedia half-day workshop that uses videos, personal reflection, and group activities to engage people everywhere as the co-creators of an environmentally sustainable, socially just, and spiritually fulfilling world.
Having everything we need to create a sustainable, just, and fulfilling world
Understanding the unique contribution you can make in your community
Feeling hopeful about the future of our planet and species
You don’t have to just imagine these things–together, we can make them real. Participants will leave the Symposium empowered to take clear steps to embody their vision for a better world, and having established new connections to work with others on common issues for the common good of the whole.
The Symposium is developed and distributed by The Pachamama Alliance, a San Francisco-based nonprofit started at the invitation of indigenous people of Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest. Through the Symposium and other workshops, they work to generate widespread awakening at the grassroots level and a transformation of our worldview, such that humanity becomes committed to restoring and protecting the environment and moves towards social justice and spiritual fulfillment.
For even more details on the Symposium and The Pachamama Alliance, please visit:
This Symposium will be open to anyone who wishes to take practical steps to bring about transformation to the environmental, social and spiritual presence of humanity on the earth. We hope you join us!
