Farm Field Trip Highlights Connections to Food and Well-Being for Interns

Mar 28, 2024

By Taylor Collins, Development & Communications Coordinator

Morningsun Herb Farm’s Rose Loveall leads Youth Wellness Program students from Fairfield High on a tour of the farm

Student interns attending a field trip to Morningsun Herb Farm in March had an opportunity to touch, taste and smell a variety of plants and herbs as part of our Youth Wellness Program. The grounding, multisensory experience of visiting Morningsun provided a unique opportunity to engage with herbs, and invited full-bodied mindfulness, encouraging our students to slow down and be present with their thoughts and each other.

Morningsun Herb Farm is a family-owned farm in Vacaville. The farm grows over 600 species of herbs, succulents and heirloom vegetables. The land is full of trees and wildly growing shrubs. Whimsical metal art and cute sculptures dot the landscape and there are several canopies, greenhouses, and hoop houses surrounding the farm.

During our field trip, Fairfield High School students in the Youth Wellness Program visited a large hoop house with thousands of small herbs. These herbs were all grown from seeds or propagated from larger plants growing on the property. There was a striking variety of lavender, basil and sage. Rose Loveall, the owner of the farm, picked up a basil plant and spoke to us about the essential oils in the plant that produce its aromas and flavors.

As she passed the basil to a student, she said, “Herbs want to be touched. As you pass them around, feel their texture and take in the scent that is produced from their leaves.”

The group questioned this notion. “How do we know that the herbs want to be touched? Do they grow better when they are handled?”

For those of us who don’t live or work on farms, the origins of the food we eat can feel distant and abstract. We may intellectually understand that the basil we consume was grown from the ground, but this knowledge alone fails to capture the impact of physically experiencing the basil plant – feeling its delicate leaves in our hands, inhaling its aromatic fragrance, and being transported to memories of meals where its flavor enriched our dishes. While we may not know for sure what the basil wants, our sense serves as our bridge to communicate with the more-than-human world.

Plants use fragrance to attract pollinators to aid in their reproductive cycle. As we stood in a room with thousands of growing plants, it would appear that the basil got what it wanted. Breathtaking sights often draw humans to nature, but our less-dominant senses hold deeper lessons for us. Deep listening, taste, smell and touch open us up for a more profound connection to the life that sustains us. Considering the needs of a plant like basil can help break down the hierarchies that separate us from our wider ecosystem and these experiences can help us understand that we are not just observers of nature but in partnership with it.

The Youth Wellness Program helps connect all of these dots. As the students engage with plants in the garden, on the farm and in the kitchen, their relationship with them is recontextualized. The program brings together a cohort of 20 high school students for hands-on instruction in practical skills related to gardening and cooking. Each week, in groups of 10, the students build relationships with each other as they learn side by side. Building on a pilot “Healthy Local Food” program offered in partnership with Innovative Health Solutions and Armijo High School during last school year, Sustainable Solano was able to expand the program this year to add more focus on mental health and bring it to more schools. This year, the Youth Wellness Program was offered at Armijo, Fairfield and Vacaville high schools.

We left the hoophouse and followed Rose through a doorway made of wildly growing vines and squeezed into a small circular courtyard punctuated by a stone fountain in the center. Under the dappled shade of trees, we passed around and tasted several kinds of flowers and stems of lavender, geranium and bergamot. All of these plants are a part of the mint family, Lamiaceae, and have varying notes of menthol and bright, citrus-like flavors.

“Doesn’t taste like a grape, but doesn’t taste bad,” said Johan, a Fairfield High senior, about grape-scented lavender. Jinny, another senior, remarked, “It tastes like sage, or like medicine.”

The berries on a tree caught the eye of one of the students. It was a myrtle berry and a few of us tasted it. The flavor was pungent, peppery, and slightly sweet.

As we touched and tasted the various flowers, berries, and herbs, most of the students listened to Rose with rapt attention as she described each plant. There were a few side conversations but they were all about the flavors and sensations of the farm.

I can admit that my attention span has shortened considerably over the last few years. The pandemic had us all focused on our various screens and led to decreased social connectedness for everyone, especially students.

Morningsun is not far from the high school, but the rhythms of this experience made us feel much more off the grid. The earth felt softer beneath my shoes and the vibrations of the insects and birds moving through the trees was palpable.

This gentle, sensory immersion was a stark difference from the busy, digital-centric routines of our lives. Research suggests that time spent outdoors is linked to renewed attention, lower stress, and a balanced nervous system. Planting a garden is an act of optimism, which is especially important for young people on the precipice of adulthood. The culinary instruction is an opportunity to put new skills into practice, exercise teamwork and trust.

As the trip concluded, the students had the opportunity to interact with the animals and explore the array of plants. Each student selected an herb to plant in their school garden and use in the kitchen. This excursion reinforced the significance of grounding experiences for youth. Reflecting on my own experiences in nature, those moments of clarity and connection with the world remain vivid in my memory. I am eager for our students to embark on more enriching journeys with the land that promote growth, foster connections, and enhance their overall well-being.

The Youth Wellness Program is generously funded by Solano Public Health

Community Action Plan to Create a More Breathable Future in Fairfield

Dec 4, 2023

By Alex Lunine, Resilient Communities Program Manager

Fairfield residents will come together to create a path towards cleaner, healthier air in their community at a public community action plan workshop 12-3 pm Sunday, Jan. 28, at the Fairfield Adult Recreation Center.
Register here.

This indicator map through CalEnviroScreen shows the high asthma rates in Solano County 

Solano County, on the whole, has the ninth highest asthma rate in California, with the majority of Fairfield neighborhoods east of the I-80 having a more severe asthma burden than 90% of other census tracts. To address our air pollution and empower the community to tackle the air quality issues afflicting their city, Sustainable Solano will be facilitating the creation of an Air Quality Community Action Plan with Fairfield residents in a public workshop Jan. 28.

During the creation of this community-driven action plan, residents, governmental agencies and air quality experts will highlight the vulnerabilities they see in Fairfield’s short- and long-term air health, and identify priority actions they wish to see taken by the city to ensure that current and future generations in Fairfield have equitable access to clean air.

The Youth Air Protectors led a sustainability walk through Fairfield that highlighted air quality concerns in the city

This event will build off of earlier roundtables hosted in Fairfield, where a few of the key concerns raised by community members included air pollution in relation to traffic, improving Fairfield’s walkability and bikeability, air quality concerns regarding agriculture, setting up a community air monitoring station in Fairfield, and Travis Air Force Base’s impact on air quality.

By participating in the creation of a community action plan, residents can have a voice in how important issues are addressed within their communities. We’ve seen the value of such community engagement in Suisun City, where a community-driven action plan around flood risk and resilience continues to inform city decisions and future planning. We hope to see a similar impact in Fairfield around air quality.

 

The Vision for a SuSol Education Center

Oct 26, 2023

By Sustainable Solano

Sustainable Solano has had a vision for a while now: To have an office space that serves as a place of education around the many things we teach about, such as sustainable landscaping, water capture and reuse; cooking with seasonal, sustainable local food; and building community resilience.

We have been lucky to spend the past few years in our office at the Global Center for Success on Mare Island. This office space puts us near nonprofit partner organizations and the beauty of the Vallejo People’s Garden and the Pollinator Pathway garden we installed with them and Solano RCD in front of the building. But as our team has grown in number, we find there are limitations in a one-room office, both for our team members’ needs as well as ways we would like to interact with all of you in the community.

And so we are returning to that original vision.

We would love to find a safe and beautiful place where we can create and exhibit the solutions we’ve been teaching and demonstrating for nearly 25 years. These may include a permaculture garden or farm, sustainable water techniques, solar energy and maybe even chickens. There could be a commercial kitchen space for teaching classes and preparing food (or the potential to add such a space). We also need a shared workspace and a place to gather around a table for large team or partner meetings, and an area to house tools and equipment, promotional materials and office files. The property would need to be zoned to allow for office space and would need to be able to support visitors coming to the site for meetings, classes and demonstrations.

We’ve seen creative and innovative ways individuals, organizations and cities have supported such projects. In Berkeley, the Ecology Center runs EcoHouse, which was founded in 1999 when a group of individuals “collectively purchased and transformed a small, dilapidated North Berkeley home into a demonstration house and garden.” In American Canyon, the city offered up an old public works yard to be transformed into the Napa River Ecology Center in partnership with the American Canyon Community Parks Foundation. Santa Cruz Permaculture now stewards a 26-acre farm under a 30-year lease as part of its operations.

We’d love to hear your ideas and suggestions for supporting this vision! Reach out to us at info@sustainablesolano.org

Even with this active vision for an education center, Sustainable Solano is committed to continuing hands-on sustainable landscaping and resilience-building workshops, cooking classes, and internships within Solano communities, because these are the very heart of our work. Our goal is to bring neighbors together in ways that help them connect with each other, the Earth, and themselves.

Re-envisioning Fairfield’s Streets: Youth Air Protectors Present Final Projects Aug. 27

Aug 8, 2023

By Alex Lunine, Resilient Communities Program Manager

Over the course of the past five months, SuSol’s high school Youth Air Protectors have dedicated themselves to learning about the air quality in Fairfield and using their voices to bring the community together to tackle environmental injustices in the city. From spreading awareness at tabling events throughout Fairfield, to helping to facilitate air quality-focused meetings, to leading residents on a sustainability walking tour of downtown, the Youth Air Protectors have been indispensable in the push for a healthier, more breathable Fairfield.

August marks the last month of this internship cohort, and our students will be presenting their final projects to the community on Aug. 27. Each air protector chose a street in Fairfield with poor walkability and high volumes of traffic, and reimagined them to be more pedestrian friendly, green and promote cleaner air. We believe that if their concepts and ideas were actually implemented, such changes could help to reduce the high asthma rate of Fairfield, mitigate the impacts of the urban heat island effect, and bring our community together on our sidewalks and streets.

Here the YAP interns share about their final projects. See the projects and talk with the students on Aug. 27!  (Ed. Note: Intern statements are lightly edited for clarity.)

“I redesigned the intersection of North Texas and Utah Street to make traveling through the area more sustainable. My design includes protected bike lanes and sidewalks, reduced lane sizes to protect pedestrians further, better views, bus stops, and more! I’m a firm believer that walkability is one of the most essential (and undervalued) parts of a sustainable city, and this project reflects that.”
– Sachi Bansal

“I decided to choose the street redesign project because after taking a sustainability walk around downtown Fairfield, it became clear that there are a lot of improvements to be made for Fairfield’s roads. The main issues I noticed during the walk were a lack of shade on the sidewalks, the lack of safety for bikers on the bike lanes, and lack of greenery. I wanted to make a drawing of a street where I implemented changes to combat these issues.”
– Prabhjot Kaur

“For my project I decided to redesign the street Travis Boulevard. I thought that it had too many street lanes and though it made sense since it leads to a highway, I reimagined it to be in a people-oriented city and worked upon that. Along with changing the street I also changed the buildings and parking lots in a way where it would look more pleasing, and easier to access. I also added wider sidewalks, a bus stop and a bicycle rack so it would encourage public transportation. I hope that Fairfield in the future would incorporate these ideas to create a more sustainable environment while also adding more elements that persuade people to try to live sustainably; like recycling, farming, shopping locally and more!”
– Esther Lopez

“I choose to redesign the Pennsylvania Avenue and West Texas Street intersection because it has a lot of potential in terms of walkability. In this model, I hope to show that Fairfield can become more people-friendly even with our current infrastructure.”
– Hannah Lopez

“Enhancing Fairfield’s existing infrastructure to be more sustainable is imperative in bettering the lives of residents while promoting an eco-friendly lifestyle. For my project, I chose to redesign the Gateway Plaza, a strip mall located adjacent to the Solano Town Center. Featuring a sizable parking lot with hundreds of parking spaces and minimal walkability, the Gateway Plaza is a motorist’s paradise. Through visualizing how the area could be altered with bikers and pedestrians in mind, I intend to show how changes towards sustainability are realizable in even the most seemingly despairing of locations.”
– Harjot Singh

Register for the event here. If you or someone you know would like to sign up for the next cohort of high school Fairfield Youth Air Protectors, starting Sept. 7, apply here. 

We’re excited to share our greener, more just vision of Fairfield with you and hope to see you there. 

Fellowship Focuses on Environmental Justice, Supports Pollinators in Vacaville

Jul 24, 2023

By Patrick Murphy, Program Manager

As part of Sustainable Solano’s Environmental Justice Leadership Fellowship, seven students from multiple Solano County cities undertook a research and green infrastructure project in Vacaville. Students focused on the Markham neighborhood, a community grappling with several environmental challenges, and explored possible solutions, including walkability, available green spaces, and usable wildlife habitats.

Students engaged with the local community, spending time within the neighborhood, assessing the severity of each issue and researching possible mitigation approaches.

Pollinator garden installation at the Vacaville Boys and Girls Club (above) and student presentations (below)

Each student then delivered public presentations at various locations around Vacaville, including the Rocky Hill Trail, the Town Square library, and an Earth Day event in Andrews Park. The culmination of their efforts was the installation of a much-anticipated pollinator garden at the Vacaville Boys and Girls Club, where the students also presented their research findings. Situated right in the heart of the Markham neighborhood, the local community had been seeking a native pollinator garden since 2018.

Permaculture Designer Scott Dodson was able to design a compact and attractive native pollinator garden space at the Boys and Girls Club, which was installed by the EJLF students, Boys and Girls Club members and community volunteers during a public installation day hosted by Sustainable Solano. The garden’s design prioritized water conservation while creating an extensive habitat for the region’s pollinators. Additional pollinator plants are being raised in beds owned by Solano Unity Network across the street at the Vacaville People’s Garden. Educational signage was placed throughout the gardens, providing valuable information about the native California pollinator species for residents.

A volunteer from Rio Vista was able to produce five large-capacity bat boxes with student support for the pollinator garden and surrounding Markham community. “Bat boxes” are nesting boxes for bats to raise their young. Bats are known for their pest control capabilities. Each bat consumes vast numbers of insects each night, reducing the need for harmful pesticides and keeping the local ecological niche competitive. They and many pollinators are keystone species, and have a disproportionately large impact on the ecosystem.

Additional bat boxes are available to community members in the Markham area who would like to help strengthen the local bat population. If you live within 3 miles of Holly Lane and are interested in hosting a bat box on your property, please contact us here.

This ambitious project demonstrated the power of collective action in addressing environmental justice and promoting biodiversity. With the installation of these vibrant green spaces, the local community now has the opportunity to interact with and appreciate the importance of coexisting with nature. As the pollinator garden at the Boys and Girls Club continues to flourish, it promises to act as a sign post, promoting environmental consciousness in the Markham neighborhood.

Bat Boxes

Live in the Markham community and want to host a bat box on your property?
Reach us here

Interested in building a bat box for your own property?
Find instructions here

Sustainable Gardening Intern Reflections

Jun 27, 2023

The Sustainable Gardening internship was an opportunity for high school students to learn basic permaculture principles with a focus on waterwise gardening, and engage with community members while supporting community gardens. They were led in their garden activities by SuSol Program Coordinator Jazzmin Ballou and often worked with designer Scott Dodson. These three interns shared their reflections on the program with us, and we are excited to share them with you here with their permission.

Sustainable Gardening interns move woodchips for the First Christian Church garden in Vallejo

Scooping the Wood Chips

By Aldo Michel

This was technically my first official work day with my fellow co-workers. It was on a Friday; I came there running from school ready to get the work done. I get there a little late but I get caught up on what we are doing. We need to scoop up a huge mountain of woodchips, put them in wheelbarrows and then go dump them somewhere in the garden. It was really quiet at first, only the sound of the shovels hitting the ground and the wheelbarrows being rolled out. I knew [fellow intern] Vincent, but he was on the other side of the mountain so I couldn’t talk to him, so I just continued with my work.

As the time passes by I notice that this young fellow with blond-ish hair is working really hard. I mean it’s his first day, I’m sure he wants to make a good impression and he is sure succeeding. After a while I decided to take a little break, drink some water and check out those granola bars. Once there I see that Vincent is also taking a break — perfect now we can talk. We greet each other and start talking about our day. A couple laughs later, the same blond-ish guy comes and takes a sip of water. Once he leaves me and Vincent started talking about him, we want to start a conversation with him, he seems nice and it’s never a bad idea to make new friends. We weren’t sure about his name so we weren’t into our email to check an email that Jazz has sent us. We checked the recipients and our questions were answered, his name is Liam.

We go back to the wood chips and greet him. Our suspicions were correct; he was a nice guy. We mostly talked about school and college and whatnot, not the most interesting topic but I still had fun. I even managed to fit in a couple jokes and for the most part it was accompanied by laughter. I had lots of fun that day just talking with my new friends. I’m very glad we decided to start a conversation and that we got the work done as well, although I was very sore the next day.

Meaningful Work in the Garden

By Liam McGee

I think the most meaningful time in this internship for me was our last work day at the Faith Food Fridays Garden. While it started off a bit sad with Jazzmin and a few of the interns gone, it quickly turned around. I first walked around the garden and accustomed myself with the diverse crops they had growing there.

A Haiku for the Gardening Internship

Shovel the wood chips
Tiring work for my body
Yet I feel fulfilled

-Liam McGee

One thing that especially caught my eye (or more so my nose I suppose) were the chamomile plants planted in multiple beds. They smelled delightful and I’d never seen what the plant looked like before, only the tea in the past. Once a few more people started arriving and a helper from Faith Food Fridays led us through an opening circle, Scott took us into what we’d be doing that day.

For some reason, one of the beds had lots of wood chips in it instead of soil. These chips don’t supply lots of nutrients for the plants unless they are broken down into soil so we had to painstakingly remove all of the chips and replace them with soil. While at first it reminded me of the wood chip shoveling we did at the church in Vallejo, it slowly turned into a more fun experience.

More and more people began showing up, someone started playing music on a bluetooth speaker, and the entire atmosphere changed. One thing that was especially cool to see was the number of kids present. Even if their parents just dragged them there to help, they were eager in planting and watering the entire garden. It was awesome to see how young children were already being inspired to get into growing their own plants, for a more sustainable and healthy lifestyle. It warmed my heart seeing them get to experience the joy of gardening. After a few hours with lots of volunteer help, we finished the once-wood-chip-filled bed and had transformed it into a thriving environment for the new plants. To end the working session, we picked some of the chamomile buds to bring home and dry out for tea. It was a perfect treat to end a fulfilling and effective work day in the garden.

Liam McGee and Aldo Michel rest while working at the Faith Food Fridays garden in Vallejo

My Experience with the Gardening Internship

By Charlie Castillo

Although I had joined this internship a bit late, I was welcomed kindly by the people who run Sustainable Solano. Prior to the internship, we first had to go through certification, which consisted of meetings held with youth from multiple different internships. There, I got to meet a wide variety of people with different dreams of the future and different reasons to do their internships. The most common reason that I’d found with all the kids I’ve met from the certification process was because they had a vision to shape the world into a place that was green and has clean air.

My favorite highlight of this internship was the workday at First Christian Church. I liked this day a lot because I was able to meet all of the other interns and talk about school and hobbies. I found that they were all exceptionally brilliant, some of them holding down several AP classes and athletics, and even attending community college classes too. Although we had only spent a few hours of the day together, I know that the garden at First Christian Church was created with love and compassion from me and friends from Sustainable Solano.

The people of the church were also very friendly in making sure that we did not push ourselves too hard to get things done, and their lighthearted conversations made the mood of the day very calming and peaceful. I also appreciate every time that someone has taken the time out of their day to express their gratitude for us helping with the garden every now and then.

I enjoyed raking and shoveling in this garden a lot and I hope to find an opportunity to do it again someday. Overall, if there is one thing that I learned with this gardening internship, it is that teamwork creates beautiful gardens.

 

This intership was offered as a collaboration between SuSol’s Solano Sustainable Backyards and Solano Gardens programs. Solano Sustainable Backyards is funded by the Solano County Water Agency, and Solano Gardens is funded by Solano Public Health. We are grateful to both funders for supporting our work with youth.