Progress Reports from the Field

PENN STATE EXTENSION, FOOD POLICY COUNCIL AND THE PITTSBURGH GARDEN EXPERIMENT
Sustainable Agriculture Fellow:

PENN STATE EXTENSION
- Posted festivals, PGH restaurants that source local ingredients, and articles to Yumpittsburgh.com
- Facilitating registration process for course to start in May: Exploring the Small Farm Dream
- Ordered books for the above course
- Wrote letter inviting producers to take part in Farm Profiles to be used by Penn State and East End Food Co-op
- Made online surveys and sent them out to buyers and producers who attended the Local Food Showcase in March
- Summarized results of online surveys
- Met with Rob Baran of the co-op to discuss Farm Profiles

FOOD POLICY COUNCIL
- Did research on other cities' urban ag zoning codes (keeping chickens, livestock and bees in the city and the specific requirements to do so)
- Attended 2 FPC meetings and took notes and posted them to Google group
- Helped with beginning stages of event to be held in Homewood to show the film, Food Inc.
- Presented a small amount of research at one of the FPC meetings, then posted document to google group

PITTSBURGH GARDEN EXPERIMENT
- Organized multiple events and if completed posted them to PGE website, google calendar and/or MeetUp group (Vacant Lot Remediation/Beautification Panel Discussion; Compost Happens;Large Scale Veggie Gardening Workshop; Wild Edibles Walk; Natural Vision Enhancement Walk - still in progress; Sweet Potato Harvest Party)
- Folded catalogs and distributed them to libraries/stores/cafes/coffee shops throughout ShadySide, Lawrenceville, Bloomfield and Squirrel Hill
- Picked up sawdust from Urban Tree Forge to be taken to Blackberry Meadows Farm and used for mushroom cave
- Picked up food waste from Quiet Storm to be used in industrial worm composter eventually - but dumped at Blackberry Meadows Farm for now
- Planted garlic in field and seeded flats in the greenhouse at BBMF
- Assisted Jeff in picking up seeds to fill catalog orders and fruit trees

VOLUNTEER DAYS
- Panther Hollow Extravaganza - led crew picking up trash - awesome day
- Grant Makers for Effective Organizations - led a small group mulching, weeding and laying bricks for a path at community garden in Larimer - Way Fun!

DEVELOPMENT/EDUCATION
- Pittsburgh Food Forest Workshop on April 17
-Attended CityLive with Claire on Land, Air, and Water on April 27

PENNFUTURE AND CONSERVATION CONSULTANTS, INC.
Sustainable Community Fellow:

PennFuture: BLACK AND GOLD CITY GOES GREEN campaign

-Developed outreach materials and informational materials for the campaign
-Reached out to, and registered 6 new Community Partners for the campaign
-Outreach and some cross promotion with the City's Tree Giveaway
-Earth Day tabling at the county
-Earth Night tabling with the Environmental Chanter School
-Tabling at CMU's Faces of Globalization
-Attended a Regional Visioning Meeting
-Continue to work on issues related to the Water Savers Competition (Prizes, Participation, Etc.)

CONSURVATION CONSULTANTS, INC.
-Conducted a presentation on home efficiency and energy audits at the Mt. Lebanon Library
-Gave several tours of the CCI Center (certified LEED building) to High School Students
-Answered customer inquiries about home energy audits
-Completed several spring maintenance projects -Earth day Saturday with CCI in Mt. Lebanon
-Just completed an Arbor Day celebration at Concord Elementary, planted trees, presented tree education.
-Preparing for the Global Warming conference Sunday May 2, 2010.

VOLUNTEER WORK
-Worked to help organize a "Save our Forrest" Rally at the Governors office (Dressed in a green bunny puppet... Non SCA)

EAST LIBERTY DEVELOPMENT, INC.
Sustainable Community Fellow

NEGLEY RUN BLVD.
Event: Saturday, March 27th, 2010
Conducted Negley Run Blvd. site assessment on March 8th, 2010, with Erin Copeland (PPC) and Myrna Newman (Allgheny Cleanways)
We were already receiving a great amount of CMU students to volunteer for the day to clean-up the site
Outreach conducted to the bordering neighborhoods to recruit community volunteers
Goal was to create an event to foster green networking and education between neighborhoods and the students

Created flyer / map to promote event, but mainly to explain event through face to face interactions at meetings
Outreach conducted through attending community meetings and sending announcements over community group email servers
Recruited remaining crew leaders through a SCA staff member, PPC staff member, my co-workers, etc.
Along with recruiting volunteers and crew leaders, I had to plan and organize everything that goes into an event
Contacted DPW for dumpsters, traffic division, scrap metal removal contact, arranged all materials needed (a lot through AC), bathrooms, food (and $ for food), etc.
Wrote up work plan, wrote up crew leader outlines for day-of speeches, planned actual process of how sites were to be cleaned / how many people needed / etc., etc.
Conducted crew leader training meeting, along with several other meetings with individual leaders that could not make original meeting
Pick-up along Negley Run Blvd. between Collins Ave. and Washington Blvd.
95 CMU students came out that day to clean-up, as well as 18 community members, 12 additional volunteers, and 16 PSU students
12 Crew leaders (counting Josie/Scott as one)
5 "supervisors", including myself
157 VOLUNTEERS TOTAL!
Significant amount of trash / litter picked-up
Each crew had a reflection period at the end to harness community member and student green discussion/education
Prep for the event, and clean-up after the event conducted by supervisors
Thank you letters, typed and hand written, sent to partners and volunteers

Student volunteers benefitted through:
Spending time outdoors/connecting with nature, working as a team, sense of accomplishment, exercise, pollution education / awareness to not litter, interacting with their local community
Community member volunteers beneffited through:
Spending time outdoors/connecting with nature, working as a team, enhancing their community, sense of accomplishment, sense of pride and ownership over one's neighborhood green asset, making connections with their neighbors, exercise, pollution education / awareness to not litter, interacting with local college studets
Crew leaders benefitted through:
Spending time outdoors/connecting with nature, crew leader training, leadership skills, team player skills, sense of accomplishment, exercise, pollution education

TREEVITALIZE
TreeVitalize is a program managed through Western PA Conservancy, WPC, but community members and CDCs make the projects happen
Three separate potential sites for tree plantings
Black St. - East Liberty and Garfield borders
Sheridan Ave. - East Liberty
Stanton Ave. - East Liberty and Highland Park borders
Had meetings with partners from each site to discuss project, get them on board, and begin strategizing outreach to residents
In order for a tree to be planted, the resident who's house it would be in front of must comply and sign a request form so created flyers with image montages for each site / focus: conserving money
Outreach door to door on many dates at each site with partners / flyers distributed / request forms signed by each interested resident
Wrote the TreeVitalize applications / attached request forms

RAIN GARDENS
Funding to implement 5 residential, urban rain gardens in NegleyPlace neighborhood (Garfield, East Liberty, Highland Park)
6 potential sites located by our partner Gary Cirrincione - where the residents would like a rain garden and have a green thumb
6 sites scientifically assessed to determine which 5 are best suited for gardens
• Water infiltration test, soil tests, calculating area of roof runoff, drainage area, etc.
• Assessment report developed by our partner, Barton Kirk
Volunteer recruitment from the residents family, friends, and neighbors
Recruitment of crew leaders (rain garden experts)
Draft up the designs in AutoCAD on the computer
Order plants from RGA

CAR FREE FRIDAYS
Meeting with Lou and Karen to discuss Car Free Fridays
Event in East Liberty in June to promote alternative and green transportation methods
Will have tent at Whole Foods to promote with breakfast
Developing neighborhood bike tour and designing map for tour
Developing separate East Liberty walking tour route for different date in June
Promotion will start soon: Posters, Eblasts, articles in the community papers and blogs
Event: June 18th and 26th

ELM ST DISTRICT
Also in the midst of locating great places for additional tree planting in our Elm Street District
Meeting with Matt Erb from Friends of the Pittsburgh Urban Forest
Budgetting
Finalized by June 1st

STORYTELLING DEVICE
Read through ELDI's annual reports and community plan
Will now consult with Nate to develop ideas for the ultimate storytelling graphic device to get ELDI's story across to others

STUDENT CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION
SCA: GREEN CITIES BLUES FESTIVAL
Event decided: Tag on an existing event, make it sustainable and promote green initiaves/Green Cities too
Developed list of potential partners for event and their contacts
And list of supplies / SWAG must get
And what green initiatives can actually be embedded into Festival
Created deadlines
Created Facebook page and photo to begin early promotion
Divided partners three ways along with Ray and Lori
Begin contacting potential partners
Event: July 23, 24, 25

SCA: COMMUNITY DAY
Managing communication amongst Fellows through emails
Researched and developed list of potential community contacts for Fellows
Developing GIS analysis maps
Keeping in contact with primary contact Jim Ritcher, ED of Hazelwood Initiative, Inc.
Developed Google Doc to keep Fellow's contacts organized
Developed deadlines / possible community meeting day

SCA: Website
Will develop in the next week

GREEN BUILDING ALLIANCE
CLIMATE FELLOW

GOAL 1: Publish the 2008 Pittsburgh Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory Report
- All data is collected, the last piece being electricity data from Duquesne Light Co.
- The final draft of the inventory report is being circulated for internal review, and then there are key players (PCI Partners, CMU’s graduate class that has worked on inventories) who will assist as third party reviewers.
- Our graphic artist and her intern are working on the layout so that it looks like a physically published document, but it will only be published online and distributed electronically.
- Planning is underway for the report’s release, in conjunction with the County’s baseline inventory.

GOAL 2: Draft the Pittsburgh Climate Action Plan, Version 2.0 (PCAP v2)
- I have met with the leaders of each sector to plan how their committee will develop recommendations.
-- Each sector will approach their chapter of the climate action plan differently, based on the messaging needs and structure of their target audience.
-- We’re working to develop better strategies for the County’s inclusion.
-- We’re working to develop better strategies for the Authorities’ inclusion.
-- Overall, there is a step by step approach for each sector, and then continuing conversation.
- I am continuing to build lists of recommendations from other cities’ climate action plans.
- I have met with three former members of the GGTF, the only three who responded to my ask. We discussed their insight into PCI’s progress and areas for improvement, and plans for involvement in future recommendation development.
- Attended a Rain Garden Alliance meeting for potential inclusion in 2.0
- Recruited TerraShift into the BCC after conversations about their work for 2.0 inclusion.

GOAL 3: Support events and meetings for the Higher Education Climate Consortium
- I organized goals and discussion for HECC’s April meeting.
- Registered a table for the Water Matters! conference to represent HECC and PCI.
- Re-initiated conversation with 3 schools who still have yet to give me information for their web pages.

GOAL 4: Support meetings and management of the PCI Partners.
- I have been researching 2011 funding opportunities for the PCI through our local Foundation Center and through information on how other cities’ climate initiatives are funded.
- We’ve been continuing the group feedback and discussion process around a new vision, mission, values statements, organizational partnerships, and management commitment for the PCI.

GOAL 5: Participate in Community Service Opportunities in Pittsburgh.
- Volunteered with a Highland Park tree planting.
- Led a crew for the PPC’s Panther Hallow Earth Day Extravaganza
- Volunteered with a Tree Care Workshop on Polish Hill to prune street trees.

PITTSBURGH PARKS CONSERVANCY
SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY FELLOW

Other than preparing and coordinating volunteers for the Panther Hollow Extravaganza, I partook in four tabling events, three other volunteer days (one with the Westinghouse corporation, another with 7th graders from Propel Schools near the Waterfront), and I assisted the folks at the Frick Environmental Center with their first grade Habitat Explorers program yesterday. April has been intense! (but enjoyable).

The Parks Conservancy prepared a blog about the Panther Hollow Extravaganza, which includes a blurb from yours truly, as well as a picture slideshow including Katrina, Miriam, Jake, and many others of the nearly 200 people we had out in Schenley Park on a rainy Saturday morning!
Check it out: http://pittsburghparks.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/a-banner-day-for-panther....

Here are some good statistics for the Panther Hollow Extravaganza:

192 volunteers (despite the cool rainy weather)
19 trees planted
120 shrubs planted
5 rain barrels installed
1 rain garden planted
44 bags of trash removed—plus 1 metal barrel and 3 parking meters
10 bags of recyclables collected
2 buckets of glass shards collected
200 bags of garlic mustard removed

Photo by John Altdorfer