Winter 2006

Dear Friends,

OUSD Snack Deliveries

People’s Grocery just got a contract with the Oakland Unified School District to provide after school snacks and nutrition education to 11 schools throughout Oakland, serving 1,070 students each week with nutritious organic snacks! This is really a breakthrough for the Oakland school district and a huge improvement in the quality of the food these children will be eating each day. Say goodbye to snacks filled with refined sugar, saturated fat, colorings, additives, preservatives and pesticides.

Our Peer Educators will be going into the schools every week until June to teach the children about why the “new” snacks will make them more healthy and strong. If all goes well we could be serving twice as many schools next year, especially with the pending implementation of Senate Bill 12 (SB 12), which will affect the nutrition standards for all schools in California.

You can learn more about SB 12 here.

New Website

After almost 2 years we finally have a new website up and running! It has so much more to offer, including a new look, organizational links, the Mobile Market schedule, and People’s Grocery t-shirts for sale. We thank the YVOD staff immensely for their constant support and work in building our website, all on a volunteer basis! Check it out!

Promotional Video Now on Website

Our twelve minute promotional video, Innovative Solutions to Food Justice, is now posted on our website. It includes interviews with staff, youth staff, customers, and others; a look at many of our urban gardens; a tour of our mobile market; and a whole lot of information about who we are, what we do, and why we’re here. You can check it out here: People’s Grocery Video

59^th Street Spiral Garden

We are proud to announce that we have started work on our newest garden, the 59^th Street Spiral Garden, located at 888 59^th Street. We are collaborating with Spiral Gardens Community Food Security Project to reconstruct this plot of land back into the beautiful urban garden that it once was. We are very excited about this opportunity to expand our garden space and food production in order to better serve our community.

If you would like to participate in the restoration of the 59^th Street Spiral Garden please join us every Sunday afternoon from 11-4. For more details or information please call our garden manager, Jason Uribe at (510) 504-3664.

Weekly Garden Workdays:

WEDNESDAY
55th Street Garden 1167 55th Street (Just West of San Pablo)	9:00 - 1:00
Ralph Bunch Class and Green House Work 1240 18th Street (Just West of Adeline)	2:00 - Dusk
SUNDAY
59th Street Spiral Garden (Just East of Market)	11:00 - 4:00
SPECIAL! FIRST SATURDAYS
55th Street Garden 1167 55th Street (Just West of San Pablo)	11:00 - 1:00

The garden workdays happen regularly throughout the year weather permitting. For questions, directions, or rain updates please call our Garden Manager Jason Uribe at (510) 504-3664.

Bauman College Partnership

People’s Grocery has forged a new partnership with Bauman College in Berkeley. Bauman College’s Holistic Nutrition and Culinary Arts programs provide education that is non-dogmatic, seeking to find the ideal diet and lifestyle suited to each individual.

Bauman College and People’s Grocery will be splitting the tuition costs so that young people employed at People’s Grocery will be able to attend Bauman College in exchange for bringing the education they have learned back to their community. Geralina Fortier has risen to this opportunity and began the Bauman College Nutrition Educator program in March, 2005. She will finish the program in December, 2005 when she will take on a new role as Peer Nutrition Educator at People’s Grocery. Thank you Bauman College for this amazing collaboration!

The Mobile Market Route Has Changed

Based on customer feedback and the need to focus our time and resources on creating an actual grocery store, the Mobile Market route has changed. We now run on Tuesday and Friday every week and stay at one easy to find location, DeFermery Park (corner of 18^th St. & Adeline St.) where we are open for business from 3-7:30pm. Come on by and get fresh organic produce, natural packaged and bulk foods at affordable and discounted prices.

Buy discount products on-line

Through partnership with various organic food companies People’s Grocery is now able to offer weekly specials on natural foods at our website. Visit us regularly for some of the best prices around! This sale helps People’s Grocery raise funding for its programs. By ordering on our website you will help People’s Grocery raise needed funds in support of food justice and sustainable food systems while providing healthy drinks for you, your family and your friends. Sign up and receive e-mail announcements at: http://www.peoplesgrocery.org/join.html.

Staffing Changes

We have three wonderful, talented and committed new individuals on staff who help make People’s Grocery’s work in the community more effective and far reaching! Also, as some of you may know, Patricia Brown, who was hired as a Co-Director in May 2005 recently stepped down due to personal reasons. Pat will continue on as a member of our Board of Directors. We appreciate all the love and energy she put into People’s Grocery as a staff and look forward to her guidance as a Board member.

Miguel Binion

Mobile Market Warehousing & Sales

Twenty-four year young Miguel Binion is the Co-founder and organizer of the Naked Souls Artist Alliance, an organization that brings the community together with music, poetry, art, dance, crafts and camaraderie. Miguel is currently attending trade school to become an electrician. Miguel’s mission in life is to make sure that none of our youth feel alone and un-loved. In his words, “After all, they don’t ask to be here, so we owe them that much.”

Jason Uribe

Farm Manager/ Educator

A product of the Oakland Public School district, Jason Uribe comes to us from Longfellow Middle School in the Berkeley Public School District, where he taught garden based curriculum to 6^th and 7^th grade science classes. Before that Jason worked for many Oakland organizations including the East Bay Conservation Corps/ Americorps program, Youth Employment Partnership/We Mean Clean program, and the Student Conservation Association’s Oakland office. Jason was also the Garden Coordinator for the Berkeley Youth Alternatives from 2000 through 2003, where he was in charge of over 2 acres of land and taught high school student’s urban gardening through organic and sustainable practices. Jason brings a background of urban gardening, youth empowerment, community activism and a passion for social change.

Juhandryn Dessames

Office Manager/ Bookkeeper

Juhandryn (pronounced “Wonderin”) Dessames, from Oakland, CA, is currently working towards her BA in Human Resource with a minor in Business Administration. Also a product of the West Oakland School District, she has recently completed a research project with Stanford University on obesity prevention in African American girls as a Senior Research Interventionist. She has more than five years experience in bookkeeping, human resources, and youth development, most of which having been completed in the non-profit realm. Juhandryn is a proud mother of two and hopes that her life success will be an example to youth in urban communities facing hardship and obstacles of social economics.

In addition to our three new adult staff, we have a new intern from Youth Employment Partnership (www.yep.org) who has been working miracles in the office. Welcome Deshanna Williams!

People’s Grocery Board of Directors

Februrary 11^th marked the inaugural meeting of the new People’s Grocery Board of Directors. We are blessed and excited to have such an incredibly wise, talented and seasoned group of activists, farmers, community members, business people helping guide the direction of the organization!

Building Strength for more Effective Change

With funding from the California Endowment we are working with Diane Brown and other organizational consultants from the Non-Profit Assistance Group to strengthen key infrastructural, administrative, and managerial components of People’s Grocery. We have made huge strides on Board and staff development, policy formation, strategic and business planning, and achieving independent 501c3 non-profit status.

People’s Grocery is Hiring

Community Education, Outreach and Events Coordinator: We are currently on the look out for an upbeat and talented individual to join the staff at People’s Grocery to coordinate our education and outreach activities. This job combines what are some of the most fun elements of the organization into one exciting job.

Individual Donations Development Associate:This job will focus on building and maintaining relationships will the supporters of People’s Grocery through events, letters, e-mail, personal meetings and more. If you love people and love People’s Grocery, this is the job for you.

Stay tuned for more exciting news from People’s Grocery! Sign up for our mailing lists so you will be sure to hear the latest as it happens.