June Fourth Friday attendees got a sneak peak at a rough cut of the new “Evolution of Organic” film, which follows the organic movement in California from the 1970s to today. The film profiles the early visionaries who integrated love for the soil, health, and culture; the entrepreneurs who expanded the scale and scope of organic; and the new visionaries of today, who are bringing the next generation into organic farming and grazing and expanding into new areas such as carbon sequestration.

Filmmaker Mark Kitchell introduced the film and led a lively discussion and feedback session afterwards.

Mark is working hard to complete the film in time for the Sundance Film Festival in January 2017, and needs funding to help complete the work. He’d greatly appreciate contributions of any amount. You can check out the crowdfunding campaign at https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/evolution-of-organic–3#/

or the film overview page at http://www.documentary.org/film/california-green-fire

Thanks to all who attended, and to Slow Food South Bay for co-sponsoring the evening.

Pix from the evening…

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There were lots of ways to get creative at the June Share Faire, from exploring common plants to greywater, to old computers, e-magazines, and social media.

Talented and precocious Sanah Ayyar got so inspired by the session on haikus and limericks, that she went home and dashed off some creations of her own. Go Sanah!

Sanah is pretty in pink
Loves to skate in the ice rink
Her fingers are magical
And makes music that’s classical
Let’s explore her power to think

Click for more of Sanah’s creations

Thanks to Joseah Rosales from Greywater Landscape Design for leading a rousing talk on Greywater 101 and inspiring all of us to reuse water at home.

And some pix from the Share Faire:

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 Celebrate our country’s birthday and our interdependence – how we thrive when we care about and support each other.  Meet in the Acterra parking lot at 6pm for a potluck picnic. Later, we can walk or bike out to the bay to see the fireworks.

Please bring:

• Food to share with others
• Your own dishes, eating utensils, and cup

Monday July 4, 6-9:30pm
Behind the Acterra building, 3921 E Bayshore Rd, Palo Alto
RSVP at EventBrite

Black robed Stanford grads strolled by as I met up with Dawn Kwan along with her sister Nicole Kwan and mother Cindy Chow to scout around for discards from the students who are graduating or moving out for the summer. In her previous life as a Stanford student, Dawn advocated for waste reduction on campus. But she remained troubled by all the items that students dumped when moving out, with many items barely used. Hence the idea of a dumpster rescue mission.

Our mission for the day: Hunt around dorm area dumpsters for usable and recyclable items, and bring them to appropriate drop-off sites. As you can see from the slide show, we dove in a big way. The first dorms we visited had already been cleared out, but we ultimately found a couple of locations with discarded items in excellent condition, from storage containers to clothing to household items and more.
–Barbara Weinstein

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Don’t miss the June Share Faire, June 12, from 1:00 to 3:00 PM, Cubberley Community Center, rooms A6 and A7. 

Starting in June, our Palo Alto Local Garden Share will be rolled into the Share Faire.  Come and share the produce of your garden.  And plan to spend a few minutes with your fellow gardeners brainstorming about the future of our Garden Share.

Here’s the line-up so far for skill shares.

Creative communications

• Sharing old computers

  Want to be environmentally responsible with your computer use? Help bridge the digital divide? Learn how to fix your computer? Get a working computer for less than $50? Check out the table and presentation by Free Geek enthusiast Bart Anderson.

• Fun with haikus and limericks
  From the sublime to the humorous, a haiku or limerick is a delightful way to express yourself about almost anything. Come and create your own!

• Making an e-magazine
• Social networking 101

Gardening

• Greywater 101
• Use of common plants

Plus share and information booths in the hallway.

Volunteers wanted!  We continue to have great volunteers at our Share Faires.  We’ll be glad to have help setting up and cleaning up, greeting people and managing goods, and more.  Reply to this e-mail if you are interested.

Thanks to Zero Waste Palo Alto for being an event sponsor!  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Compost!

Here’s where you’ll find us at Cubberley – in rooms A6 and A7.

NOTE special time! Gather at 7pm, film starts promptly at 7:15pm

We’ve got a real treat for you for June Fourth Friday! Join filmmaker Mark Kitchell for a special rough-cut viewing of Evolution of Organic, a new film that’s scheduled for completion this year.  The film is a project of the team that did A Fierce Green Fire, which we showed to an overflow crowd in 2015.

The film will be followed by Q&A and discussion with the filmmaker, who would like feedback to use in the final editing of the film.

Evolution of Organic brings us the story of organic agriculture, told by those who built the movement. A motley crew of back-to-the-landers, spiritual seekers and farmers’ sons and daughters rejected modern chemical farming and set out to invent organic alternatives. California was the soil where the movement grew – from a small band of rebels on the fringe to a cultural transformation in the way we grow and eat food. By now organic has gone mainstream — bifurcated into an industry oriented toward bringing organic to all people; and a movement that has matured into a sustainable vision of agriculture.

Evolution of Organic is not just a history, but looks forward to exciting and important futures: the next generation of growers who are broadening and deepening organic; what lies “beyond organic” in terms of a healthy planet with healthy food for all living things; Soil Will Save Us, an earth-shaking scenario of carbon farming as a solution to climate change.

Friday June 24, 7:00 gather, film starts promply at 7:15pm – Q&A/discussion follows
Fireside Room, Palo Alto Unitarian Universalist Church
505 E. Charleston Avenue, Palo Alto