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

The May Fourth Friday screening of Economics of Happiness triggered a thoughtful conversation about the ills of globalization and the alternative vision of localization as a path to a happier, healther, and more resilient society.

To learn more about the work of the people who made the Economics of Happiness film, check out the localfutures.org website.

And if you’re really interested in going deeper, you can download this paper:  Localisation-Essential Steps to an Economics of Happiness.

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Transition Palo Alto journeyed to far eastern Menlo Park on April 30, to participate in the Earth Day Celebration which opened the 2nd season of the Facebook Farmers Market.  We were joined by a large number of community organizations and businesses, greatly increasing the size of the normal market.  Music, free plants and an “upcycled” fashion show rounded out the festive afternoon.

The Facebook Farmers Market will take place every Saturday from 2:00 to 5:00 PM.  Expect music, kids’ activities and special events throughout the season.  If you’re anywhere nearby, do check it out.

On Saturday May 7, 2016, Transition Palo Alto volunteers got together and tabled at the Palo Alto May Fete and Parade in spite of the impending rain.  It was a great event and many children enjoyed guessing the vegetable hidden in paper bags using only their sense of touch or smell. Others planted seeds; amaranth, fava or pumpkin, in recyclable containers which would otherwise have gone in the trash. Unfortunately things were cut short by a downpour at noon but we’re happy to say that the skies held out long enough for a fun morning and a very heavily attended community event.
–Trina Lynn

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Here’s a new issue of Green Kids Mag, created by Rani Jayakumar and her children. Enjoy!

greenkidsmag-apr2016

“This passionate film presents a clear and articulate vision of what a shift in the scale at which we do things would look like…Very timely and powerful.”
Rob Hopkins, Transition co-founder

Economic globalization has led to a massive expansion in the scale and power of big business and banking. For the majority of people on the planet life is becoming increasingly stressful. We have less time for friends and family and we face mounting pressures at work.

The Economics of Happiness describes a world moving simultaneously in two opposing directions. Government and big business continue to promote globalization and the consolidation of corporate power. But all around the world people are resisting those policies. Communities are coming together to re-build more human scale, ecological economies based on a new paradigm – an economics of localization.

Click here to read what others are saying about the film.

Friday May 27, 7:15pm gather – film starts promptly at 7:30 – discussion follows
Fireside Room, Palo Alto Unitarian Universalist Church
505 E. Charleston Avenue, Palo Alto