community garden outreach syllabus (spring 2017)

Community Garden Outreach

Thursdays, 11:45 am – 3:25 pm & 5-9 pm on 1^st Thursdays

Class location: USF Garden, Gleeson Plaza, & St. Cyprian’s Church (Turk and Lyon)

Twitter: @USFgarden / Instagram: usfgardenoutreach

Professor David Silver (dmsilver [ at ] usfca [ dot ] edu)

Office / hours: Kalmanovitz 141, MW, 1-2 & by appointment

TA: Santiago Delgadillo (sdelgadillo [ at ] dons [ dot ] usfca [ dot ] edu)

Course Description: Community Garden Outreach introduces students to ideas, skills, and practices in ultra-local, urban-based food production and distribution. Through readings, reflections, and discussions, students will explore various social, cultural, and economic issues around food, food production, and food distribution. Through cooking and preserving workshops, urban farm visits, monthly campus farmstands in Gleeson Plaza, and monthly community dinners at St. Cyprian’s Church, students will engage directly with community food practices.

Learning Goals:

1. Develop practical skills in preparing, preserving, and distributing local, seasonal food;
2. Design, implement, and administer the campus farmstand and St. Cyprian’s community dinner;
3. Design and implement outreach methods to publicize class events; and
4. Demonstrate effective and creative collaboration with class members and community partners.

 

Grading:

50%  Participation in and contribution to 3 USF Farmstands and 3 St Cyprian’s Community Dinners

10%   Recipe Project

20%   Family Cuisine Project

10%   Homework assignments and reflections

10%   Out-of-class volunteering

Farmstands and Community Dinners: The heart of this class is the campus farmstands and community dinners. Occurring three times a semester, the campus farmstand takes place in Gleeson Plaza. Students are responsible for all aspects of the farmstand, including organizing, publicizing, harvesting, gleaning, cooking and preparing the food, setting up, serving, cleaning up, and documenting. Also occurring three times a semester, the community dinners take place at St. Cyprian's Church (at Turk and Lyon) on the first Thursday evening of each month. Again, students are responsible for all aspects of the community dinner.

Out-of-class volunteering: Each student is required to make at least three visits to an urban farm or food-related event in the city. We will talk more about this but in general students visit the urban farm during work days, work in the farm for about two hours, and write a one page reflection about your experiences. Possible urban farms include: Alemany Farm, Garden for the Environment, and Tenderloin People’s Garden. Students can also volunteer at USF’s Stress Less Day (February 28) and the Earth Day Seed Swap at San Francisco Public Library (on April 22).

Attendance Policy: Missing class, or attending class unprepared, will significantly affect your final grade. If you do miss class, contact a classmate to find out what we discussed in class and ask to borrow her or his notes. Then, do the same with a second classmate. After this, if you still have questions about missed material, visit me during office hours or email me.

Course Rules

1.    No late work accepted.

2.    No drinking out of non-reusable containers during class, during farmstands, and during community dinners.

3.    Unless extremely necessary, stay off your phones during class.

 

Course Calendar

Thursday, January 26: Class and individual introductions. Food icebreaker. Tour USF Garden. Make a salad. Review syllabus. Homework: Visit a Farmer’s Market, preferably the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market on Saturday, to assess what makes a successful farmer’s market. Compile your observations into a one page reflection and bring to class on February 2.

Thursday, February 2: Discussion: What makes a stall at the farmer’s market good or bad? What’s a farmstand? What kind of farmstand do we want ours to be? Tour G05. Visit USF Seed Library and meet Gleeson librarians Debbie Benrubi and Carol Spector. Harvest for evening cooking workshop. Evening (5-9 pm): Cooking workshop and group dinner at St Cyprian’s. Dinner guests: Bruno Peguese, Senior Warden of St. Cyprian's Church; and Rev. Thomas Jackson, Vicar, St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Church. Homework: farmstand preparations, harvest/cook/coordinate with your team for next week’s farmstand.

Thursday, February 9: USF Farmstand 1. Class meets at Gleeson Plaza. After farmstand, we will have a brief visit from Lauren White, a representative from the HECUA Internship Program in Tuscany (“Sustainable Agriculture, Food and Justice in Italy”). Homework: Listen to TED Radio Hour, “The Food We Eat” (52 minutes), NPR.

Thursday, February 16: Recipe workshop. Homework: Readings on seeds and seed libraries distributed in class.

Thursday, February 23: Seed packet design workshop with Maren Salomon, Debbie Benrubi, and Carol Spector. Class meets near the USF Seed Library in Gleeson Library.

Thursday, March 2: Class meets at St. Cyprian’s to cook and prepare community dinner. Evening (5-9 pm): Community Dinner 1. Homework: farmstand preparations, harvest/cook/coordinate with your team for next week’s farmstand.

Thursday, March 9: USF Farmstand 2. Class meets at Gleeson Plaza.

Thursday, March 16: No class: Spring Break

Thursday, March 23: Mexican food and culture workshop with Josah Perley, owner of small-scale taco business, Tacoschani. Homework: Read Melati Citrawireja, “Deepa Natarajan: Ethnobotanist and natural fabric dyer,” Berkeleyside, November 9, 2015; and selections from John Keay, The Spice Route.

Thursday, March 30: Chai and spices workshop with Deepa Natarajan.

Thursday, April 6: Class meets at St. Cyprian’s to cook and prepare community dinner. Evening (5-9 pm): Community Dinner 2. Homework: Read Sandra Cate, “‘Breaking Bread with a Spread’ in the San Francisco County Jail,” Gastronomica, Summer 2008, pp. 17-24.

Thursday, April 13: Baking workshop. Guest baker: Samantha Blackburn. Class meets at St Cyprian’s kitchen. Homework: farmstand preparations, harvest/cook/coordinate with your team for next week’s farmstand.

Thursday, April 20: USF Farmstand 3. Class meets at Gleeson Plaza. Homework: Family cuisine assignment.

(*** On Saturday, April 22, there will be an Earth Day Seed Swap at the main branch of the San Francisco Public Library. The USF Seed Library is a co-organizer of this event and all CGO students are required to attend and participate in it.)

Thursday, April 27: Family Cuisine Project due in class.

Thursday, May 4: Class meets at St. Cyprian’s to cook and prepare community dinner. Evening (5-9 pm): Community Dinner 3. Homework: final reflection assignment.

Thursday, May 11: Last-day-of-class potluck party in USF Garden.

This class has no final.