Latino theater director quits the limelight to help poor people grow food at home

[AlphaCentauri]

Source: Mercury News

Once a month, Rosa Lopez lined up with her youngest child in tow for free food at a San Jose charity. Cheerful volunteers gave them grocery bags with bread, soup cans, rice, peanut butter and a few vegetables. Gracias, goodbye, see you next time.
But this dreary hunger routine changed for the better when she met a stocky, middle-age Latino professional who lived nearby. He had come to the charity with novel idea: In a city blessed with sunshine, he wanted to teach poor families like hers how to grow food in their backyards.

"We had to try something because money and food was running out, faster than before," Lopez said in Spanish.

And the man with the idea needed something new in his life, too.

Raul Lozano had just left a prestigious job as the executive director of Teatro Vision, one of the oldest and most successful Latino theater companies in the country.

"I was burned out and had my fill," Lozano said about the fundraising side of show business. At 55, he wasn't set for retirement, either. "I had no idea what I was going to do next. Some people thought I was crazy."

But in less than a year, Lozano's idea, La Mesa Verde (The Green Table), has sprouted faster than a happy cabbage, winning over funders and volunteer gardeners eager to work directly with families who can't afford healthy, organically grown food.



Read more: http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_14103676?source=most_emailed

[Flaneur]

1. Nice. In California, you can grow stuff year around.

[AlphaCentauri]

2. Ha!!!! I can see how ridiculous is to un-rec a topic like this

:rofl:

[patrice]

3. Sweet!!!

[cutlassmama]

4. What a selfless, remarkable man he is n/t

[Hannah Bell]

5. The white libs are teaching Latino immigrants how to do backyard gardening?

"When the master gardener program signed on, La Mesa Verde brought two different communities together — educated, English-speaking and mostly white volunteer gardeners at the front of the green movement with low-income, Spanish-speaking Latinos just struggling to survive.

La Mesa Verde is more than planting and eating. Master gardeners will serve as mentors, visiting each family twice a month. The 30 families so far must attend classes on organic gardening and nutrition, all at no cost."

And for this he gets a salary? What's wrong with this picture?

[EFerrari]

6. Thank gawd for these educated English speaking mostly white guys

or we'd starve to death out here.

lol

[Hannah Bell]

7. to be fair, the salary-collecting director is latino, son of farmworkers...but jeez,

this is what passes for anti-poverty work these days.

hey guys, check into who's doing most of the farmwork, yardwork, & nursery work nowadays. you really think special classes are needed so people can grow *chard* in their yards?

i did it this summer with no training at all. i must be clever.

[EFerrari]

8. The writer of this piece has a Spanish surname.

There's a lot of casual racism around here. It's sort of amazing.

[Hannah Bell]

10. it's cynical, i know, but i can't help suspecting the guy wanted to slow down

& figured he could fundraise his own salary with less stress than funding a big theater group. Figured he'd start up his own non-profit, what would go over well with rich Californians?

I know! Organic food + educating poor latinos.

30 families in the program, seeds & plants donated, usda-trained volunteer master gardeners do the teaching & mentoring at no cost to the program, he draws salary. nice.

[Gormy Cuss]

13. Cynicism aside, if these families now have the means to grow some of their own food that's good.

The planter,clean soil, and free plants are enough of an incentive for people to sign up even if they are experienced gardeners because this is a year-round growing climate.

OTOH, why someone would encourage people to grow unfamiliar crops without more guidance about how they grow and how to cook them is beyond me.

[EFerrari]

15. Rice, beans and chiles won't work. Corn works fine here.

Herbs that we use in a traditional diet work well - like cilantro or basil. Squash would do fine. Garlic and onions, too.

[Gormy Cuss]

16. Chiles grow VERY well up here.

For the Bay Area I think anywhere inland and not at elevation is a good area for chiles, squash, and tomatoes, also tomatillos which grow like weeds. This of course would be spring planting with summer and fall harvests. We don't pull out the chile plants until after the first frost. Our chile plants are conversation starters when we have had Latino workers at the house. The guys who have their own houses all seem to grow Jalapenos and tomatoes.

The broccoli and chard are good fall/winter crops for this area so I understand offering them, and chard's pretty versatile as a greens filling or side dish with traditional ingredients, but it still requires knowing how to use it, LOL.

Late winter is also when the cilantro grows best. Garlic and onions are good ways to fill the bed in the winter too because they take forever to mature, but they can be used even when not quite ready as root bulbs. We usually harvest them when we want to plant the summer crops.

[EFerrari]

18. Do they? The chiles I tried never got very hot.

Maybe it was just me or a bad batch of seed. I'll have to try again then because we're chile junkies here. :)

[AlphaCentauri]

19. You guys are lucky

I've been trying to make a small garden of medicinal plants and tea but the only thing I can grow is Lemongrass, the other plans I can make them to survive without pouring tons of water.

[EFerrari]

21. Every location has its challenges.

I planted corn for the first time in 1997 and the ants waited until it was ripe and sweet before they ate every last bite.

:rofl:

But, there is a sweet spot here on this property where I can grow just about anything and that's been very cool. :)

[Gormy Cuss]

22. Oh yes, very hot.

But remember I'm in the Diablo valley where there's plenty of sun and heat. That's what it takes. You would've had a hard time getting hot chiles in the city but in most of the San Jose area they should be easy. We grow about a dozen varieties, most of them hot --even our poblanos are a little picante. I wasn't kidding about the tomatillos. We grew them in a proper row one year and ever since we don't seed them, we just wait for the volunteers to appear and let them take care of themselves.

When you're planning your garden send me a PM and we can share notes.

[AspenRose]

14. Oh good grief - my master gardener instructor was hispanic

I learned from *HIM.* :eyes:

[Hannah Bell]

17. from the article: "brought two different communities together — mostly white volunteer gardeners"

[EFerrari]

20. Ya think?

lol

The writer of this article is writing for a white yuppie audience. Latinos have been farming this area for the last 400 years.

The benefit I see is if the kids get involved in this program. I know a bunch of "domestic arts" that my cousins ten years younger than me never had to learn. That would be really cool. :)

[SoCalDem]

9. There are several community gardens near where we live

Many years ago, they were hot-to--trot to rip up the wonderful orange groves, and then they built NOTHING..just left an ugly empty space,m so locals just started gardening there.. Every time I pass by, I see people out there tending it.:)

Reminded me of when we lived in Corona.. our house backed up to a grove, and from our elevated patio, we were eye-leve; to the tree tops below.. The smell of the orange blossoms was wonserful..

anyway, my boys were small then, and one day my middle son came in all sweaty from running home..saying "Mom call the police.. dial 911".. I immediately thought something had happened to one of his brothers.. I calmed him down & finally got it out of him.. he wanted me to call the cops because there were "guys on bulldozers..knocking down all the orange trees"..

I had to tell him then, that they bought the grove, to tear it down.. He was in total disbelief and asked why would someone deliberately kill all those great trees?

why indeed?

[Hannah Bell]

11. to reduce supply, jack up prices, knock off possible competion.

Minute Maid = Coca Cola = Warren Buffett
Tropicana = PepsiCo (Directors include scion of Hunt Oil & Rockefeller)

They control half the market.

[Taitertots]

12. Why did they tear down trees to build YOUR house?

Isn't this just poutrage.

Did you them they had to cut it down because so many people keep having children?