[Lapg] garden on the White House lawn forwarded from Kreigh Hampel

Fri Mar 20 13:38:10 PDT 2009

My sincere spam apologies (and unbridled delight).

You are receiving this e-mail because you either signed up for Kitchen 
Gardeners International's newsletter or for e-mail

updates on KGI's Eat the View 
<http://m1e.net/c?79772490-p6CB7IdEY9V9s@4085642-mRMDSX66yszOI> White 
House garden campaign.  You may unsubscribe using the link below.

Dear Kitchen Gardener,

(Begin pinching yourself now)

  "Obamas to Plant White House Vegetable Garden"

On Friday, March 20th, 2009, 23 third graders will join First Lady 
Michelle Obama on the South Lawn of the White House to break ground on 
an 1100 square foot kitchen garden that will provide food for family 
dinners and formal dinners. 

According to the New York Times:

/The Obamas' garden will have 55 varieties of vegetables grown from 
organic seedlings started at the executive mansion's greenhouses./

And better still:

/Almost the entire Obama family, including the president, will pull 
weeds, "whether they like it or not," Mrs. Obama said laughing. /

Ok, you can stop pinching yourself: you aren't dreaming this and an off 
batch of sauerkraut hasn't caused a rare case of 
lacto-fermentation-hallucination.

*THEY ARE REALLY GOING TO DIG THIS GARDEN! *

*AND WE HELPED MAKE THIS DAY POSSIBLE!*

Those of you who have been part of the KGI community for a while know 
that this is a long-term project of ours, started in February 2008.  It 
was back in the middle of the presidential primary season when 99.9999% 
of the population was focused on who the next president was going to 
be.  We were the .0001% of the population that was thinking about what 
his or her family was going to eat and where it would be grown. 

It's been quite a ride for KGI as an organization and for me personally 
since then.  For those of you who are new and weren't with us for the 
trip, we had some fun along the way. We started following a hopeful 
little web project called OnDayOne.org 
<http://m1e.net/c?79772490-SXhFbvz317.8Y@4085643-NXHKCP/DX0DdU> in 
February 2008, read about ourselves in the New York Times in April 
<http://m1e.net/c?79772490-x6XY7SyE19ZFY@4085644-O4MXaiulUqRJk>, began 
putting our names on a White House Food Garden petition in June, hummed 
along to This Lawn is Your Lawn in July 2008 
<http://m1e.net/c?79772490-o70tXlOii8cGY@4085645-a78A3fQt6q5z.>, read 
about ourselves in the International Herald Tribune in July 
<http://m1e.net/c?79772490-fF0DR5DZHKFug@4085646-LXETvx6BeRZbE>, placed 
bids on the White House Lawn which we had put up for sale on eBay in 
August, watched with wonder as two young guys inspired by our work set 
off in a funky bus 
<http://m1e.net/c?79772490-a5O3BItzETKjA@4085647-wSZ/CUvbq.lko> to take 
the edible White House idea across the country and back, chuckled our 
way through September watching the Garden of Eatin' 
<http://m1e.net/c?79772490-k4R.8ekeVV1AE@4085648-vM/h9lpx4FOoU>, read 
Michael Pollan's "Farmer-in-Chief 
<http://m1e.net/c?79772490-O47Hy7WfbtoDI@4085649-aesfPNUn0x8Zw>" article 
with great interest in October which also spoke of a new garden at the 
White House, voted "This Lawn is Your Lawn" onto national TV through the 
Climate Matters video contest in October, got swept up in the energy of 
the November elections, leafed our way through the Washington Post in 
January <http://m1e.net/c?79772490-6i64umhsYlhy6@4085650-MKQwcf19A9C3E>, 
pushed hard to get out the vote in the OnDayOne.org contest later that 
month (and won that too beating out 4000 other ideas), began inviting 
more people to sign our petition on our campaign site 
<http://m1e.net/c?79772490-B1B0aM09tE3uk@4085651-q.CwcQMidRS1Y> and on 
Facebook <http://m1e.net/c?79772490-Hp0gT5S.q.iBo@4085652-SId7K0g0ifkio> 
also in January, spoke with and e-mailed various members of Michelle 
Obama's staff in February (me, in this case, but maybe you did too? They 
said they were hearing from a lot of people.), and here we are in March 
2009 reading the headline above and vicariously walking our way through 
the delicious garden paths of the future South Lawn:

What more can I say besides thank you for all your support and patience 
with this project.  Many /_individuals_/ made this great day possible: - 
Alice Waters, Michael Pollan, John Adams, Eleanor Roosevelt, Barack and 
Michelle Obama - but we can feel pride in being the /community/ that 
pulled together and made a difference. 

So let's celebrate that.  The seeding or the weeding can wait.  
Tomorrow's about savoring a moment that was a long time in the making.

Best wishes,

Roger

PS: Got any thoughts to share on this news 
<http://m1e.net/c?79772490-SpIsfRF.nOo2w@4085653-jAwg26IzxbNs.> or 
anything else? That's what our forums are for.

PPS: If you are a media person, blogger, or know one, you can find our 
press release below.

----

*For Immediate Release*

* *

*Contact:*

Roger Doiron

roger at kitchengardeners.org <mailto:roger at kitchengardeners.org>

phone: (207) 883-5341 <LiveCall:%28207%29883-5341>

cell: (207) 807-6364 <LiveCall:%28207%29807-6364>

* *

*100,000 Applaud Announcement of a New White House Food Garden *

/Environment, Nation's Food System and People's Health Stand to Benefit/

* *

(Scarborough, Maine) --100,000 people signed a petition asking the 
Obamas to replant a Victory Garden at the White House, and recent news 
reports indicate that they are about to reap what they sowed. 

For advocates of sustainable and healthy foods, this harvest of good 
news was as welcome as the summer's first red-ripe tomato.  "I'm 
thrilled for the Obama family and for all who will be inspired by their 
example to grow gardens of their own this year," said Roger Doiron, 
founder of the nonprofit Kitchen Gardeners International and leader of 
the successful petition campaign, "Eat the View." 

Launched in February 2008, Eat the View proposed that the Obamas replant 
a White House Victory Garden while planting a few extra rows for the 
hungry. The campaign used viral videos and social networking 
technologies like Facebook to grow a large support base, attract 
international media attention and help inspire a larger grassroots 
effort. In January, 2009, Eat the View won the "On Day One" contest 
sponsored by the United Nations Foundation, beating out 4,000 other 
entries and resulting in thousands of messages being sent to the White 
House in support of its proposal.

Over the course of the past month, the Eat the View campaign has touted 
the economic benefits of home gardens as part of its pitch to White 
House staff members.  As proof, Doiron and his wife spent nine months 
weighing and recording each vegetable they pulled from their 
1,600-square-foot garden outside Portland, Maine. After counting the 
final winter leaves of salad, they found that they had saved about 
$2,150 by growing produce for their family of five instead of buying 
it.  "If you consider that there are millions of American families who 
could be making similar, home-grown savings, those are no small 
potatoes," Doiron said. 

Although the White House garden campaign is now winding down, Doiron 
says the Eat the View campaign is just getting warmed up.  "Now that the 
Obamas are on board, we're going to be reaching out to other people and 
identifying other high-profile pieces of land that could be transformed 
into edible landscapes.  Sprawling lawns around governors' residences, 
schoolyards, vacant urban lots: those are all views that should be eaten."

*History of Harvest at the White House*

While the Obamas' garden and the online technologies that campaigned for 
it might be new, the idea of an edible landscape at the White House is 
not.  Throughout its history, the White House has been home to food 
gardens of different shapes and sizes and even to a lawn-mowing herd of 
sheep in 1918.  The appeal of the White House garden project, Doiron 
asserts, is that it serves as a bridge between the country's past and 
its future.  "The last time food was grown on the White House lawn was 
in 1943, when the country was at war, the economy was struggling and 
people were looking to the First Family for leadership. It made sense 
before and it makes sense again as we try to live within our own means 
and those of the planet." 

* *

*Additional info:*

Eat the View campaign website:

http://www.eattheview.org/ 
<http://m1e.net/c?79772490-XW.Y.VREVUtY.@4085651-78IJnN/N8SHwA>

History the White House as an edible landscape from 1800 to the present:

http://www.eattheview.org/page/history-1 
<http://m1e.net/c?79772490-xhH.pOFcJX9qo@4085654-cojwtNInWGb/c>

Eat the View artwork:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/42913695@N00/sets/72157608739986075/ 
<http://m1e.net/c?79772490-wnesFoBd2pX2Q@4085655-dyOaIilLbdt3U>

Testimonials on behalf of the Eat the View campaign from noted national 
and international figures:

http://www.eattheview.org/page/testimonials-1 
<http://m1e.net/c?79772490-Y.EI1DDZrWJMY@4085656-Z1f1xRtW52TAI>

Eat the View campaign videos:

http://www.eattheview.org/videos 
<http://m1e.net/c?79772490-BxQi9WBRtUCX2@4085657-jFSdSoGgLquxg>

Bio and photos of Roger Doiron:

http://www.kitchengardeners.org/2005/10/about_roger_doiron.html 
<http://m1e.net/c?79772490-oHW0vCKq2kWKE@4085658-P6.E.N97R3T5A>

http://www.flickr.com/photos/42913695@N00/sets/72157608739762927/ 
<http://m1e.net/c?79772490-.qsOdE7wbaJsM@4085659-gzY7Exj4TEs5k>

Kitchen Gardeners International is a 501c3 nonprofit founded in Maine, 
USA with friends from around the world. Our mission is to empower 
individuals, families, and communities to achieve greater levels of food 
self-reliance through the promotion of kitchen gardening, home-cooking, 
and sustainable local food systems.  Contact info: Kitchen Gardeners 
International, 3 Powderhorn Drive, Scarborough, ME 04074 phone (207) 
883-5341 <LiveCall:%28207%29883-5341>, info at kitchengardeners.org

To unsubscribe, click here: click here 
<http://www.mailermailer.com/x?u=79772490g-5c9c1df5>

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