[Scpg] Wed Mar 15 6:30- 9:30pm Common Visi o n Dinner , Drumming, Story Telling and Slide S how, Goleta and Mar 14 Goleta Valley School

Tue Mar 14 07:53:54 PST 2006

Contact: Margie Bushman
Santa Barbara Permaculture Network.
(805) 962-2571, email: margie at sbpermaculture.org

SANTA BARBARA PERMACULTURE NETWORK AND GOLETA FAMILY SCHOOL PTA
Presents:
An Evening with Common Vision: Dinner,Drumming, Story Telling  and Slide Show

Celebrating the Transformation of Concrete Jungles into Urban Fruit Tree Forest
by Tree Planting at  Schools in California

Wednesday , March 15, 6:30 pm, donation $10 (Children Free)
Goleta Valley Community Center

3rd Annual California Common Vision FRUIT TREE TOUR 2006 February 20-April 
25 Celebrating the transformation of concrete jungles into urban orchards. 
www.commonvision.org. Thirty volunteer earth educators from northern 
California, travel to schools from Los Angeles to San Francisco in the 
largest known vegetable oil-powered caravan: six vehicles, including three 
busses. The all volunteer crew travels as a nomadic community visiting 
schools to plant 1000 fruit trees with urban youth. The three month tour is 
divided into day-long programs at each school featuring cultural 
story-telling, West African agricultural drumming, earth-conscious hip-hop, 
and hands-on involvement in the stewardship of the students school yard.

Common Vision infuses public schools and spaces with inspiration, 
infrastructure, and experience to support solution-focused environmental 
education for urban youth. Common Vision facilitates hands-on projects with 
students and community leaders that serve to retrofit public schools and 
spaces into models of sustainability.

Students of all ages are awed and inspired by three vegetable oil-powered 
school busses, hand-painted in landscape murals depicting indigenous 
communities, rolling into the schoolyard and breaking the monotony of their 
regular school routine. Symbolic storytelling, strong West African 
Dun-Dun-Bah agricultural rhythms, and the planting of fruit trees explodes 
into a celebration of
life and interconnectedness focusing on respect for the earth.

In the spirit of native oral tradition, FRUIT TREE TOUR storytellers bring 
to life tales from the past of living in harmony with the earth and the 
process of how society forgot our connection with the earth. Dancers draped 
in African mud-cloth fabric and drummers ornately dressed set the stage for 
the storytelling to unfold. A bold cast of characters and musicians 
brightly portray these
events with minimal words from a narrator and an elaborate display of 
culture and color.

In a tree planting celebrations students will drum earth rhythms, while 
working in intimate groups with FRUIT TREE TOUR facilitators to dig holes, 
prepare the roots, and plant the trees. Facilitators will engage students 
in dialogues around key ecological and cultural concepts such as nutrient 
cycles, interconnectedness, diversity, and respect.
Students, teachers, principals, and FRUIT TREE TOUR volunteers gather for a 
closing circle. The circle takes a moment to give thanks for the day's 
experience.

FRUIT TREE TOUR cultivates the students appreciation for the earth that can 
serve as a foundation for environmental responsibility, a key element of 
the next generation. The participation in creating and maintaining a school 
yard orchard provides a space to engage a
stewardship ethic as something personal and local, not a distant 
abstraction. Students are able to
provide their school and extended community with beauty, health, and abundance.

Last Year Common vision came to Santa Barbara to Monte Vista Public School 
and planted over 20 Fruit Trees and created the first Orchard Garden in a 
school in Santa Barbara , this year they are coming to Goleta Family School 
to  have a Tree Planting Day on  March 14, please contact the Goleta Valley 
PTA  organizer Jennifer Ja <zenjennja at yahoo.com> 729-2524

Founded in 1999, Common Vision is a solution-focused nonprofit 
organization, a project of International Humanities Center. Common Vision's 
mission is to cultivate ecological awareness and respect for the Earth 
while generating social and environmental changes towards sustainable 
lifestyles. We integrate concepts of ecology with the traditions, music, 
and art of cultures that live or have lived in harmony with the Earth.

The evening celebration to welcome Common Vision will take place at the 
Goleta Valley Community Center 5679 Hollister Ave, Wednesday March 15 
6:30-9:30 dinner followed by story telling ,drumming and slide show , 
Donation of $10 for adults Children free (no reservations needed) to help 
raise funds for the 2006 FRUIT TREE TOUR .  The Santa Barbara Permaculture 
Network and Goleta Family School PTA  sponsor the event. For more 
information, please call (805) 962-2571 margie at sbpermaculture.org , visit 
www.commonvision.org, or www.sbpermaculture.org.

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