Tryon Creek’s Trillium Festival – THIS WEEKEND & FREE!
Did you know that Tryon Creek State Park is Oregon’s only state park within a major metropolitan area? Every day, visitors come to hike or stroll the nature trails through the verdant ravine between Boones Ferry Road and Terwilliger Boulevard. It’s right in our backyard!
Cyclists of all ages bike along the paved trail on the park’s eastern edge, stopping along the way to admire a trillium. This weekend is the annual Trillium Festival that is a great family activity including a native plant sale, guided nature hikes, children’s crafts and activities, local craft and edibles vendors, live music performances and more!
Another cool tidbit: Tryon Creek is one of the only streams in the metro area with a run of steelhead trout. Neato!
That blast of sun was GREAT this past weekend but…
Here are some healthy edible garden options for our more ‘typical’ Pacific Northwest spring weather:
*Taken from a Gro-O Neighborhood facebook post! They always have some fun tips!
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle…$ave Money?
We Portlanders love to reduce, reuse and recycle … so bring on the Consignments Sales!!
Maybe you’re a new parent and have never heard of this before or maybe you heard about children’s consignment, but don’t know where to start.
These sales are sure to give you the thrill of finding that ‘score!’. It’s just one more way to practice a sustainable lifestyle WHILE saving your hard earned cash!
Visit this site for Spring 2013 Portland Children’s Consignment Sale dates. So many to choose from! Get your bargain on!
Check out all the fun that is happening THIS WEEKEND!
Visit the ever popular Red Tricycle page on what to do with your little ones before the party turns into the 21 & older crowd!
…and
DON’T FORGET!! SWCC is also hosting our annual Bunny Breakfast on Saturday 3/16!
Register HERE
Enjoy, make some memories with your wee ones this weekend!~
Sprout Pays it Forward!
In the Spring of 2010, the Sprout Academy was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to become renters of a community garden plot in Gabriel Park. Of course we jumped at the chance! There is so much potential for children’s learning to take place in a garden, it’s essentially an outdoor classroom!
Since that time, Southwest Community Center has utilized the plot for both the Sprout Academy educational preschool during the school year (about 50 students in the 3’s & 4’s classes) and also for Summer Sprouts camp over the summer break (about 130 campers age 4-5). The garden has 5 raised beds and is a peaceful place where students & campers have laid soil, planted, watered, weeded, harvested and made friends with fellow plot keepers.
This Fall, we began a new partnership with the Neighborhood House in MultnomahVillage to give back to the community! Gabriel Park Community Garden Volunteer Coordinator Elaine Cuyler approached us about donating produce to a local food pantry. That’s the perfect partnership for the preschool that I have been looking for: a way to help local families that children could be an active part of and know that they made a difference in their community. It’s a win-win!
Though the children won’t start trekking out to the garden until Spring, we planted a few winter crops of collard greens, kale, spinach, and green onions to start giving as soon as possible. Our kale & collard greens looked great (thanks to Elaine’s watchful eye and Teacher Rachel’s personal garden visits). We also have some tasty rosemary and other herbs such as thyme to add to the bounty.
Elaine & I went to the plot Tuesday and harvested what amounted to be 7 pounds of organic produce to donate!
It’s our first round of donating and we are exciting to keep growing healthy nutritious food for needy families for years to come! In Spring, the children will get to harvest and gather a donation so look for a follow up post in a few months! Hooray! Kelly Owen (NH Food Box Coordinator) was excited to see us and add to the fresh produce available. 
To learn more about the program and how you can contribute, please visit their website at www.nhpdx.org. We’ll be visiting them regularly with whatever the season brings!
Thank you, Multnomah County Library!
We would like to say Thank You to another one of our fabulous partners, the Multnomah County Library , for their awesome Book Delivery Program!
Every 2 months, they drop off a tub of books for the Sprout Academy’s 6 preschool classes and pick up the previous tub they shared with us. It’s part of their Early Literacy mission to give as many children as possible the chance at reading sucess before they get into ’big kid’ school.
They make it SO easy, and we appreciate this valuable service! You can never have too many books and this solves the storage issue, spares us the cost of constantly purchasing new books, and saves teachers travel time & gas – part of our mission of sustainability!
What a great service, we ♥ the Multnomah County Library!
This Warm Weather has Me Inspired!
I saw this pallet garden idea on a post at Growing a Greener World’s website and thought it was pretty neat! Looks like it would be fun to plan, plant & maintain with kiddos.
It reminds me of our Woolly School Garden that we have here in the courtyard, but just about anyone can do this at home, with minimal supplies. There’s even a free standing option you can make!
So cool! The how-to’s are all on the link above. If you try it, share your adventures with us!
