Next Meeting: Work party on Monday July 25th, 5:30 pm

Good News!  The clinic has received it's state license and will be opening its doors for service in the very near future.

For promotion, partnerships and recruiting of volunteers we will be submitting the forest garden project to the following formal applications.  Frank will complete the forms and the submissions:

WTB A-OK Weekend Sept 10-11

SYracuse Grows Member Garden

TedX Manhattan Challenge

Fundraising report from Lindsay:

Community Foundation Green Spaces grants no longer available.

Home Depot Foundation $5,000 grants available and will look into further regarding application.

DEC Environmental Justice grants.  Workshop being held this Thursday 5:30 pm at Beauchamp Library on South Salina.  Lindsay will be attending and looking at how we can integrate the forest garden project with the Onondaga Earth Corps initiatives within a grant application.

Note from Frank:  Also look into Soil and Water Conservation District for donations/funding?

Community involvement:

Lindsay to contact Baltimore Woods/Nature in the City program. 

Magda to follow up with Clinic representative to contact local woman Rachel to possibly be a part of our planning/organizing group.

We also still need to consider a connection to McKinley School one block over.

Layout and Construction:

We will utilize the poplar logs that Dave will work on thinning and then transporting to the clinic site for path making.  Dave will also follow up with Steve Harris (City Arborist) for arranging a dump of wood chips when we need them in both July and September.

Upon Dave's return to Syracuse on July, we will work on creating a demo section of the trail and sheet mulching layout likely on the north end of the project site.  We can also use this opportunity to do some actual placement and moving around of logs to help visually determine final trail layout.

Monday July 25th at 5:30 pm we will meet at the clinic site to work on the demo section.  Dave will provide the logs and have the wood chips delivered.  We all will hoard cardboard for sheet mulching and will bring it with us on July 25th.  Zay and Derek will specifically arrange cardboard pickup at Syracuse Bicycle (big and wide cardboard boxes that bikes arrive in).  Derek offers storage for cardboard if needed before July 25th.  Cardboard brought to the clinic site and not used on July 25th can be stored in a utility room of the clinic until September. Dave will continue work on demo section as needed the evenings of July 26th-27th.

Work day on A-OK weekend of Sept 10-11 also still scheduled (and to include class from the Community Ecological Design Training course).  We will need to facilitate water, snacks, other materials, supplies?

No report on possible donations of plant materials / trees from local contractors of landscapers.  Possibly Alicia can be asked to follow up with this task?  General phasing will include sheet mulching and trail layout, raised bed production and cover cropping, tree trimming/pruning, woody vegetation (trees/shrubs) planting through this fall.  Continued planting and maintenance in the spring.

Accessibility will be prioritized in the following way:

There will be basic accessibility via surrounding sidewalks for the time being.  Depending on funding and availability of appropriate materials, further sections of the trail system may be made more accessible.  Focus would be first for the interior/arbor circle section, followed by the remaining pathways.  All trails will be made wide enough to accommodate wheelchair travel.  The wood chip trails will enable some partial use by heavier duty wheelchairs as is until other options are possibly implemented.  Work and completion of the forest garden and trail system will not be delayed due to accessibility concerns; we will make something worth getting people to first and then adjust for accessibility along the way as needed/desired.

Submitted by Frank