Mark your calendars! We’ll hold our 2nd Annual Pollinator Appreciation Party on Friday May 13th at 630pm. Join us for light refreshments, garden tours and butterfly love!
Learn more about membership (and operational costs) at CVEarthlab.com. Thank you.
We’ll do the 50/50 raffle drawing at 7pm during the Harvest Potluck Fundraiser. (Party is 5-8pm in the community room.) Don’t forget to bring extra cash for raffle tickets:
$2 = 1 ticket; $5= 5 tickets; $10= 12 tickets; $20. = 25 tickets
Fundraising Goal: The harvest party marks the season’s end but also the beginning of our next one. Thanks in advance for helping the garden budget grow with your donations for the 2014 season. Each year, we need about $500. for soil, seeds and other materials. Cash donations or checks payable to CVOI may be brought to the event or left to the attention of Donna Chaiet (230 Jay St). Checks can also be submitted to the office. Thank you.
Last minute change of plans? You can still come to the potluck. Bring bread, fruit salad or a bottle of wine to the community room at 5pm. (We hope to head outside if the weather clears) Thanks!
CVEarthLab’s Educational Garden for Children is self-funded. Over the past 3 years, we’ve invested nearly $5000. in cash, donations in kind and grant awards to get the garden off the ground. (We applied for one grant this year, but we didn’t get it.)
Besides planting and watering, the garden requires a lot of manpower and a variety of resources. Sustaining its success will require an assortment of efforts and skills, including fundraising, grant researching and writing, researching and writing proposals for the board, website maintenance and content creation, internal and external communications, taking and posting photographs, soil quality testing and stewardship, harvest potluck party planning and prep, mulch contributions, errand running, weather proofing, cat and squirrel deterring, making or buying organic pest sprays and fertilizers, and all sorts of creative problem solving. And money! Our most expensive supplies include planting soil (@ $10 per 2 cubic foot bag) compost ($13 per 16 cubic quart ) and mulch ($5 per cubic foot).
Thankfully, most of the overall expense (@ $5000.) was for start-up costs. We expect future annual costs to be much lower. Still, maintenance expenses are significant. It will take about $500. to fill the four raised beds (around 90 ft3 total) that need to be replenished this year in order to maintain safe soil quality.
Therefore, we ask that each CVEarthLab member family or individual commits to water the garden 7-10 times, and do at least three of the following four crucial duties this year:
1. Collect and deliver 2-3 bags full of mulch (about 15-20 lbs). Free mulch is available from Green Wood Cemetery.
2. Help run one volunteer activity, such as a fundraising event, garden pot luck dinner, garden clean up, or host an educational garden activity.
3. Donate one bag of potting soil (about 1.5 cubic feet; $10).
4. Donate $20 in cash.
Thank you.
Concord Village EarthLab 