Choosing to Participate:
A Social Justice Service Project on Sustainability

I think that my day of learning went rather smoothly. The first assembly had good movies and shorts which made it fun and interesting. My movie, however, did not have its music (”What a wonderful world”). Than i was off to the workshops. I lead “Malaria Jeperdy” and learned a few thing myself. Our first workshop was kinda edgy since, for some of us, it was our first ever class. The second, however, went smoothly and felt more alive than the last. The second assembly was rather interesting but since the two guests did not have a mic it was rather had to hear which made it very hard to pay attention. The third assembly (middle school meeting) was much better. The guest was load and had very interesting facts. When he got some solo time with the eighth grade it was still interesting but many kids, including myself, were tiered. In all the day went well except for a few small minor bumps… micki

When I was assigned the job of editor[s] i thought that it would be a one time edit and that would be it…not as planed. Zaran and I finished the entire project a littler later than I thought and had more corrections that I Predicted. We corrected until 3:20 in the computer lab and i burned the new DVD when i got home, in all it was a very time consuming yet fun day. Besides the movie i saw a documentary of the future of electric power, which was very cool. It talked about how oil gives humans 100% power while solar panels give 30%-60% if lucky. But by re-creating the crystals structure, solar panels get to a peak of about 130% power.  Apart from being a break through, this would cost about the same price as solar panels today. GE is also creating the best wind turbines in the world. GE has just made a windmill that can give power to 500. That is a ratio of 1-500 meaning that to power 200,000 homes they would only need 200 windmills. In Europe scientists have just created the first non-nuclear energy. Right after the amazing event, however, the power shut down and all information was lost. The plant will get further funding to re- create the moment. In my prospective, if the government did not give its yearly check worth over 500 billion and gave about half of that to green experimentation scientists would reach there goal much faster that without 250 billion dollars. If it continues like it is today, however, it would take more time and even run the last jungle dry of life…

We left my home at 12:15 but did not go straight to Eat-fresh. Since we had a mix-up with Sara B. we though that she was meeting us at LREI to check up on us. Apparently she was not so we quickly got back in the car and drove to the Manhattan Bridge were we crossed over to Brooklyn. The more eastern we went the buildings got shorter and the streets more green.

         Soon we arrived to 370 5 Avenue and walked quickly into the building. We each paid 50 dollars and went to our stations to learn how to make a truffle. We learned four different ways to. Three were with fermented chocolate while one was with sealed chocolate. The group of three was made in this order; the first was a with honey and cream, the second was made with lavender and cream, and the last was with olive oil and salt. The four one, without fermented chocolate, was a chocolate mix, which is similar to the one we made so I will tell you the in-tire procedure. You take cream (or olive oil) and cook it until it bubbles. Then take it away from the heat and add lavender. You then let the mix sit for about another 20 minutes and then put the main ingredients gnash, and chocolate. The chocolate are huge chocolate bits, which melt, instantaneously in the warm cream. You then mix the chocolate and cream until it looks right smooth. Then you add the honey and stir once again followed by some water. You then pour the entire mix into a container and let it sit for half-hour at room temperature. To speed up the process you can put in the refrigerator for a few minutes. We then got cream truffles and olive oil truffles and rolled each into chocolate balls. These where then placed into coco-powder, which sticks all around the ball to create a seal. The olive oil mix is much harder to roll due to olives oil added into it. The Cream was much easier to control yet still hard in general.

         At the work place we met some interesting people. One was Mr. McAfee who had built Get-Fresh and works in green construction and has hundreds of connections in the green community. We wrapped up and packed our truffles into tin cans, which I forgot, at the place. “!!!!!!!!!” We bought some food there and then left in Hannah’s mom’s car. She dropped each of us off at our houses and that was my day!

After my fiasco with Coco Vino’s representative, Alicia, by getting there one minute too late. I sure hope that this new appointment with Peter Hoffman will go smoothly. We have scheduled an appointment on the 18th at the Farmers Market. Unfortunately one of my group members will not make it (Hannah Rifkin). But Lilly and I can handle the whole thing. We plan to interview Peter and take him to each stand and ask him questions about each one. With this information we hope to make a good project on April 30th. By now we have already interviewed Alicia of Coco Vino and on the 18th Peter Hoffman of the Savoy. 

When my group finally got an appointment I missed it. This was due to the fact that there was a misunderstanding and I showed up on-time at the wrong location. On Saturday, however, I finally got to meet one of our sustainability interviewees. He is the owner of a sustainable restaurant and has been for 17 years. Lilly Day and I took him to the Farmers Market and asked him a series of questions. We asked him what food he buys and how much he uses. We noticed that he had a special bond with almost everyone there; he had all their cell phone numbers and knew all their names. He seemed very passionate on the subject  of sustainability. We also got to talk with some of the farmers there who were his friends.We interviewed two farmers: one a pig farmer and  the other a vegetable farmer. The pig farmer told us what constitutes “organic” by law. WMP only gives their pigs high grade, specific grains, however each pig gets a minimal amount of room. But they are classified organic. Whereas, the pig farmer we met has over 200 acres of roaming and grazing land. She can not, however, feed her pigs the highest quality food, so her meat is not classified as organic. The vegetable farmer also had a troubling story to tell. He toll us that in 2006 the number one sold vegetable was potatoes followed by onions and then carrots. In 2007, however, onions lost second place and carrots moved up. This was due to the fact that corporate farms had an over stock of onions. The farmer, who was dependent on onions lost a lot of funds. Although he grows a lot of other vegetables, his income is dependent on the consistent sale of onions. I hope to interview more people and groups since the experience was fun and very interesting ~~~~~ MICKI~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Firs my group (Lilly Day and Hannah Rifkin) tried getting in contact with Coco Vino and Back Forty. We called and E-mailed and received no return calls for about a week or so. Finally on February 24, 2008 Hannah got response from Coco Vino. Since we have lost a week we must fit two visits in this week. I am also gaining more interest in the green subject. I even started watch some documentaries suck has, The corporation and Il lultimo lago del mondo (The world last lake). I have also started to notices, not just subtle differences, large differences in Europe vs. America in sustainability. Such as in Italy the government pays you to own a solar panel or eco-friendly car.