CJ/EJ monthly updates

Read below for updates about the climate justice campaign and the Roots of Change Community Garden.

Climate Justice

On the climate justice front, February has been a month of organizing around and against a proposal by City Public Services to raise utilities rates throughout the city, part of a 10 year plan to raise the price of electricity and gas by a total of 40%. Fighting these rate increases is part of our climate justice work, because we feel that the city would not need to raise rates if it did not prioritize new development and dirty energy over making our homes and neighborhoods cleaner and more energy efficient. Continued reliance on coal (even as the promise of carbon scrubbers is deferred year after year) and nuclear (despite clear evidence of cost overruns, expensive litigation, and corporate cochinidad) as power sources for new development has come at the expense of millions of dollars that could have been put instead toward low-income weatherization and green jobs.

In fighting these developments, SWU along with several other grassroots groups in San Antonio organized two press conferences, one on February 10^th and another on February 18^th. Speakers at these press conferences included Diana Lopez and Marisol Cortez from SWU, Petra Mata from Fuerza Unida, Amanda Hass and Genevieve Rodriguez from Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, and Jody Hargrove-Connor from Energia Mia. In preparation for its testimony at the council vote, SWU also put to good use the social media training provided by Diana Lopez. Armed with a flip camera, members of SWU, Energia Mia, and Esperanza visited a payment center on the Eastside and filmed ratepayer impressions of the rate hikes as they exited from paying their utility bills. Marisol Cortez edited clips together into a longer film which she, Diana Lopez, and Viola Casares from Fuerza Unida then screened at the city council meeting (short version of video can be found on SWU's Facebook page, while the longer version is available here).While the unanimous vote yes by City Council is a big disappointment to everyone who organized against the rate hikes, the testimonios we recorded indicate that there is a lot of anger and frustration in the community about CPS and Council priorities, and much opportunity for organizing in the months to come as we begin our climate justice base building efforts through the People's Power campaign.

Community Garden
As usual the constant part of gardening is creating new methods of community involvement and leadership. We had our Spring kick off in mid January with 55 students from St. Marys and Central Catholic Church. Coordinating them were 3 community members. Because of the intense winter freezes many of our plants were damaged. The workday consisted of maintaining the native garden, cultivating vegetable beds, weeding, composting, transplanting seedlings, creating crop rows, sowing seeds, beautification, tackling bamboo, herb sowing, and leveling land. A SWU staff member donated the veggie seedlings. Veggie plants transplanted and sowed were Colorful Kale, strawberries, onions (2 varieties), garlic, thyme, squash (3 varieties), cucumber, broccoli, brussel sprouts, spinach, corn and lots of frijoles.
The Roots of Change Garden became a part of the groups SA community gardens and SA permaculture in practice and was also featured on Nowcast, a community online newspaper. Community workdays will be bi monthly, dates are not established yet.

Ideas for trainings/events/ workshops include:
• Cooking with Love- Logan Love a community volunteer cooking class using healthy foods and ingredients from our garden
• Spring Planting- inexpensive ways to sow seeds and care for your plants
• Alternative Spring Break- one day of working in the garden- expanding the rows and incorporating flowers in your garden
• Herbs
• Food not Bombs Workshop
Two interns from OLLU are helping out every Thursday and Friday as part of the service learning program.

Roots of Change Network:
The Edison High School garden is ready for spring. Our working days are every Thursday 12-4:15pm, 3 class periods are involved. During the winter the class sowed seeds using recycled material that included, toilet paper roles, egg cartons, plastic bags, bottles and newspaper. Those seeds are ready to go in the ground for next weeks lesson.

The teacher for the class is the Youth Leadership Organization sponsor. By teaching students the ideas of Environmental Justice and learning first hand how to grow your own garden and being on top of what is happening locally is magnificent. Hopefully those ideas stay with them for their whole lives and generations to come.

Plans for the end of February and March include: planning out the green house, recognizing RCN members with a yard sign, eastside garden outreach, this includes flyers and visiting surrounding centers, Alternative Spring break.

Documentation:
Staff members did a down a dirty training on uploading and updating our social media sites and using our cameras. A great example was using the flip cameras to include more community testimony at city council meetings.