Pop Bottle Greenhouse

The Kingsley Association has a summer youth employment program in session. Our youth need your help for the Pop Bottle Greenhouse Project. We are asking for the community to donate 2 liter empty pop bottles at the Kingsley Association. You can drop them off at the Kingsley form 10am-6pm Tue-Fri.

If you have any questions or concerns contact the Imagine Larimer Office located @ 6435 Frankstown Ave. Suite 201 Pittsburgh PA, 15206

Office: 412-661-1257

Thanks

Finally got the Lot!!!!

Today is the day that we finally got the lot!!  The lot is huge and has a lot of room.  the lot will consist of a Green house. Before we do that we have to clean out the area.  There is  a lot of garbage in and around the area. Weeds, rocks, bricks, rusted tools, and glass are everywhere.  There is a deadline that needs to be met by Friday August 13, 2010 to have the lot cleaned out  to start our Green House!

Food Community Survey

Food Community Survey

Projects Completed

• Laid brick path at Larimer Community Garden;
• Planted 6 six trees on Penn Avenue median;
• Recruited 9 homeowners to accept rain gardens and rain barrels for their homes;
• Measured and assessed nine homes for rain garden and rain barrel installations;
• Assisted local church with rehabilitation and clean-up activities;
• Implemented cooperative lunch-club;
• Surveyed neighborhood on food needs and interest in a cooperative food purchasing program;
• Youth surveyed and Completed OPEN SPACE youth surveys for the City of Pittsburgh Planning Department;
• Completed two community clean-up days;
• Established an Imagine Larimer Youth Summer Employment web blog;
• Youth built a bicycle windmill that generates electricity;
• Youth prototyped pop bottle green house panels;
• Two youth attended and completed CMU’s Architecture Design Camp;
• Youth assisted with clean-up of vacant lot 413 Larimer Ave. , which will be used as rain garden and rain barrels logistics base;
• Youth gathered six pallets of used bricks to be recycled as a community oven at Larimer Community Garden;
• Youth completed a survey of housing conditions in the Larimer Neighborhood;
• Youth distributed housing repair assistance information to homeowners in the Larimer Neighborhood;

Finally approved for the Lot!!!!!!!

Today is August 11th and approval was given for the Lot. The  Lot has a lot of open space for our project. The project will be the Green House. So for the first couple of days the youth workers will be cleaning out the lot. This was a very exciting day for us!. The deadline for the lot to be cleaned is August 13th, 2010. After we are finished cleaning we will start our green house. So wish us luck!!!!!

Below are some pictures of us working on the lot!!!

Working on the lot!

Working as a group!

THESE GIRLS ARE WORKING VERY HARD!!!!

Picking up the Bricks

Working In The Community!!!

Today the Youth did two jobs and they both had something to do with working in the community and keeping it GREEN!  Their first objective of the day was to walk around the Larimer community picking up debris and they walked almost every street from 9:30 – 11:55 am. They had many garbage bags and all of them were full by the time it was time for lunch which was 12pm .

Below are some photo’s of the mornings work.

Community Work!

Community work!

Community Work!

Community Work

After lunch the youth attended the Community Garden in Larimer.  They were weeding, and planting!!! Today was a good day!

Getting to Work!!!!!!!!!

Today at the Kingsley Association Center the Summer Youth Employees got evaluated.  The supervisors interviewed them one by one and told them what they did good and what they needed to work on.  This is good so that the next time one of the youth has a job they would know what to be aware of. They also where able to sit in a big circle as a group and tell each other what they had learned since they have been working for the Kingsley Center.  Many said they had learned a lot, such as the rain garden/rain barrel, the housing research, and the OSHA Training.  The Youth Employment is over in a week and there is still more to do!!!

Below are photos of the work space that was made available by our hard-working youth and their perseverance!!!

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A Day of Work

Today started off great! Today the youth started doing things in the community. The boys and girls are split up into two groups. The boys are with one supervisor,and the girls are with another supervisor. This way they can get their work done quicker and easier. The boys started working at a church on Larimer Ave. They are cleaning out the church and throwing garbage out. The girls started working on Mike’s house, by helping him with garbage, gardening,cleaning, and painting.

The food club is coming along very well. We started these surveys to get some opinions from the community. So far we have about 15 surveys completed, but I’m setting a new goal and that is to get ten more surveys from the community.

Forming The Youth’s Lunch Club!!

We formed a lunch club so we could eat better for less. As a group each person decided to pay 12 dollars a week to eat lunch and breakfast. The money that we pay will all be added together and the food that we get will last us a week or more. This lunch club is helping the youth save their money on breakfast and lunch, help to teach them to eat better as well.

Our goal is to teach the youth and ourselves how to eat healthier foods. We are hoping to be successful so the youth can live healthier lives, and so they can live a life with better health.

So we visited Cosco Wholesale so we could learn about the food they provide. When we got there we saw that they had many different types of food. The positive thing about Cosco is that their merchandise is in bulk. The Youth really enjoyed themselves. They said they saw a lot of food they liked also things like “It wasn’t what I thought it would be, I thought it was going to be a lot of organic food”, and “we would like to go as a group again to pick our lunches!”

Rain Garden/Rain Barrell Measurement

Today we got some work done! The garden instructor came in  and spoke with the youth about the advantages of rain gardens, rain barrels and their different uses . We had  the youth split up into three different groups, and we went to five different land sites. We took measurements and calculations for their gardens. When we were finished with the gardens we came back to the Kingsley, and discussed  the different information that each group received from their different house sites. We also found out that some sites may not be able to receive the rain garden just the barrels due to the locations of their gutters or the sizes of their yard.