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Community Corner

Green Market Move to Spruill Gallery set for July 18

Vendors to mark return to historic farmhouse with a hoedown; July 11 is last day at Dunwoody Village

It’s official. The Dunwoody Green Market will relocate to the Spruill Gallery on July 18.

Paula Guilbeau, market president, and Robert Kinsey, Chief Executive Officer of the Spruill Center for the Arts, signed papers agreeing to the move and had them notarized last Wednesday at Piedmont Bank in Dunwoody Village. Guilbeau then obtained an administrative permit from the city allowing the market to do business at the gallery.

The permit is a Special Administrative Permit that allows temporary outdoor sales of merchandise from July 18 through November 21 at the Spruill Gallery, said Edie Daman, Marketing and Public Relations manager for the City of Dunwoody. The market will need to reapply for a permit to do business in 2013, Damann added. 

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“We’re delighted!” said Guilbeau as last week’s market in the Dunwoody Village Post Office parking lot drew to a close. “I feel like we are going home again.”

The Spruill Gallery, which is at the corner of Ashford Dunwoody Road and Meadow Lane, was the market’s home from 2006-2008. Because construction was planned at the Spruill Gallery, the vendors moved to Saint Patrick’s Episcopal Church on North Peachtree Road at the start of the 2009 season. After a few weeks, market operations shifted to the Dunwoody Post Office site for the remainder of the season. It has remained there since then and has become a popular April-November destination for people in Dunwoody and surrounding neighborhoods looking for locally grown produce and other goods.

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The market was forced to find a new home when the Dunwoody Village Post Office said it needed the space the vendors are using. The Post office plans to use the space for employee parking because the Shallowford Road postal facility is closing and those operations are moving to the Dunwoody Village Post Office.

“We really look forward to having the Green Market back,” said Kinsey. “We think there’s a good fit between what they do and what we do with the arts.

“This is such a high visibility location it should work well for the Green Market,” he continued. “As far as the community goes, this is a good and easy location for the whole community to find the market.

“We would love for them to be here forever,” he concluded.

To try and make that happen, the Spruill Center for the Arts will promote the Green Market to the people in its database, Kinsey said. The Spruill Center will also promote the Green Market at artists markets on the second Saturdays of the month. The schedule for those “second artist Saturdays” roughly coincides with the April-November months of the market.

Kinsey plans to be at the market on July 18, welcoming vendors and shoppers alike.

Guilbeau said the Market Board is not planning any special activities for the last day of operations in Dunwoody Village. She said, however, they are planning a hoedown on the 18th to celebrate the return to the Spruill Gallery and farmhouse. Plans are still in the works, but she said the hoedown will include a Chef’s demo and live music.

In other gardening news

The Dunwoody Community Garden is in an excellent position to win a fruit orchard as voting in the second-round of the Edy’s Fruit Bars Communities Take Root contest enters its final week.

Edy’s will name the four second round winners this Sunday, June 30. The Community Garden is among a pack of four second round leaders whose supporters have helped them break away from the fifth and sixth place gardens.

The Bridger Community Garden in Bridger, South Dakota, and Laguna Honda Hospital in San Francisco have established themselves in the top two spots in the second round. The Community Garden and Fondy Food Center in Port Washington, Wisconsin are locked in a tight battle for the third and fourth positions.

The Woodland Community Land Trust in Clairfield, Tennessee and St. Ambrose Parish in Brunswick, Ohio have fallen behind the leading second round pack and appear to out of the running for winning a garden in this round.

As has been seen in the voting, though, no lead is safe.

To help protect their position as a second round leader, Garden members are encouraging everyone to vote this week in a final push to help them win an orchard. To support the garden, visit the website and follow the prompts to vote. A voting shortcut is to go to the Leaders tab on the main page.  You can access the Dunwoody garden voting site from this tab.

Remember, you can vote once-a-day on each of your email accounts.

Edy’s is awarding fruit orchards to 17 winning gardens in four rounds of voting. Five first round winners were announced at the end of May. After Sunday’s winners are named, Edy’s will announce four third round winners on July 31 and the final four winners on August 31. 

Georgia Organics has scheduled a half-day Farm to School Advocacy Training Workshop for metro Atlanta teens ages 14-17.

The purpose of the workshop is to provide teens with in-depth information on strategies and starting points so they can become strong advocates for farm to school programs and real food in their own schools and communities.

The workshop will be held on July 12 from noon to 5 p.m. There is no charge to attend, but registration is required and is limited to 30 attendees.

The workshop has almost filled up, but a few spots will remain, Erin Croom, F2S coordinator for Georgia Organics, said late last week. To register and learn more details about the conference, including its location, contact Croom at erin@georgiaorganics.org or call her at 678 702-0400. The deadline to register is Tuesday, June 26.

   In the workshop, students will:

  • Learn the facts about food production, the history of the food system, the effects of food on the body and the environment, and the farm to school movement.
  • Learn to articulate the effects and consequences of food choices and participate in and learn peer education activities.
  • Understand how advocacy relates to youth, access to real food and obesity prevention. Analyze how policies affect access to real food and farm to school, media influences on public opinion and ways to mobilize people to take action around these issues.
  • Brainstorm ways to take action in their own schools. Create specific action plans to create change on a local, community and/or school level; and practice and plan to use peer education skills and techniques.

Volunteers gleaned 628 pounds of pears from a large pear tree on Mt. Vernon Road near Chamblee Dunwoody Road early Sunday morning.

The volunteers were from five organizations: the Dunwoody Preservation Trust, the Dunwoody Community Garden, the St. Pat's food pantry garden, Garden Isaiah at Temple Emanu-El  and the City of Dunwoody Sustainability Commission. 

With Dunwoody police blocking a lane of traffic, several volunteers climbed into the large tree and shook the pears into a large tarp held by other volunteers.

The majority of the pears are being donated to Malachi's Storehouse Food Pantry at Saint Patrick’s Episcopal Church on North Peachtree Road. Others are being donated to the North Fulton County Community Action Center in Sandy Springs.

 

 

 

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