renourish
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Dominican re:nourish mission 2011 - Day 5
Today saw the completion of the batey Vasca community garden, including the installation of the living fence with 40 mandira (sp?) plants as well as our BBQ extravaganza.
As it was a long tiring day I am going to update with the videos we shot and will write more again tomorrow.
Here is Ryan's update purchasing the food for the BBQ:
Here is Peter's update on the batey Vasca community garden:
Here is Jordan explaining where we got our BBQ from:
Dominican re:nourish mission 2011 - Day 4
Day 4
Today’s task was to lay the sod outside the long term volunteer house, fortunately as it was Saturday and no school for the children we had plenty of eager help.
The sod has improved since the first year when we installed the soccer field however most of it still comes in pieces rather than rolls. It was also very hot today!
Jordan and Peter had a very long day getting supplies for the fence installation, planting of 30 fruit trees and the BBQ tomorrow. The other day I mentioned we pre-ordered 800 hotdog buns. As is so often the case here things don’t always work out as planned. When Peter and Jordan went to collect the order the store knew nothing of our order so they cleared the shelves of all the buns they had…about 500 and tomorrow we’ll need to scout out another place to buy the remaining 300 as the store where they purchased from today doesn’t get another delivery until Tuesday.
Here’s the video from our work today:
Dominican re:nourish mission 2011 - Day 3
Today started out with a trip to San Pedro to get supplies for our various projects and a quick visit to Jumbo (think DR Walmart) to pre-order the 800 hot dog buns in preparation for this year's BBQ extravaganza. Last year we cooked 400 hotdogs for children at batey Don Juan, this year we are going to try to feed everyone at batey Vasca where we are doing the community garden.
The owner of the nursery where we ordered the trees yesterday was showing Peter & Terry how to peel the fruit. Of course they expected a juicy, sweet fruit inside however realized once they had peeled it that it needs to be boiled for some time until it is ready to eat. Jordan and Peter went with the delivery guy and some locals help deliver a couple of bon pan (good bread) trees to batey vasca. Apparently bon pan produces enough fruit to feed a family of four every day. We were also told that it is a good substitute for Viagra.
We ended up planting all of the 60 fruit trees we had ordered yesterday at the Don Juan community center so we ordered an additional 30 trees today including mandarin, avocado, mango and apparently some very special orange trees that have oranges that are very juicy and easy to peel and as luck may have it only available from this particular nursery…
Today we also ordered the posts for the fencing at batey Vasca, including 5 large and 40 of the living posts to be delivered tomorrow and installed Sunday. We also pre-ordered 800 hot dog buns in preparation for this year's BBQ extravaganza. Last year we cooked 400 hotdogs for all the children at batey Don Juan, this year we are going to feed everyone at batey Vasca where we are doing the community garden.
Also in preparation for the BBQ we rounded up the drum BBQs we used last year. Unfortunately time and weather had taken its toll on the drums which made the BBQs unusable. We were going to take the two BBQs into town this afternoon to try and find a welder that might be able to repair them for us fortunately Alex, one of the workers helping us who lives in a nearby batey said the he could take the BBQs and repair them both for us and would have them ready by tomorrow afternoon.
Tomorrow will be a big day. The David & Paulo will be finishing the slaughter slab at the orphanage, the rest of us will be shoveling and leveling the soil for the area outside the long term volunteer house as well as one of the children’s houses. We will also be laying the sod for these houses tomorrow. Luckily each year the quality and shape of the sod is improving, here is Jesse showing one of this year's prized pieces:
Lastly, I am aware of the problems with the audio on the videos, I appologise. Unfortunately between the audio pick up and the wind it is difficult to get clear audio.
Here is David's update on the slaughter slab:
Here is Paulo's update on the tree planting at the Don Juan community outreach center:
Dominican re:nourish mission 2011 - Day 2
Today's focus primarily revolved around repairing and preparing the lot where we planted the 100 fruit trees last year. For those following last year, we planted 100 fruit trees at the Don Juan community outreach center to be distributed amongst the local bateys.
Unfortunately with these sorts of projects there are challenges that arise; teaching the locals to properly care for the trees, animals and theft are all common problems faced.
When we arrived we were informed a number of trees had either died, were eaten or stolen form the property. However one silver lining was that Idalina, one of the Brazilian Nuns who runs the community center said that the trees were most likely taken by the very poorest families who were too embarrassed to ask for help feeding their children.
On a positive note a number of the trees planted last year have grown well and will be ready for fruit production next year.
Peter Bugden showing one of the locals how to repair an irrigation leak:
Ryan & Jordan with our barb wire dispensing system. (Branches are cut from trees and planted in the ground, they sprout roots and become a ‘living fence’).
Top help rectify some of these problems we installed/upgraded the barb wire fencing around the property, worked with some of the local villagers that tend to the orchard to educate them of how to properly care for the trees and repaired a number of irrigation leaks. The irrigations leaks occur when the workers are clearing the brush with their machetes and nick the irrigation pipes.
Paulo & David remained on the orphanage and helped one of the other volunteers prepare an area including cement slab for slaughtering the farm animals. They also supervised the arrival of the top soil for the area we cleared yesterday outside the long term volunteer house.
Jordan’s update on the Don Juan outreach center:
Dominican re:nourish mission 2011 - Day 1
Day 1 on site
We arrived at the NPH orphanage this morning excited to get started on today's projects.
Our efforts this year will be split between time working onsite at the orphanage and a number of outreach programs.
After being met by our volunteer liaison those that were on their maiden voyage were given a tour of the facilities. For those of us returning it is always amazing to see the new updates and expansion other volunteer groups have done since our last visit.
New this year is a playground area for the children, the area has been cleared and stamped concrete paths laid. Unfortunately the container with the donated equipment has been stuck in port for two month...such is life is the DR.
We split into two groups, half on top dressing duties on the soccer field. The field is in great shape. The power didn't come on today so we were unable to test the irrigation.
The other half began clearing the area out the front of the long term volunteer accommodation. Fortunately when we were gathering the rakes and shovels from storage we noticed a fairly new rototiller....luck was on our side, now if we could only find some gas!
Here is a video showing the work on the volunteer house.
Here's Jesse's wrap up from the soccer field.
Dominican re:nourish mission 2011 - Departure Day
Departure Day
Welcome everyone to the first of this year's posts for the 2011 renourish mission trip.
Firstly, I would like to introduce the members of our group this year. A core team from Nutri-Lawn along with Terry Ormrod from Toro have made the trip down for the third consecutive year. Joining us this year are a couple of Terry's colleagues, Paulo Munegatto owner of Pronto Enterprise & David Pfortmueller owner of University Sprinklers in Vancouver. Also joining us for the first time is a new Nutri-Lawn recruit, Sue Kemp from Nutri-Lawn Whitby. Finally, with star forward 'Safety' Steve Smith on the injury list we drafted rookie Peter Bugden, from the re:nourish farm team in Halifax.
Again this year we received a number of generous donations from our various partners.
Toro has come to the party again with donations of irrigation supplies including the drip tubing seen in the photo below. This tubing will primarily be used in the community garden project the we are working on in conjunction with the Harbourside Rotary in Halifax. Joining us from Habourside Rotary is Gerry Pierce who was in the DR last March to begin the community garden project...more on that to come.
Included in the donation list is approximately 50 baseball bats that were kindly donated by the Woodstock parks department. Also a big thanks to Lordco Auto Parts in British Columbia who donated over 200 new t-shirts! This year we have seen many people step up and donate items, money and time to our efforts and we thank you all.
Before we left we were met at Toronto airport by a reporter from the the Toronto Sun. You can read the article here:http://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandgta/2011/01/11/16848896.html
The 2011 re:nourish team includes:
Ryan Vincent
Jordan Lavin
Kalon Fairclough
Jesse Montpellier
Sue Kemp
Peter Bugden
Terry Ormrod
Paulo Munegatto
David Pfortmueller and
Gerry Pierce
Prior to check-in, from L to R
Paulo Munegatto, Terry Ormrod, David Pfortmueller, Kalon Fairclough, Jordan Lavin & Ryan Vincent
Nutri-Lawn Abbotfords challenges other local businesses
Through their re:nourish food drive efforts Nutri-Lawn Abbotsford has so far collected over 1100 lbs of non perishable food items for their local food bank. As well as this Rick McDonald the Nutri-Lawn franchise owner has received commitments from other local business owners to match what Nutri-Lawn collects. Great job Rick and team!!
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