[Scpg] Wed. Mar 14, 6:30-9:30 pm An Evening with Common Vision: Dinner, Drumming, Story Telling and Video Show "Urban Fruit Tree Planting in Schools"

[Wesley Roe and Marjorie Lakin Erickson]

SANTA BARBARA PERMACULTURE NETWORK
Presents:

An Evening with Common Vision:
Dinner, Drumming, Story Telling and Video Show

Celebrating the Transformation of Concrete Jungles into Urban Fruit 
Tree Forest by Tree Planting at Schools in California

Wednesday , March 14, 6:30-9:30 pm, fundraiser/donation $10
Goleta Valley Community Center

      An evening celebration to welcome Common Vision once again to 
our community will take place at the Goleta Valley Community Center, 
on Wed, March 14, at 6:30 pm.  The evening will include a potluck 
dinner, drumming & storytelling, and video show, with all donations 
going to the group to help raise funds for the trees and the 2007 
Fruit Tree Tour.  Common Vision will be visiting two schools in Santa 
Barbara this year, Ceasar Chavez, and the Open Alternative School.

    It is the Fourth Annual California Common Vision FRUIT TREE TOUR, 
taking place from February 20-April 25 2007, celebrating the 
transformation of concrete jungles into urban orchards ( 
www.commonvision.org). Thirty volunteer earth educators from northern 
California, travel to schools from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 
the largest known vegetable oil-powered caravan: six vehicles, 
including three busses. The all volunteer crew travels as a nomadic 
community visiting schools to plant 1000 fruit trees with urban 
youth. The three month tour is divided into day-long programs at each 
school featuring cultural story-telling, West African agricultural 
drumming, earth-conscious hip-hop, and hands-on involvement in the 
stewardship of the students school yard.

     Common Vision infuses public schools and spaces with 
inspiration, infrastructure, and experience to support 
solution-focused environmental education for urban youth. Common 
Vision facilitates hands-on projects with students and community 
leaders that serve to retrofit public schools and spaces into models 
of sustainability.

      Students of all ages are awed and inspired by three vegetable 
oil-powered school busses, hand-painted in landscape murals depicting 
indigenous communities, rolling into the school yard and breaking the 
monotony of their regular school routine. Symbolic storytelling, 
strong West African Dun-Dun-Bah agricultural rhythms, and the 
planting of fruit trees explodes into a celebration of life and 
interconnectedness focusing on respect for the earth.

    In the spirit of native oral tradition, FRUIT TREE TOUR 
storytellers bring to life tales from the past of living in harmony 
with the earth and the process of how society forgot our connection 
with the earth. Dancers draped in African mud-cloth fabric and 
drummers ornately dressed set the stage for the storytelling to 
unfold. A bold cast of characters and musicians brightly portray 
these events with minimal words from a narrator and an elaborate 
display of culture and color.

     In a tree planting celebrations students will drum earth 
rhythms, while working in intimate groups with FRUIT TREE TOUR 
facilitators to dig holes, prepare the roots, and plant the trees. 
Facilitators will engage students in dialogues around key ecological 
and cultural concepts such as nutrient cycles, interconnectedness, 
diversity, and respect. Students, teachers, principals, and FRUIT 
TREE TOUR volunteers gather for a closing circle. The circle takes a 
moment to give thanks for the day's experience.

     FRUIT TREE TOUR cultivates the students appreciation for the 
earth that can serve as a foundation for environmental 
responsibility, a key element of the next generation. The 
participation in creating and maintaining a school yard orchard 
provides a space to engage a stewardship ethic as something personal 
and local, not a distant abstraction. Students are able to provide 
their school and extended community with beauty, health, and abundance.

     Last year Common Vision came to Goleta Family School, and the 
year before, Monte Vista School, planting Fruit Trees, while 
interacting with music and storytelling for the student body.

     Founded in 1999, Common Vision is a solution-focused nonprofit 
organization, a project of International Humanities Center. Common 
Vision's mission is to cultivate ecological awareness and respect for 
the Earth while generating social and environmental changes towards 
sustainable lifestyles. We integrate concepts of ecology with the 
traditions, music, and art of cultures that live or have lived in 
harmony with the Earth.

     The evening celebration to welcome Common Vision will take place 
at the Goleta Valley Community Center, 5679 Hollister Ave, on 
Wednesday, March 14 6:30-9:30, with a pot-luck dinner followed by 
story telling, drumming and slide show.  Donation of $10 for adults, 
children free (no reservations needed) to help raise funds for the 
2007 FRUIT TREE TOUR . The Santa Barbara Permaculture Network hosts 
the program. For more information, (805) 962-5571, 
margie at sbpermaculture.org , visit www. commonvision .org, or 
www.sbpermaculture.org.



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