Another day, another Team SDG&E Environmental All-Stars volunteer event! For the past four years, Team SDG&E has rolled up their sleeves for an annual Day on the Farm volunteer day, to celebrate our region’s many urban farms and provide a boost through the work of dozens of volunteers.
Our efforts have taken us all over San Diego County, from the Tijuana River Valley in South County to Encinitas. Last weekend, our Environmental All-Stars teamed up with Coastal Roots Farm, a nonprofit community farm and education center, to spend the morning volunteering on the farm.
Cultivating our community
While our monthly Environmental All-Stars events have continued at a reduced capacity throughout COVID-19, this event was the first larger volunteer project that has been hosted since before the pandemic. With gloves and shovels in hand, more than 35 volunteers, employees and their friends and family, came together for a morning of hard work.
Volunteers planted passionfruit vines and built a French drain to help irrigate the plants. They also stained all of the exposed wood of Coastal Roots Farm's new environmental field station. Both of these projects contributed to the farm’s ongoing efforts to build out and expand their new Nature Play & Environmental Learning Space.
Nature play, all day
In 2020, we provided Coastal Roots Farm with an Environmental Champions grant to support the construction and implementation of the Nature Play area. This hands-on, multisensory learning space made up of natural elements, including up-cycled trees and logs, raised beds, native pollinator species, edible vines, and more, will provide an immersive, sensory learning experience to inspire true exploration, discovery, and connection to the environment.
Another one of our Environmental Champions grantees, Lumbercycle, sourced and placed the upcycled logs to create a kid-friendly play area made almost entirely out of natural materials.
More about Coastal Roots
Coastal Roots Farm, located in Encinitas, is a nonprofit Jewish community farm and education center. They cultivate healthy, connected communities by integrating sustainable agriculture, food justice, and ancient Jewish wisdom. Throughout the year, Coastal Roots Farm offers fresh vegetables, herbs, fruits, flowers, and eggs, at their pay-what-you-can Farm Stand. Donations are encouraged but no one is turned away for their inability to pay.
Coastal Roots Farm’s equitable food access efforts include produce distribution to partners like Vista Community Clinic, Jewish Family Services, San Diego American Indian Health Centers and many more.