Orientation for Derrick, our newest after school student

Learning it

Doing it

OSBG's first honey harvest, or the bees get a new hive

Last week friend of the project and master beekeeper Emil Albrecht came out to teach us how to move our bees from the old Top Bar hive into the new Langstroth hive. Anyone in the New Orleans area looking to have a wild hive removed or for help setting up a hive should give him a call at (504) 909-3447.

Emil and Rob removing comb from the Top Bar hive.

Emil really loves bees!

Moving the comb into Langstroth hive.

Bees are in place and doing their thing

A week later we checked out their work--they're happy and busy

And of course a sweet ending

Urban farms our students are interested in

Our School goes to the French Market

This week the French Market hosted Gulf Alive, a celebration of the cuisine of the Gulf Coast (www.gulfalive.com). Along with cooking demonstrations and events covering all things culinary, we were invited to set up a booth for all three days, managed beautifully by Bryan and Shamika. This year's theme was "the value of heirloom, heritage, and other locally grown ingredients," so our presence was all the more pertinent.

It was a great opportunity to talk to folks, both visitors and locals, about what we do. Of course, we also brought the freshest produce possible--beets, radishes, eggs, sprouts, and all kinds of greens--grown right here in the lower ninth ward.

Bryan and Shamika from Our School

Partnerships for Youth Empowerment

Friday afternoon we loaded up a yard or two of great compost for Kids Rethink New Orleans Schools farm to school and experiential learning urban farm. We are proud to support our WKKF partner on their summer initiative.

Left to right (front): Micah from Rethink and Jamie from Our School; (back) Turner from Our School, Qasim and Brennan both from Rethink and Louisiana Delta Service Corps.

Revolutionary Dreams

Revolutionary Dreams

I used to dream militant dreams

of taking over america to show

these white folks

how it should be done

I used to dream radical dreams

of blowing everyone away

with my perceptive powers

of correct analysis

I even used to think I'd be the one

to stop the riot and

negotiate the peace

then I awoke and dug

that if I dreamed natural

dreams of being a natural

woman doing what a woman

does when she's natural

I would have a revolution.

-Nikki Giovanni

Majora Carter's 'Promised Land': An update on OSBG

We'd like to send a special thanks to Major Carter for her amazing radio spotlight of OSBG on her show The Promised Land, sponsored by American Public Media. Her most recent episode in the series 'Voices from the Gulf Coast' features our founder, Nat Turner, as well as other staff and students from our neighborhood.

Click here to listen to the program.

There is only one thing to be amended: the investigation mentioned in the interview did not result in Turner being barred from teaching in New York City, nor the revocation of his teaching license. The investigation by the NYC Board of Education had no legal impact. Questions raised by his lawyers were simply about the ability for a school board to question a teacher's freedom of speech on his/her own private vacation time.