• Las Colinas Middle School Donates 130 Pounds of Vegetables to St. Mary's Food Bank - Wednesday, April 21, 2010 at 4:15 PM



  • Las Colinas Middle School donated over 130 pounds of school-grown vegetables to St. Mary's Food Bank in Camarillo. The vegetables were donated as part of FOOD Share's "Pounds for Produce" contest.

    School children from Las Colinas' special needs class care for the garden. Celery, radishes, cabbage, artichokes and onions were part of the harvest. "We hope to have a least 20 pounds of vegetables a week to donate," says Dianne Polen, Las Colinas Beautification/Life Lab advisor. "We've started planting potatoes and tomatoes so they should be ready in June or the first part of July."

    Schools, community gardens and backyard gardeners are growing vegetables and donating their surplus to one of 65 Ventura County FOOD Share food banks. The pounds of vegetables are then weighed and logged to the participant's account. Top producers win free soil from Agromin on a pound-for-pound basis, equal to the total weight of produce donated to FOOD Share.

    "Our students are having such a wonderful time and feel great knowing that they are helping families within our community," says Polen.

    The Pounds for Produce contest is a joint effort by FOOD Share and Oxnard-based Agromin, one of California's largest green materials recyclers and a soil manufacturer of natural soil products. Gardeners sign up on the FOOD Share website as a Garden Share member to participate in the contest.

    The contest ends July 15. For more information, call Meg Horton at FOOD Share, (805) 983-7100, ext. 105 or go to the FOOD Share (http://www.foodshare.com/) or Agromin (http://www.agromin.com) websites.

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  • Third Graders Travel to Agromin to Learn About Green Waste Recycling - Monday, April 27, 2009 at 10:48 AM


  • Third graders from La Mariposa Elementary School in Camarillo traveled to Agromin's Oxnard green materials recycling and composting facility to learn how yard waste is made into compost.

    Dave Green, Agromin's vice-president of marketing, took more than 100 schoolchildren on tours over a three-day period. "Kids got to see firsthand how green waste goes from lawn clippings, tree trimmings and leaves to compost--ready to use in their backyard gardens," says Green.

    The facility processes more than 400,000 pounds of green waste every day. The material is cleaned of any non-green materials, chopped and laid out in composting rows. The material is turned and watered until microorganisms "compost" the materials into rich, organic soil. "The children were amazed how much green material goes through the facility every day and how much green waste we generate," says Julie Hughes a third grade teacher at La Mariposa Elementary School. "When they saw how much trash that people throw in their green recycling barrels they realized that their families must be more careful not to put plastics and other items in the barrel--only greens."

    When the children returned to school after the field trip, Master Gardeners' members spoke to the kids about how families can compost at home. "The kids saw composting on a massive scale at Agromin and then learned how they could do it themselves," says Hughes. "The day tied in nicely with Earth Week."

    Third grader Cameron Welty was particularly fascinated with the huge machines that grind the green material and the steam that comes from the composting piles. "He didn't care much for the smell that comes from the piles, but understood it's part of the process," says his mother Kristen Welty.

    Agromin receives more than 300,000 tons of green waste each year from throughout Southern California including Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles and Orange Counties. It is processed at five Agromin composting facilities. Agromin's compost is spread onto farmland, mixed into city, school and business landscapes and into consumers' backyards. It is one of the largest green recyclers in California. The U.S. Composting Council named it "Composter of the Year" and Agromin was recently named co-winner of the Ventura County Board of Supervisors' "Climate Change Action Award," sharing the honors with Limoneira Company in the Agricultural Industry category.

    "Through these field trips, we're hoping to teach kids early that green waste recycling is just another part of how we should live our lives," says Green. "And by reusing materials instead of putting them in landfills, we can help create a more sustainable planet."

    For more information about green materials recycling, go to www.agromin.com.

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  • Rain Makes Gardens Grow At Las Colinas Middle School - Tuesday, March 3, 2009 at 4:02 PM


  • Recent winter rains have given a boost to the Beautification/Life Lab garden and landscaping student program at Las Colinas Middle School in Camarillo.

    "With the wonderful rain we've been having, our school has never looked so beautiful," says Dianne Polen, Las Colinas Beautification/Life Lab advisor. The school has one of the most committed green programs in the county. Students in summer school planted lettuce, radishes, bell peppers and carrots so when students returned in fall, vegetables were already growing. "A garden gives students the opportunity to try varieties of vegetables that they would not eat otherwise," says Polen. "The gardens are teaching students quite a bit about nutrition and eating healthy."

    Summer vegetables were harvested at the school in October and replaced with Brussels sprouts, spinach, celery, sugar snap peas, lettuce, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage and onions. The school features seven container gardens and an additional large garden area with room for students in wheelchairs to participate in the gardening experience.

    "Students are now weeding the school flower beds and planting color," says Polen. "We're also attempting to grow grass between two portable classrooms, an area that has been nothing but dirt and mud for several years."

    Agromin, a local soil manufacturer and the green materials recycler for communities throughout Ventura County and Southern California, provided soil for the gardens and landscapes. "We always enjoy helping students with their garden projects," says Bill Camarillo, Agromin CEO. "Teachers can then inject the green materials recycling story into their curriculum. Kids learn about the sustainability benefits of gardening--taking the green materials from the garden, composting them and then placing the resulting soil products back into the garden from which new plants grow. Las Colinas students are learning important environmental lessons as they grow and harvest their gardens."

    For more information about green materials recycling, go to www.agromin.com.

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