Blog Updates

Here are photos from Lafayette’s Earth Day celebration that took place on April 26, 2015. The festival ran from 11am-3pm, with an estimated attendance of 1,500 – significantly up from last year. The street behind the library in Lafayette was shut down to allow vendors in the green industry participate in this year’s theme, which was transportation.

There were 30 plus vendor booths including participation from Bart, BMW (including 2 iSeries cars for display), several local solar companies, food vendors, farms, bicycle shops, and local government agencies. The weather was perfect, and the turnout was fantastic.

Jaime Farrar, from the Pleasanton Office, spent about 6 hours helping to coordinate the vendors, setting up, and taking down displays.   {By Jaime Farrar}

 

[Photo above: Geoff Kinnaird pulling weeds]

On May 26, 2015, four employees from Larkspur Office volunteered at Bayside Martin Luther King School in Marin City, California. Preston Kawaguchi, Geoff Kinnaird and Charlotte Kobayashi, worked in the garden pulling weeds and hauling them to the dumpster.  Vegetables grown in this garden — celery, lettuce, parsley, cilantro, tomatoes, strawberries, artichokes, eggplant, and herbs — are used in Conscious Kitchen by Chef Sean.

[Photo above: Charlotte hauling weeds away.]

While the three worked in the garden, Teresa Kwan returned to volunteer in the kitchen serving lunches to the elementary school children.

[Photo below: Teresa and Chef Sean]

Bayside Martin Luther King School is grateful for all the donations and volunteer help Corporate Visions has provided them in 2015 in the kitchen and garden. Tangible donations include 40 bicycles and helmets,  15 bicycle horns,  3 potato peelers, 500+ envelopes and hundreds of certificate papers.   [by Charlotte Kobayashi]

The effort is called Neighborhood Cooking Project. The project happens every third Wednesday of the month and is located at the heart of the Madrona neighborhood in Seattle—just a block away from our Seattle office. To volunteer, simply show up, bring your own knife, chopping board, peeler and apron—then cook away. You prep, peel, slice, fry, grill, boil and set.

Christine Horvath and Eileen Suico volunteered on April 15, 2015 from 9am to 1pm. It was their first time to join in this beautiful effort. They worked alongside residents, families, business owners and many others working in the neighborhood to prepare gourmet meals that will serve the homeless people through a number of organizations in the Seattle area already doing great work in the city. A few of these organizations are: YWCA, The Blaine Center, Angeline’s Center for Women and a few more.

The gentleman standing between Christine and Eileen in photo is John Platt, one of the founders and the Lead Chef in this project. He has been cooking for the homeless since 2001. St. Clouds, the restaurant where all foods are cooked, prepped and sent out from is owned by John Platt and Paul Butler. Both were teachers for several years at Charles Wright Academy in Tacoma before they both established St Clouds and then founded Homeless Cooking Project. According to John, “We’re providing an hour of dignity and good food to people who find too little of both in their lives.”

“I have heard many times of the hopelessness in the life of someone experiencing homelessness, but a simple gesture to extend honor either by a simple chat or in this case, well prepped gourmet meal, can reawaken hope and set someone up to a new path of trying life out again.”    ~ Eileen Suico

Christine and Eileen are doing this again on Wednesday, May 20th.

For more information about this project: http://www.neighborhoodcooking.org/

[By Eileen Suico]

Good Earth Natural Foods, Cavallo Point Chef, Milagro Foundation, & Conscious Kitchen model lunches for Bayside Martin Luther King School are making it happen!

These five organizations unite to establish model school kitchen and garden directly on the premises to provide nutritious, non-packaged, seasonal non-gmo, organic food breakfasts and lunches for Bayside Martin Luther King School in Marin City, California.

Cavallo Point Chef, Justin Everett, takes time from his busy work schedule to help guide The Conscious Kitchen the lunch program. Chef Justin became involved when he chaperoned a group of 5 young children on a field trip to the tide pools in Marin County; he noticed that one young student opened up his lunch which looked like something purchased from the 7-11 Store — lunch-ables, snicker bar and a soda.  He remarked to the student, “This must be a special lunch for today?”  The student replied, “This is what I eat every day!” 

Soon after this incident, he was approached by Judi Shils of a local non-profit Turning Green to partner with Bayside MLK school to establish a lunch program permanently.

[Photo above, left to right: Rachelle and her mom, Dana who both work in the garden]

Rachelle, a student at BMLK, spoke about helping in the garden on the school ground where students learn how to plant vegetables and flowers.  The vegetables are used to make salads served on a regular basis.  This gives students the knowledge on how to grow organic vegetables and to take pride in what they actually helped to provide freshly grown vegetables for lunches to the entire school!  Milagro Foundation was the initial funder of the MLK garden in 2010 and were the sole support for the first three years.  Milagro Foundation continues to be a partner of The Conscious Kitchen and the garden at the school.

Photo from garden: left to right: Sarah, Garden Coordinator; Dana, Volunteer Mother; and Al Baylacq, Owner/Founder of Good Earth Natural Foods

Conscious Kitchen, located in Sausalito, California, began August 2013 with Judi Shils, at the helm, who had this vision of bringing fresh, organic, seasonal, non-GMO foods to all schools. She approached Good Earth Natural Foods owner/founder, Al Baylacq, [in photo above] who agreed to help jump-start this program by supporting lunches two days a week for the first 6 months, along with Milagro Foundation, an organization that continues to be an active supporter for both garden and kitchen programs.

[Photo above, left to right: Jonathan Foley of Conscious Kitchen, Justin Everett Chef at Cavallo Point, and Shaun Dayton, Chef at BMLK]

The combined efforts of Good Earth, Cavallo Point chef, Milagro Foundation, Bayside Martin Luther King School chef, Shaun Dayton, and all the staff at BMLK,  has enabled Conscious Kitchen to established a very successful nutritious, healthy pilot food program for past tw0 years.

Conscious Kitchen is now ready to replicate this program into a neighboring charter school in Sausalito called Willow Creek Academy to provide another program of nutritious foods soon. The plan is to have every school in this country use this model for providing healthy, nutritious lunches for children to model for their families and to sustain a healthier, active lifestyle and to become successful in their lives.

How does CVI fit in this mix?  Several of our employees from the Larkspur Office have volunteered in BMLK kitchen, working side-by-side with Chef Shaun in preparing and serving lunches – Preston, Teresa, Lexin, Francisco and Charlotte. Additionally, CVI also donated to the kitchen with new potato/carrot peelers.

[Photo below: Charlotte Kobayashi at entry way of school]

Larkspur CVI office will soon set up a “Corporate Visions Volunteer Day” at Bayside to help in the garden and the kitchen by staggering our schedule for one whole day! Please check out website for Conscious Kitchen:  http://www.teensturninggreen.org/the-conscious-kitchen/                                                                                                                              [by Charlotte Kobayashi]

Group Photo above  (left to right): Tim Brooks, Justin Bowers, Lark Irwin; Volunteer-Based Community Educator for AWP, Cassie Galster, Michelina Jones, Eric Nitschke, Susan Supernavage and Brent Alwood.

On May 15^th, 8 folks from CVI Doylestown volunteered their time to spruce up a local charity’s conference room.

Founded in 1976, A Woman’s Place provides support and education to victims of domestic violence and their families in Bucks County, PA. The organization had wanted to give their conference room a facelift for some time. They were extremely grateful when CVI reached out and offered to help.

CVI Doylestown came ready to work first thing in the morning, with paint and supplies in hand. The plan was to tackle the walls (a sandy beige color and a purple accent wall) along with the ceiling, two doors, three windows and of course, lots of trim! Our work was certainly cut out for us.

As part of the project, CVI volunteers collected money to cover the costs of the paint and all the supplies for needed the project. While we thought we had thought of everything, there is always something that pops up in projects like these.  While prepping the room, Eric Nitschke noticed some nicks and holes on a corner wall. Instead of just painting over them, Eric ran to the hardware store to buy spackle (and drinks and cookies!) to fill the holes before we paint. Susan Supernavage and Tim Brooks ran to Susan’s house to grab a 6 foot ladder after we realized our small step ladders were just not tall enough to manage the high edges and trim. Jim Jordan took on the demanding task of painting the ceiling which required a second coat of paint (and another trip to Home Depot.) Brent and Michelina (our Creative Directors) were the team’s go-tos for quality control, as many of us frequently asked for their artist’s opinion when working on the details for the room. The day went by fast with chilled out tunes of Bob Marley courtesy of Justin Bowers and a quick pizza break outside.

After 2 coats of paint on the walls, ceiling, windows, doors and trim, the conference room never looked better! While cleaning up the room, the team noticed some paint splatters on the carpet and fireplace and an outlet switch plate that we had removed was suddenly missing.  Brent and Justin ran to the hardware store to buy paint thinner and a new switch plate to make sure the room was perfect. No detail was overlooked!

“Painting a conference room might seem like a simple or small gesture, but this is the where the staff and volunteers of AWP are meeting with their board of directors and potential donors, so a first impression can really help! The space now truly reflects the amazing work AWP continues to provide to our community.”  ~Cassie Galster

Thanks to CVI’s matching program, we were able to fulfill the necessary funds to complete the project.  Special thanks to Sonia Sommers, Mary Pacell, Elise Moores and Evan O’Donnell who were not able to attend the service day but graciously donated to our supply fund!                                                                                                                                                                         [ By Cassie Galster]

 

May 7^th, 2015 Honor Thy Healer 16^th annual dinner and program, sponsored by Zero Breast Cancer, was held at the Mill Valley Community Center. This dinner event was held to recognize distinguished honorees, community leaders and partners, healing professionals, volunteers and guests  for their relentless efforts in working towards learning about what causes breast cancer and how to prevent breast cancer, as well as, healing and supporting those who have been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Two hundred people attended – a diverse group of attendees from all of Bay Area attended this event to salute and acknowledge the departure and retirement of Executive Director, Janice Barlow, for her committed work for the past 15 years and to welcome the new Executive Director, Rose Barlow.

Charlotte Kobayashi from the Corporate Visions Larkspur Office volunteered and sold $1000 worth of raffle tickets [10 tickets] during cocktail hour.    [By Charlotte Kobayashi]

Incline Elementary Schools has a program called Harvest of The Month that teaches kids about nutritious vegetables and encourages them to try new things.  Last week [May 5, 2015] Lauren Upton and Sarah McMahan went to see the 3^rd graders and ran a lesson on cauliflower.

Lauren read a cute little book and Sarah brought in roasted cauliflower and shared some nutrition facts while the kids did an activity sheet. It was really fun and the kids gobbled up the cauliflower.  It was interesting to hear some kids had never tried it before!

[By Sarah McMahan]

 

[Photo left to right: Lynette Boosey, music teacher; Del Medina Master Ukulele teacher; Mark, 10 year old student of Del & Lynette; and Charlotte Kobayashi of CVI]

Lynwood Elementary School’s music program is more than flutes, clarinets and trumpets. On March 20th, the school held a “kanikapila” which is Hawaiian for everybody bring your ukulele and jam!  Almost 90 students with ukuleles played music and sang together for 2 one-hour long assemblies for the students and the administrators with the Pacific Island Coastal Cultures Organization (PIKO).  Corporate Visions through matching donations has contributed $200 to PIKO which translated into two ukuleles for Lynwood Elementary School.

Lynnette Booséy, Lynwood music teacher and ukulele player, introduced ukuleles to the school in 2014 [a year ago] with the purchase of 30 uke’s using grant money.  This winter [2014], she received a donation of 6 more uke’s from Kala, a ukulele company headquartered in Petaluma.   This January PIKO presented Ms. Booséy with 10 brand new ukuleles, tuners, and cases for Lynwood.

The students with the core adult ukulele team played for a whole hour, songs like Three Little Birds, Koke’e, Hanalei Moon,  and Somewhere Over the Rainbow – Izzie style.

Additionally, Charlotte Kobayashi of Corporate Visions, taught the teachers and principal of the school a basic hula called, “In a Canoe”; they learned 4 basic hula steps and hand motions to interpret the song. “I only live in memory of all the things I used to do. Back on the shores of Waikiki, in a canoe…  I used to sing a melody, to all the fishes that I knew, as I go paddling out to sea, in a canoe…”  The students had a great time watching their teachers and principal learning how to hula for the first time!

The ukulele, first brought into Hawaii from Portugal, is now becoming a very popular instrument for many elementary and young students who find this instrument easy to carry, easier to learn than a guitar and quite affordable.  There are several “kanikapila’s” happening in various cities in California such as Santa Cruz, Sebastopol, Petaluma, Santa Rosa, Berkeley, Pleasanton, Hayward, and Fairfax.

For article  and more photos, check link in Novato Patch:

http://patch.com/california/novato/ukuleles-abound-at-lynwood-elementary-school

[By Charlotte Kobayashi]

 

[Photo with Patti’s daughter, Kellett, on far left]

CVI Employee Leverages Her Coordination and Communication Skills for School Play Costuming

In January and February 2015, Patti Drach Fiore volunteered as Costume Manager for her daughter’s school play, Alice in Wonderland, Jr., at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel School, Doylestown, Pennsylvania. She devoted 4o volunteer hours to help them with the costuming and did a pretty darn good job!

The play ran the weekend of February 20th – and there were 3 performances.  The students practiced 2 to 3 days a week and on weekends for certain scenes from November to the  show. Patti’s help mostly consisted of acting as a liaison between the producer, directors and parents, community resources, and our seamstresses (who were some parish ladies, plus her mom and her mom’s friend);  researching and sourcing items; logging and maintaining inventory; and providing full costume support for dress rehearsals and before, during, and after the actual performances.

Click on link to see more photos:  http://ourladymtcarmelschool.org/scrapbook/AliceWonderland/ALiceWonderland.html

[By Patti Drach Fiore]

 

A few weeks ago Sarah McMahan accompanied a group of kids from Cornerstone Church to volunteer and serve food to the homeless and community members in need.  Sarah had her hands full most of the time so this one picture from food prepping.

[By Sarah McMahan]