Gardening and Technology

Greetings,

In an effort to make the greatest impact on One Economy, I think it is important that we share what we are working on here, and solicit each others help, just as Tina asked for feedback on outcome measures. I encourage you all to reply to her post.

My pet project is trying to integrate gardening into our web content and support community gardening as a beehive/healthcare for you nutrition and exercise initiative.

I am trying to flesh out the project, and would like some feedback on the idea, if you are interested in pushing it from your project site, ideas on directions it could go, or anything else you would like to say about it.

Here is my rationale: OE seeks to improve peoples lives by introducing technology into how they find information and connect to others, leveraging connections and information to meet their needs and accomplish their goals. Because our mission is integrative in nature and seeks to become self sustaining, creating a gardening initiative will promote our online content by tapping into concerned and committed community groups who meet to garden.

Gardening has a number of important community benefits including reducing crime, neighborhood beautification, outlet for youth, improved nutrition, increased healthy activity, and community building. Community gardens are gathering places and are often found at schools and community centers.

So here are my thoughts for integration into our existing properties and programs:

-Beehive- garden locator (ive already included existing locators into our locator function), articles on gardening, nutrition, and getting outside (ive already mentioned them in an article i wrote on getting outdoors in Atlanta). New area of site on gardening for health (funding dependant of course) which includes an information sharing platform for community gardeners, maybe even a place for them to develop their own garden website/blog area.

-247townhall-Gardening for life initiative that gets people to talk about their experience gardening and the impact on their community, and how technology improves their experience

-pic.tv- integrate community gardening into cooking with chili, publix chef pieces (working with milton on this). (dependant on funding)- do a roaming garden documentary series on different gardens around the nation. Acquire existing content on community gardens like cnn's piece on Habesha gardens http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/06/29/bia.urban.farming/

-HC4U- integrate under nutrition- include a living well section (talked to DeNita and she said although she likes the idea, there are other priorities and as of now, the site is strictly a health care locator with highlighted cause content).

-DC have them create digi content about local gardens, or have their service be to establish website or digital inclusion strategy for local gardens.

Other ideas

-place wireless routers at gardens for wi-fi access

-place computer kiosks at gardens for access to beehive content and online idea sharing network, gardening solution center, and program tracking.

Thanks for taking the time to review my idea. Id also like to know about any possible funders or program models you can think of.

Best to you,

Ruqiyyah