Seed Bombs & Street Art

August 3, 2012 No Comments

by Kaitlyn Kutschera and Sophie Domanski

School of the Future’s F.U.N. (Futuristic Urban Nutritionists) crew started this week off with a bang: dropping bombs, seed bombs that is!  A seed bomb is a concoction of clay, compost, water, and seeds.  The bombs can be left to dry for a few days, or turned into war paint.  (It’s amazing how soft the war paint can make your skin feel).   Once the seed bombs dried we strategically “bombed” areas in our neighborhoods that we felt could use some flowers and vegetables.

There are few things F.U.N. likes more than new friends, and we made about twenty on Wednesday as we were joined by some visiting youth from the Bronx.  That morning the F.U.N. crew taught their new friends the importance of reading food labels and the ways sodium and different types of fats affect our body.  All of the youth cooked fried rice together for lunch, and then spent their break getting to know each other.

Then it was our turn to learn about the work of our new friends. They were from a group called A.C.T.I.O.N, a Dream Yard Project.  They explained how they use street art, mainly of the performance variety, to advocate for social justice.  We broke into groups to work on our own street art performances focusing around food justice and utilizing many forms of art and expression.  We created “leave behinds”, small pieces of paper with website URLS or names of organizations we’d want audience members to check out.  There were props and signs made proclaiming such things as “Healthy food is a right!” in bright colors, as well as powerful chants such as “Poison isn’t good for you, so we don’t want it in our food!”  The Bronx youth were extraordinarily dedicated and talented, and the day we spent with them left us truly inspired.

Finally, the F.U.N. crew stepped up their gardening skills in a BIG way, when they joined the Bartram’s crew on Thursday to help work on the farm.  For many of the SOTF youth it was their first time working on a farm and there was a lot to learn, but the Bartram’s Farmers took all of the newbies under their wing and soon all were working side by side.  In return for the horticultural knowledge, the F.U.N. crew shared their culinary talents with the Bartram’s team, and together they made a delicious lunch of taco salad.