Bronx News Network

Bronx Foodie: Bronx Urban Farm Tour Tomorrow

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To mark the one-year-ish anniversary of the Bronx Food Summit (which took place on May 1, 2010) several Bronx groups are organizing a Bronx Urban Farm Tour and stopping at several locations in the Bronx. The day will include workshops on seeding and composting and live music. The tour starts in Manhattan (part of an effort to drum up tourism from other boroughs), but if you live in the Bronx, you can go straight to the farms. Below is a schedule of events. The Bronx Tourism Council is the main organizer, and along with the Bronx Food and Sustainability Coalition, Bronx Green Up and the Botanical Garden, are planning monthly farm tours through out the summer, so stay tuned for more details. You can also visit www.ilovethebronx.com for updates.

Bronx News Network

Bronxites Love Those Rain Barrels! DEP Runs Out Real Quick

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So at the direction of my lovely wife, who is our household’s environmentalist-in-chief, I went to the rain Bronx rain barrel giveaway in Pelham Bay Park with a neighbor last Saturday. The giveaway is organized by the city’s Department of Environmental Protection.Rain barrels capture storm water from your roof that you can store for garden and lawn use. It helps homeowners save on their water bills and keeps the water from flooding the city’s already burdened combined sewer overflow system.When we arrived at 9 a.m. – the start time – we saw a long line of dejected, aspiring rain savers (some of whom had been there since 6:30 a.m.), and we were quickly informed that there were no more left and the dozen or so that we could see still waiting for an owner had been reserved by those disappointed last year. As we went back to my car I saw Council Member Jimmy Vacca (Pelham Bay Park is in his district) talking to people still waiting in line just in the hopes that some of those reserved barrels would go unclaimed or to put their name on the waiting list for next year. He had his cell phone out, hoping to find someone in the vast city bureaucracy who could rain down some more barrels on his constituents.

Bronx News Network

Bronx News Roundup, Friday, May 13

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Eery start to this Friday the 13th at Bronx News Network. As you can tell, we’ve experienced some technical difficulties of late. Our website administrator went down last night and all posts from Tuesday on were removed. We’re told the posts will be restored soon. We just received access to the site at about 12:30 p.m. In any case, we’re back.

Bronx

Kids, Parents Take Action: Bring Budget Message to Foster, Mayor

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PS 64 parents and students, who are members of the New Settlement Parent Action Committee in Mt. Eden, delivered a giant dollar sign yesterday to Council Member Helen Foster’s office. Written on the sign, according to the group, were a list of things they don’t want cut from their school as outlined in the mayor’s budget. Foster’s chief-of-staff Jim Fairbanks said that Foster would deliver the statements on the dollar sign to the mayor.(Photo courtesy New Settlement Parent Action Committee)