Hello Friend,
As we enter National Nutrition and Women’s History month, we are extremely proud that 'The Kitchenistas' documentary will be highlighted throughout the month at various film festivals and screenings, including two showings at the San Diego Latino Film Festival and at the San Ysidro Library branch. This film beautifully depicts the impact an empowered group of women can have on their health and their community.
March also marks two years since our community has faced the challenges of Covid-19. Olivewood is extremely grateful to each of you who brought joy during challenging times. Through volunteerism, virtual program participation, or much needed funding, we were able to maintain our programs and reach people through programs and events centered on community, health and wellness.
On the horizon is our upcoming Cooking for Salud® graduation for our 22nd generation, and the culmination of our first of two cohorts of our high school Garden 2 Kitchen leadership program. Our Sustainable Urban Agriculture high school interns have been learning new skills and growing plants for our May 7 plant sale, where proceeds will help support these students and future high school classes.
We are proud to announce that we have received a $135,100 grant from the CA Natural Resources Agency for our high school leadership programs. This grant will support leadership development, sustainable urban agriculture, garden to kitchen, creative placemaking, and civic engagement programs for National City High School students. We can't wait to share more.
We hope and your friends will join us for an upcoming screening of the film, at our April tour and open garden, an upcoming cooking class, our plant sale or at the Seedling Soirée on June 4.
Jen Nation, Executive Director of Olivewood Gardens & Learning Center
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Quarterly Lunch & Learn with Executive Director Jen Nation |
Friday, March 11
12PM - 1:30PM
Bring your lunch and join us for a garden tour and sit down Q&A with Jen to get the insider perspective on our latest program updates, exciting things on the horizon, and how you can get involved!
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Build-a-Bowl: Soup & Salad Class |
Saturday, March 12
3:30PM - 5:30PM

Warm up at the garden with a creative build-a-bowl soup recipe, a dazzling garden fresh salad and an easy gluten free cracker recipe.
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Chefcitos: Lucky You!
Saturday, March 19
10AM - 11AM
Join us at Olivewood to cook fun, hands-on & healthy recipes! Chefcitos will chop, blend, and season their own creations while learning how to make green goodies together.
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High School Clubhouse:
Spring Forward
Wednesday, March 23
3PM - 5PM
Spend time hanging out with new friends and old friends. We have fresh vegetarian spring rolls on the menu and you can make a fresh smelling aromatherapy activity to take home with you!
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'The Kitchenistas' Screening, Panel, & Demo @ San Ysidro Public Library |
Tuesday, March 29
5PM - 6:30PM
Let’s celebrate National Nutrition Month and Women’s History Month with a screening of 'The Kitchenistas', panel, and food demo! This public event is proudly sponsored by the Women’s’ Business Resource Group (WERG) at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). No pre-registration required, space limited.
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'The Kitchenistas' Screening & Panel at the San Diego Latino Film Festival |
Thursday, March 17, 7PM &
Saturday, March 19, 11:45AM
Join us for one or both of these exciting screenings at the San Diego Latino Film Festival!
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All About Mushrooms Cooking Class with Chef Aureny Aranda |
Saturday, April 16
3:30PM - 5:30PM

Are you curious about how to add more mushrooms into your daily meals? We are excited to host Chef and Kitchenista Aureny Aranda of Au Gourmet and Aureny's Salad Club who will share with us some very scrumptious recipes highlighting our star ingredient: MUSHROOMS!
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Public Tour & Open Garden |
Saturday, April 16
10AM - 11:30AM

Join us for our first 'Open Garden' since 2019! We'll have a public tour starting at 10AM, and guests are free to enjoy the gardens and invited to learn more about our programs. No pre-registration required.
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While teaching nutrition, Mandy has learned how to “listen to the barriers and reality of things that are involved in life outside of the theory” to be able to provide nutrition education and resources to the community in a way that works with their lives.
“I would like to contribute and serve as much as possible for the community; especially towards having equality of nutrition education access....”
Mandy continues to be a community leader and hopes to continue working towards equitable nutrition education access for every community! She is currently working on a YouTube channel to educate people on the prevention of diabetes and kidney disease in English and Vietnamese. "[She] would like to reach out to everyone, globally, who could use some guidance to prevent
chronic disease and live a healthy, happy life.”
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Olivewood Gardens Opportunities |
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We are looking for passionate volunteers that want to extend their knowledge and skills in community education, group management, nutrition, environmental science, gardening, marketing and communications, and more!
For more information, please contact Jackie Ante at: jacqueline@olivewoodgardens.org. Check out the volunteer and internship opportunities and sign up to join us!
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We love highlighting great resources for our community and want to start with this thought provoking podcast featuring Trabian Shorters. He speaks on his coined term “asset-framing” which emphasizes how we use words and stories to describe people and communities in terms of what they bring to the table vs. focusing on deficits.
This brings into question how we can begin reframing the conversations around the way we define our resilient communities.
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Ingredients:
- Fresh sourdough bread
- 1 lb oyster mushrooms (any mushrooms work well)
- 1 bunch toscano kale
- 1 bunch curly green kale
- 2 TBSP vegan butter
- 1 TBSP + more for drizzling Olive Oil
- 2 TBSP Bragg’s liquid aminos (sub soy sauce if you don’t have)
- 2 TBSP Chinese black vinegar (sub rice wine vinegar or balsamic vinegar if you don’t have)
- ½ head roasted garlic
- Salt and pepper to taste
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Directions:
- Use your fingers to pull the mushrooms into shredded pieces. Strip the kale off the stalks, rough chop.
- Add 1 TBSP butter and oil to a saute pan and turn to medium heat. Add mushrooms when butter has melted and oil is hot. Cook mushrooms until browned, season with a pinch of salt and pepper.
- Add kale to the mushrooms. This can be done in batches if there is too much kale to add all at once, cook down until wilted.
- While kale is cooking, add braggs, vinegar, roasted garlic and more salt and pepper to taste. Cook for a few more minutes, adding 1 TBSP more butter to finish, mix to melt.
- Cut the bread into the size toast you prefer. Place on a sheet pan, drizzle with olive oil and toast in a 450 degree oven for 5-7 minutes or until golden brown.
- Serve toast topped with mushrooms and greens.
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It is early March and time to start planning our summer gardens, as well as finish planting the last of the cool weather crops. It is a great time to look through your seed catalogs and start selecting your tomato, cucumber, pepper, and squash varieties you would like to grow. Remember to select for disease resistance, cold or heat tolerance depending on your microclimate, flavor, and color. Here at Olivewood we will be planting a couple of tomato varieties, most notably a heirloom variety called Big Rainbow and a saledete variety called Galilea, We also will be trialing a cucumber variety called Lagos, it should be fun to see how well they do in this coming season. Happy Growing |
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Civic Engagement Opportunities |
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Certain medical needs may qualify you or someone in your home for savings every month on your gas and electric bill. Apply for the Medical Baseline Allowance program if you need to use more energy due to a qualifying medical condition or to prevent an existing condition from getting worse. Examples include:
- A requirement for permanent space heating or cooling due to paraplegia, quadriplegia, hemiplegia, multiple sclerosis, scleroderma, a compromised immune system or a life-threatening illness.
- Required use of a life-support device, such as an aerosol tent, apnea monitor, kidney dialysis machine, motorized wheelchair or respirator (devices used for therapy don’t qualify; only medical devices that sustain life or are needed for mobility).
To get a Medical Baseline Allowance application and more information, visit sdge.com/medical. Eligibility requirements include having a physician sign your application to certify the medical need.
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