Sponsor a Garden bed at the Gardens at North River Road!

Spring is here! It's time for summer planting at the Gardens at North River Road and North County Community Services needs your help!

Now is the time to sponsor a garden bed! We truly appreciate the tremendous support we receive from individuals, families, churches, schools, companies, corporate, military and other groups in North County. Over the past year we have logged over 2,300 volunteer hours of service in our production vegetable garden. Growing fresh fruits, vegetables, and herbs enhances our programs by providing delicious, healthy food of unmatched freshness to those we serve; additionally, it reduces our fresh food costs. Without your support we simply could not maintain the level of success we have enjoyed this past year. In addition to volunteering, you can help us purchase soil amendments, plants, seeds, tools, and pay the water bills and the garden program team! We have several garden sponsorship opportunities you can choose from that will help us succeed this growing season. Sponsoring a bed at the Gardens at North River Road is a great way to show your support of the work we do at North County Community Services. -Sponsorship opportunities- Sponsorship may be made by a company, school, church, family, individual, or in honor of someone. A total of 34 vegetable beds and 6 flower beds are available for sponsorship. Your gift of $1,000 will sponsor one vegetable bed for the summer season.  (April - September). Your $1,000 sponsorship includes... The right to one exclusive group tour/volunteer session during the season. A sign bearing your name or sponsorship message at the head of each bed you sponsor. A garden newsletter subscription with notes on activities, harvests and the impact the fresh produce has in our programs. Invitation to our summer garden tour and educational workshop. Exclusive right to renew sponsorship for fall season (October-February). There are 34 beds available at this sponsorship level.  Your gift of $500 will sponsor one fruit tree or flower beds for the summer season. (April-September)  Your $500 sponsorship includes... A sign bearing your name or sponsorship message at the head of each bed you sponsor. A garden newsletter subscription with notes on activities, harvests and the impact the fresh produce has in our programs. Invitation to our summer garden tour and educational workshop. There are 6 beds available at this sponsorship level. To sponsor a bed at $1,000 or $500, just click here: Donate Now Any questions or comments about the NCCS spring/summer fundraising campaign, volunteering, or our garden program can be directed to Abby at volunteer@sdnccs.org or 760-471-5483.

Thank you North Coast Church!

Thunder volunteer team

At North County Community Services, we are very grateful for the volunteer projects North Coast Church has done for us over the years. Their intimate growth groups have helped paint murals, classrooms, cleaned, and gardened at various preschool sites with our organization. But this spring, they took their service to a new level with their Weekend of Service project.

On April 27 and April 28, 2013, North Coast Church completed about 200 community service projects in North County San Diego, including two projects with North County Community Services. If you live in North County, you may have noticed their "North Coast Church Weekend of Service" signs popping up in front of schools, community centers, and nonprofits in the area. On Saturday and Sunday, they worked on projects at both our Thunder Preschool, as well as the Gardens and Preschool at North River Road. 

Working on the mural at Thunder Preschool

At our Thunder Preschool, they gave the site a complete face-lift! This included power-washing and painting the entire exterior of the building, as well as the inside entrance hall. They mulched the garden area, built new vegetable beds, and added dirt to existing garden beds. They repainted and improved the mural on site. They cleaned classrooms. They replaced our front sign. They were incredible! A complete photo album of the Thunder Preschool projects can be found here.

Young helpers moving lumber for shade trellis

The cleaning team at North River Road

At the Gardens and Preschool at North River Road, there was more gardening, and less painting. They did do some painting, including a wonderful welcome sign, and the alphabet, numbers, and tricycle tracks in the playground. Most volunteers helped in the garden, including building two shade trellises, 6 brand new garden beds, and tons (literally tons) of mulching. They also helped us dispose of all sorts of unusable garden waste. Thanks to North Coast Church (and all the volunteers who have helped in the past) the Gardens at North River Road now look the best they have ever! There was also plenty of weeding, replanting, and compost turning over the weekend.  They even helped revamp the small preschool garden on site. A complete photo album of the North River Road projects can be found here.

New Garden Sign

New Thunder Preschool Sign

From the staff, board, volunteers, and families served by North County Community Services, thank you North Coast Church for your Weekend of Service!

Earth Day Weekend Projects!

Ladybug in the garden

What a great Earth Day Weekend with North County Community Services! This weekend Callaway Golf, Cal Coast Academy, and Teen Volunteers in Action all did wonderful volunteer projects with us. We love volunteers and are happy when groups come out to give a helping hand, and we are especially thankful for these three groups because of all the materials they donated to complete the projects!

Callaway Golf volunteers at the end of their project.

On Saturday May 20th, Callaway Golf came to the Gardens at North River Road in Oceanside with about 20 volunteers, 120 pepper plants, soil amendment, and all the materials needed to build a new compost bin for North County's Food Bank! In two hours, they were able to plant five beds of peppers, and build a stacking compost bin system. The compost bins are made of cedar, which is naturally rot resistant (a great quality in a compost bin!). Callaway Golf completes community service projects every month, and it was a pleasure to be able to partner with them to make this month's project and earth-friendly one.

Our finished succulent garden at Balderrama Preschool!

In the afternoon on Saturday, Cal Coast Academy installed a succulent garden in the courtyard of our Balderrama preschool in Oceanside. Where there was once an unused box of sand, there is now a gorgeous, low water decorative garden. With the help of about a dozen volunteers, they unloaded three pickup trucks of dirt, leveled the ground, and planted many spike-free succulents and grasses. They even brought three cute garden statues to add to the fun! We are so grateful for Cal Coast Academy bringing this project together and going above and beyond coordinating materials and donations to make this dream garden a reality!

Cal Coast Academy volunteers unloading dirt.

Cal coast Academy Volunteers

TVIA volunteers planted 36 tomato plants

Vegetable markers by TVIA

On Sunday, Teen Volunteers in Action brought out 17 volunteers, including teens and parents, to work at the Gardens at North River Road in Oceanside. They brought with them soil amendment, and enough tomatoes seedlings to plant three beds of tomatoes. They also brought paint markers to finish vegetable stake markers for our gardens! It was great to have garden work weeding, amending soil, and planting tomatoes for the teenagers, and a fun artsy project for the parents in the shade. We are looking forward to a big tomato harvest this summer!

Spring is here!

The harvest mural at the Balderrama Preschool is almost finished!

This NCCS preschool garden in Oceanside had a great season!

Spring is in the air! It is a great time for volunteer projects with North County Community Services. We have many groups scheduled for spring volunteer projects like cleaning, gardening, painting, and sprucing up! We are especially looking forward to volunteer projects with North Coast Church at two different sites for their Weekend of Service event. They will be giving one of our preschools a whole face-lift, as well as helping at the Gardens at North River Road. Look out for before and after pictures coming soon! We also have spring projects scheduled with Kids Korps, the Navy, Immersion, Callaway Golf, Teen Volunteers in Action, Life Technologies, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and Genentech.

Preschoolers planting a spring Garden

Although we have lots of volunteer groups scheduled, we do have more projects available for the right group! If you are interested in volunteering, you can always contact Abby at volunteer@sdnccs.org to see what is available with NCCS! We do volunteer projects all year round, but spring is such a great time to do projects because it is usually not too hot and not too cold. 

Spring means we are harvesting lots of winter vegetables before they turn bitter in the heat (volunteers picked 21 lbs of lettuce yesterday from the Gardens at North River Road!). We are also getting summer vegetables started- peppers, beans, cucumbers, squash, tomatoes, and melons love some heat, and can all be planted now through at least June. HAPPY GARDENING AND HAPPY VOLUNTEERING!!!

Fall Harvest Mural Completed!

George! The fall harvest kid!

 A big thanks to Oak Hills Covenant Church of Vista, CA who spent Saturday, August 25 at the NCCS operated Balderrama Preschool in Oceanside. The big project they worked on was the "Fall" section of a 4-part, seasons themed harvest mural. Twenty three volunteers from the church brought paint, brushes, and their able bodies to paint the mural, as well as clean all of our playground equipment, repaint tricycle tracks in the playground, and sand and paint a picnic table. The scrubbed and hosed walls and slides, put artistic touches on the pavement in the playground, and worked on sprucing up the preschool any way they could think of. The volunteers stayed for about 3 hours cleaning and painting. We are so appreciative of Oak Hills Covenant Church for donating both their time and materials to make the preschool a safer, healthier, and more beautiful place for our teachers and students.

Volunteers working on the mural.

Volunteers geared up to start painting!

The students at the preschool absolutely love the mural! The mural features a young boy holding a basket of fall seasonal produce- apples, pears, grapes, and avocados. More grapes and large pumpkins grow near his side. The preschoolers have already affectionately named this character "George". We can't wait to see what they name the Winter, Spring, and Summer harvest friends!

Jesus Martinez working on the finishing touches!

NCCS would also like to thank Jesus Martinez for volunteering to create this mural from design to finishing touches.Jesus is a wonderful local artist, graphic designer, and muralist. If you are interested in supporting his work, he can be reached by email.

Do you have a group interested in improving one of our  sites? 
We can accommodate groups of 5-50 volunteers, and have a range of projects from simply cleaning, to interior painting, murals, and garden projects. For current group (or individual) volunteer opportunities, email Abby at volunteer@sdnccs.org or call her at 760-471-5483.

The full mural. The pillars built into the walls were incorporated into the mural as tree trunks, separating the seasons.

Summer Gardening at North County's Food Bank

Planting tomato seedlings

We have a beautiful summer garden planted at North County's Food Bank! We would like to give a HUGE thank you to Prescription Solutions by OptumRx for doing this great project! Not only did they volunteer to amend the soil and plant new seedlings, but they donated all of the materials that this project required. With 22 volunteers, they were able to get the garden planted quickly, as well as help out inside the warehouse at North County's Food Bank, and replant flower containers in our front entrance.

Prepping the soil for planting

OptumRx volunteers did this project on Wednesday, July 11. If you remember, this was one of the hottest days this summer in San Diego County! I am thankful and impressed they kept up good spirits and hard work despite the heat. All five garden beds were planted- one with a variety of peppers, one with a variety of tomatoes, one with cucumbers, one with melon, and one with watermelon. Thanks again OptumRx!

Everything is planted!

prAna in the garden!

prAna volunteers after a hard days work!

North County Community Services was delighted to have a wonderful volunteer group come to the Gardens at River Road on Friday! The Carlsbad based clothing company prAna brought out a huge crew of volunteers to do a massive day of hard work in the garden! They were able to accomplish so much in a few short hours, and we are so very thankful for the hard work, wonderful and positive attitudes, creativity, and leadership the team brought. Their accomplishments included:

• Planting 6 dwarf fruit trees- all citrus!
• Weeding community garden plots, now ready for planting
• Massive clean-up of compost piles, trash piles, leveling ground, and general beautification
• Staining picnic tables for the garden
• Painting beautiful signs for vegetables, fruit trees, compost, and more
• Finished all the summer plantings for the "North End" of the Gardens at River Road- the half of the garden that produces for our preschool programs and North County's Food Bank.
• Installing 4 new community garden beds- now ready for rent!

It is amazing what we can accomplish as a community when we work together! Thank you prAna for making North County San Diego a better place to live! We hope you can join us again next year!

A bird friend hiding in the flowers.