Author Archives: fgdesign

Morris Campus Farm Joins the Bronx Food Hub

Morris Campus farm became a member of a new collective of farms and gardens in the Bronx called the Bronx Food Hub. In spite of the school closure our farm manager has been able to keep the farm open and productive, and in collaboration with Morning Glory Garden, provide fresh pesticide-free products to the people of Morrisania. We have already donated close to 500 pounds and expect that number to increase by the end of the season.

Be Healthy and Safe

Read the full article here.

Farm Update, November 4th, 2019

Hello Morris Campus,

We’re putting the Farm to bed for the winter, which means pulling crops, composting, selective planting to improve the soil over winter, and more! There’s plenty to do and we would love to organize a time to see you, your classes, your groups, and your staff teams for mindfulness activities and loving farm care. In particular we would love to see you all on the last day that the Farm is open – Friday, November 8th for the Fall Harvest Festival; the flyer is attached! 

If you’re interested in bringing your students out please send an email to Jen Hartzell at [email protected] and Ray Garcia at [email protected] with timing, school, number of students/staff, and any particular interest you might have at least a day before your planned visit. 

Schedule:

Mondays and Tuesdays 8am-12pm

Wednesdays and Fridays 9:30am-5:30pm

While at Morris Campus Educational Farm we…

*Use 1 mic in group settings 

*Respect self & others i.e. Keep hands off others, respectful language, work as a team & participate in activities.

*Respect Morris Campus Educational Farm, plants and all living creatures–i.e. Do not pick or take ANYTHING from the farm without asking. Do not stand on top of any structures.

*Be safe with tools and take care of them. i.e. Always prop tools up against wall never leave them on the ground, keep all pointy parts of tools below the knee. 

*Leave it better than when you came. i.e. pick up trash if you see it and keep the MCEF beautiful

News

  • The Farm is closing! This week is the last week to visit MCEF as we prepare the Farm to survive the Winter and thrive in the Spring. The last day is Friday, 11-8-19. 
  • Fall interns were able to visit the farm at Randall’s Island, where we took a tour, helped prepare plants for compost, and harvested rice. Interns came away with suggestions and requests for MCEF in the Spring including new plants and potentially a few chickens!
  • MCEF has been able to donate over 300 pounds of freshly harvested herbs and vegetables to the Cafeteria this season, sharing the bounty with students from all 4 schools whether or not they were able to visit, and over 500 pounds to the community! 
  • We had a great visit from Elementary students from NYC Autism Charter School where participants did tasks like pulling crops and bundling herbs in addition to touching and smelling through the Farm tour. 

Upcoming

  • Fall Interns attended the 2019 Black Urban Growers Conference, participating in workshops focused on compost, cooking, culture, and herbal remedies. They walked away with plenty of goodies to use at home!
  • This Friday, November 8th is the MCEF Harvest Festival and the last day that the Farm is open before next Spring. The flyer is attached!

Farm Update, October

The unusually warm weather has us still harvesting warm-weather crops while we plant our Fall set of leafy greens – look out for them in the Cafeteria meals! There’s plenty to do and we would love to organize a time to see you, your classes, your groups, and your staff teams for mindfulness activities and loving farm care. 

If you’re interested in bringing your students out please send an email to Jen Hartzell at [email protected] and Ray Garcia at [email protected] with timing, school, number of students/staff, and any particular interest you might have at least a day before your planned visit. 

Schedule:

Mondays and Tuesdays 8am-12pm
Wednesdays and Fridays 9:30am-5:30pm

While at Morris Campus Educational Farm we…

*Use 1 mic in group settings 

*Respect self & others i.e. Keep hands off others, respectful language, work as a team & participate in activities.

*Respect Morris Campus Educational Farm, plants and all living creatures–i.e. Do not pick or take ANYTHING from the farm without asking. Do not stand on top of any structures.

*Be safe with tools and take care of them. i.e. Always prop tools up against wall never leave them on the ground, keep all pointy parts of tools below the knee. 

*Leave it better than when you came. i.e. pick up trash if you see it and keep the MCEF beautiful

News

Our Fall Internship has started! We’re enjoying participation from all 4 schools and looking forward to the events, field trips, and continued Fall-focused Farm care.

One of those Fall activities is the very important seed-saving that we do, which a class from MACS helped with this week! 

Our website has been updated and is really lovely, check it out at morriscampusfarm.org.

Upcoming

We’ll be starting a Farmer’s Market on the Farm every Wednesday from 3:00-4:15pm starting on 10-9-19. We’ll be accepting donations and providing visitors with extremely fresh produce!

We’re looking forward to this year’s Fall Harvest Festival on November 8th where we’ll celebrate our relationship with the land with food, food demos, farm activities, and more! 

We’re almost done with our new hoop house with support from New York Botanical Garden staff and Farm School students. We can’t wait to make use of this for extending the life of our crops.

As the weather changes we have more and more beds to prep and plant for the Fall, a great opportunity for classes to help out and see their work grow.

September 16th Update

Hello Morris Campus,

Welcome back! We had a great summer at Morris Campus Educational Farm and look forward to a productive and lively fall with you. There’s plenty to do and we would love to organize a time to see you, your classes, your groups, and your staff teams for mindfulness activities and loving farm care. 

If you’re interested in bringing your students out please send an email to Jen Hartzell at [email protected] and Ray Garcia at [email protected] with timing, school, number of students/staff, and any particular interest you might have at least a day before your planned visit. Check out our website for more information: www.morriscampusfarm.org  

Schedule:

Mondays and Tuesdays 8am-12pm
Wednesdays and Fridays 9:30am-5:30pm

While at Morris Campus Educational Farm we…

*Use 1 mic in group settings 

*Respect self & others i.e. Keep hands off others, respectful language, work as a team & participate in activities.

*Respect Morris Campus Educational Farm, plants and all living creatures–i.e. Do not pick or take ANYTHING from the farm without asking. Do not stand on top of any structures.

*Be safe with tools and take care of them. i.e. Always prop tools up against wall never leave them on the ground, keep all pointy parts of tools below the knee. 

*Leave it better than when you came. i.e. pick up trash if you see it and keep the MCEF beautiful

News

This summer we hosted 12 interns from MACS, Bronx International, HSVD, and SFE. Interns put in so much care to planting, harvesting, maintenance, pest and disease management, construction, herb drying, seed collecting, and more. All of the harvests were donated to the school and surrounding communities, totaling over 565 pounds of organic, fresh food. 

Wellness In Schools also came 4 times to lead fully packed cooking workshops where interns learned cooking techniques, tips, and recipes from trained chefs, using what they learned to lead their own cooking workshops at the Jackson Forest Community Garden Open Garden Day and at South Bronx Farmers’ Market where we were hosted by La Finca del Sur Urban Farm.

The New York Botanical Garden lead weekly workshops with interns covering food justice and farm care. 

Upcoming

  • Fall Internship applications are ready! The internship runs from September 23rd-November 8th; applications are on the Farm and attached to this email. Applications are due by Friday, September 20th.
  • Classes, groups, and teams are welcome to start scheduling visits starting next Wednesday, September 18th.
  • We’re looking forward to this year’s Fall Harvest Festival on November 8th where we’ll celebrate our relationship with the land with food, food demos, farm activities, and more! 
  • We’re regularly donating food to the Morris Campus Cafeteria – come help harvest!
  • Our second hoop house is starting to take form, we’re looking forward to a new and larger space that will allow us to grow into the cold weather.

June 5th Update

Hello Morris Campus,

The farm is looking so nice, everyone’s caretaking and of course Mother Nature’s love has the farm in a growth spurt. As the year winds down we know that you are all VERY busy but if you can we would love to see you, your team, or your students. Come see what’s growing!

If you’re interested in visiting with a group please send an email to Jen Hartzell at [email protected] and Ray Garcia at [email protected] with timing, school, and number of students/staff at least a day before your planned visit.

Schedule:

Mondays and Tuesdays 8am-12pm
Wednesdays 9am-5pm
Fridays 8am-4pm

News

We’re harvesting! We were able to deliver some really beautiful garlic scapes, scallions, and thyme to the cafeteria for students to enjoy.

Some of the students have also helped start the drying process for our excess lavender, we can’t wait to create something relaxing with it!

Updates

Summer Internship applications are due today, Friday June 7th, but if you know any interested students that need an extension let me know or have them drop by the farm. I have attached the application.

—Jen Hartzell

Bronx County
28°
clear sky
humidity: 57%
wind: 12mph W
H 30 • L 28
39°
Mon
41°
Tue
40°
Wed
43°
Thu
Weather from OpenWeatherMap

Timothy Lu

Tim developed key elements of Engine Bio’s technology platforms and has deep expertise in synthetic and systems biology, genetic interactions mapping, and computer science/engineering. He is an Associate Professor at MIT, the leader of MIT’s RLE Synthetic Biology Group, and an Associate Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Tim is a pioneer in applying synthetic biology to tackle important medical and industrial problems. Among the numerous awards he’s received are the NIH New Innovator Award, the U.S. Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the NSF CAREER award, and the Ellison Medical Foundation New Scholar in Aging Award.

In addition to being an accomplished physician-scientist researcher, Tim is a successful entrepreneur, having founded several companies based on his research. Among these include Sample6 Inc. and Synlogic Inc., US-based venture-backed companies using synthetic biology to develop next-generation diagnostics and therapeutics for use in food safety and the human microbiome, respectively. His companies have raised over US$160M of funding in multiple rounds from leading VCs and investors, including Orbimed, Atlas Ventures, NEA, Gates Foundation, 8VC, Seventure, Deerfield, Canaan Partners, and Flybridge; and Sample6 is now supply disruptive synthetic biology-based commercial products to many leading food processors and the US FDA.

Tim received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School, his Ph.D. from the Harvard-MIT Sciences and Technology Program, and his S.B. and S.M. from MIT.

Jeffrey Lu

Jeff has extensive and successful experience as a businessperson and entrepreneur over the past decade. He has held C-suite and corporate-level management roles at both successful technology-driven start-ups and billion-dollar companies, building and leading high-performing business, strategy, and analytics teams. This includes:

– Head of Strategy and the CEO’s #2 at AAE Travel (online travel), which he helped establish and where he developed and drove the successful plan for rapid growth to 10 countries and profitability, resulting in an acquisition transaction at a US$345M valuation
– Group Head in the Commercial division and Head of Strategy in Tony Fernandes’s CEO’s Office at AirAsia (KLSE: 5099, an innovative and entrepreneur-led travel conglomerate with >90% of sales through online channels), with responsibilities across strategy, analytics, digital marketing, special projects, and driving 9-figure commercial product lines
– Establishing Think BIG Sdn Bhd and serving as a board director (invested in by AIMIA [TSX:AIM] valuing the company at US$109M)
– Consultant at Bain & Company, where he consulted on projects in healthcare, private equity, tech, travel, and finance
– Managing Director and Co-Founder of Goodman Capital, an investment company which has seeded, invested in, and incubated several companies across Asia and the U.S. in biotech, tech, and real estate

Since his first job at Bain, where he was trained to develop deep data-driven insights and strategies for companies, Jeff has been a major believer in the power of data to build transformative businesses. At AAE and AirAsia, Jeff built and managed data analytics teams. He worked to instil data-driven decision making across the organizations, and his teams harnessed big data to drive many millions of dollars of revenue/profit upside. Key applications of data intelligence included product test-and-learn cycles, marketing and pricing optimization, product development, strategy development, and behavioral analyses for customer-led growth.

He received his bachelor’s degree summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania.