I’m going to level with you, this is a big letter. I ask you to take the time to read it.

First off, thank you for believing that the children of California deserve quality outdoor education and helping Common Vision make it happen. Over the course of our history, we tenaciously refined our programming, ensuring thriving orchards. This year, our legacy of more than 18 acres of fruit-producing outdoor classrooms has brought opportunity for wonder, nourishment, and critical life perspective to over 100,000 kids at 300 public schools. This is a huge accomplishment, and we could not have done it without your support. Thank you!

Our unique view of the school garden movement both from a statewide perspective and from decades of on-the-ground, season-after-season dedication leads us to this conclusion - We missed the garden for the trees!  

It WAS our belief that IF we ensured that the fruit trees thrived THEN the gardens would surely follow. Yet, while the trees themselves are blooming, most of the gardens still struggle for survival. School gardens are funded and staffed as if they’re a hobby - taken seriously enough to exist but not seriously enough to prosper.  

Outdoor learning spaces are NOT simply something nice to have, THEY ARE ESSENTIAL. When kids observe flowers and butterflies, touch soil, tend seedlings, and bite into fruit they picked from a tree, we all know important stuff happens.

Well, it’s 2019. We plan to innovate and do our thing differently, as we can’t continue to help the fruit trees grow while the school gardens don’t.

To this end, I am proud to announce that Wanda Stewart is Common Vision’s new Executive Director. I am still happily serving as Associate Director and TJ “Tree J” Lee will continue to tend 1,000’s schoolyard trees and relationships.  

Here’s a glimpse of what Wanda brings to the garden and the table:

Organizational prowess: She brings decades of experience in school and nonprofit leadership to inform the overhaul of our organizational administration.

Culture-Bridging: Her resume follows an arc that bridges cultures – ethnic, academic, economic, environmental et al.

Educational Systems Experience:  From district and school administration to elite private school admissions, classroom teaching to garden instruction, community engagement to program development, she knows all sides of how schools work.  

After serving as Executive Director for People’s Grocery, she has gone on to serve as Hoover Elementary’s garden educator in Oakland. Here she has created one of the most impressive school gardens in California. She is a lifelong gardener who has mentored thousands in building gardens and growing food. A trusted voice and community member in the East Bay’s permaculture and food justice movements, she has the networking virtuosity to assemble the brightest minds and greenest thumbs. In fact, as a member and Board advisor of the UC Alameda County Master Gardeners, Wanda has already begun to develop a framework for effective support for school gardens through localized community resources.

Common Vision intends to grow into an organization that cultivates the budding school garden movement’s success by:

Please join me in welcoming Wanda Stewart and offering your support to Common Vision as it extends its mission beyond trees to grow a healthy, vital planet one school garden at a time. It is sure to be a grand adventure!

With commitment and devotion,

Michael Flynn

Associate Director