Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation

What does it look like to live our values as well as we fund them? This is a question that the Dodge staff routinely revisits, in an effort to live and also to work more consciously. You can read about some of our responses to that question in the Living Our Values section of the website, including our most recent experience: partnering with the Great Swamp Watershed Association and the Land Conservancy of New Jersey to learn about the importance of land stewardship.

Dodge believes that effective philanthropy requires time in the field (and on this day, we meant that quite literally) where we can be face to face with the challenges, conditions, joy and accomplishments that our grantees face. (more…)

Program Officer Wendy Liscow contemplates the importance of local foods and discovers how they can transform even the worst reputation: hospital food! This is the final installment of our Environment Stories series.

Inspiring a New Vision for Institutional Food

I recently joined a friend’s book club, and at our first meeting, we all pitched a few books that we thought the group would enjoy reading. There were plenty of books on my fiction list, but I decided to choose two books that had transformed my relationship with food: Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma and Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. These books both give new meaning to the old saying, “You are what you eat.”

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Although it had been 12 years since she visited the city of Paterson, Arts Program Director Laura Aden quickly found out this summer how green it has become, thanks to the tireless efforts of City Green. This is the fourth in our Environment Stories series. Please visit us tomorrow for the fifth and final story from Program Officer Wendy Liscow.

City Green: Growing Healthy Cities

Despite constantly traveling throughout our wonderful state, I have only been to Paterson once before - 12 years ago, as part of my Leadership New Jersey experience. I discovered that amazing things are happening in Paterson when I met Jennifer Papa, the indefatigable founder and Executive Director of City Green, and I saw firsthand how deeply committed she and the staff and volunteers of City Green are to creating livable, green communities in Paterson.

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At the Center for Whole Communities‘ Knoll Farm in Vermont this summer, Environment Program Director Michelle Knapik joined a group of New Jersey leaders interested in food-people-land connections to explore the fundamentals of building relationships in order to establish and develop a community food system “movement.” This is the third in our series of Environment Stories as told by our Program Staff.

Silos and Spoons

There were yurts, fire circles, and outdoor showers. There were the shimmering night skies of Vermont, the late August warmth of Knoll Farm, and the Center for Whole Communities faculty. Enter a stakeholder group from New Jersey comprised of farmers, soil scientists, state and federal government specialists, land preservation experts, organic and sustainable farming experts, a restaurant owner, land trust experts, urban gardening experts, and a Dodge Foundation representative. The Foundation’s purpose in convening this diverse group was to help participants explore the connections between agricultural preservation and a New Jersey (or regional) community food system that can address issues of food access, equity and security.

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Continuing our series of Environment Stories, this next post is from Education Program Director Ross Danis, whose visit with the folks at the Pinelands Preservation Alliance reminded him how important it is to be passionate about your work.

Planting the Seeds of Change

Sometimes chance encounters during our site visits to grantees and prospective grantees leave an indelible impression. Recently I visited with the folks at the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, and on the way back to my car, I met a staff botanist whose wonderful story of his work touched me at an unexpected moment.

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