Saturday, September 25, 2010. A Fun Day To Plan In Advance...

Smithsonian Magazine Museum Day. FREE admission to 1,000+ museums Nationwide on Smithsonian Magazine's Museum Day. Saturday, September 25th 2010. Something so fun to look forward to. And, we're in luck. California Academy of Sciences at Golden Gate Park, San Francisco is a participating FREE museum on this special day. We've printed our FREE tickets. Have you printed yours?

CLICK HERE to select a favorite museum and PRINT your tickets!

CLICK HERE to find a participating museum near you.

For free museum admission, you must print a required ticket in advance.

Bay Area Discovery Museum FREE Day...

Take the toddlers for a day of FREE family fun!

Mark your calendars: Wednesday, September 1st, 2010
Free Museum admission all day, 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.

Free admission is the first Wednesday of every month.

Regular Admission Fees:
$8: Children (1 - 17)
$10: Adults
$8: Seniors (62+ years)
Children under 1 and members: FREE.

For a handy list of other FREE Museum Days, CLICK BELOW.

Clayton Pioneer. "The Lemon Lady" takes on bottle caps in latest community service effort...

Thank you Tamara Steiner and Denisen Hartlove of The Clayton Pioneer for sharing my newest conservation/recycling project. Bottle cap recycling is an excellent project for teachers and civic groups in Clayton, California, The Bay Area and beyond. The power to make the world a better place begins with each small action we take. Even my 3 1/2 year old daughter, Ava is a good little bottle cap recycler. ;)

CLICK HERE to read the August 20, 2010 Clayton Pioneer story on Page 7.

CLICK HERE to learn all about my Earth Day Every Day Recycle Plastic Caps and Lids Campaign and ways YOU can join the effort too!

For a FREE Collection Container, please email:
AnnaAndAva@gmail.com
(510) 406-1625

Navlet's Garden Centers 25% Off Sale. A Friendly Tip...

25% Off Everything in Stock at Navlet's Garden Centers, Wednesday, August 25th thru Friday, August 27th 2010. Excellent incentive to get a head start on weekend gardening - if you can stand the 100 degree heat.

CLICK HERE to join Navlet's Preferred Mailing List. That's how I learned of this great sale.

CLICK HERE to find Navlet's Garden Center locations in Concord, Pleasant Hill, Danville, and Martinez, California.

We Love Pixieland. Happy Fun in Concord, California...

We Love Pixieland Amusement Park! We truly do. I can't say it enough, how much we love this darling little park for our precious babies to grow-up in. We are so lucky to have a real-life amusement park in our own backyard, open almost all year. If you haven't been there in a while...well, tomorrow's Sunday. Don't miss it for the world. Train departs every 15 minutes!

Rides at Pixieland:
Dragon Roller Coaster, Tea Cups, Windy Grove Cars, Frog Hopper, Red Baron Airplanes, Pixieland Express Train.

When the park closes, we often take a stroll along the lake, feed the ducks, watch the turtles. In the summer, you'll find kids fishing and catching crawdads too.

CLICK HERE to visit Pixieland's website.

CLICK HERE for COUPONS from Pixieland's website. There are FREE ticket deals worth checking out.

Friday, August 27, 2010 is a special event open late on Friday evening from 6pm-9pm. Find those details on the Pixieland website. Great to know they are open late on August 27th, especially for busy parents with busy work schedules.

Pixieland Amusement Park

2740 E. Olivera Road

Concord, CA 94519

(925) 676-9612

Chevron Fuel Your School. $1 Million Funding For Schools in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties + $25,000 To Ten Classrooms...

The promotion is simple: During the month of September, Chevron is encouraging East Bay drivers to help earn up to $1 million in funds for their neighborhood public schools by simply filling up their gas tank.

Incentives are awesome for teachers and their classrooms!

CLICK HERE for official Chevron website. Learn more about this exciting opportunity to kick off the new school year. Tell your friends. Tell your teachers. Involve your children. Learn and Earn while having fun!

About Fuel Your School:

Timing: From September 1 through September 30, Chevron’s Fuel Your School promotion will donate $1, up to $1 million, to help fund eligible classroom projects every time consumers purchase 8 gallons of fuel or more at participating local Chevron stations.

Process: Through a partnership with DonorsChoose.org, eligible public school teachers and front-line educators from eligible public schools in Alameda and Contra Costa counties are invited to log onto their accounts (or create an account) at DonorsChoose.org and post their project, including science, technology, engineering and math (STEM)-related classroom projects, to www.DonorsChoose.org for funding as part of the Fuel Your School promotion. The submission period will begin on August 1, 2010 and is scheduled to end on October 31, 2010.

Classroom Challenge: In addition to this promotion, Chevron will also award ten $25,000 cash grants to schools in Contra Costa and Alameda counties based on DonorsChoose.org submissions via FuelYourSchool.com that emphasize Science, Technology, Engineering or Math (STEM) education. Projects submitted to the site between August 1, 2010 and September 30, 2010 with the phrase “Chevron Classroom Challenge” in any one of the four essay areas of the Tell Your Story section will be eligible for consideration.

Lettuce Eat Kale. Congratulations Sarah Henry!...

Exciting news for a journalist friend, Sarah Henry. Sarah was one of the first writers to take time, research and learn about the Lemon Lady urban fruit harvesting, foraging to feed the hungry. Almost a year later, Sarah has been awarded a scholarship to a prestigious symposium for professional food writers, based on two social justice stories she had published, including her piece titled: "The Lemon Lady, Feeding The Hungry, One Bag of Produce At A Time."

Sarah has not yet shared with me the other story that earned her this well-deserved recognition. As soon as I hear, I'll gladly share the news.

Congratulations Sarah! You are helping to change the world and I'm so very happy for you. You are a thoughtful writer, affecting positive change and awareness to social issues relating to hunger and food. You are certainly deserving of honor and praise. Your blog, "Lettuce Eat Kale" is absolutely awesome.


Sarah is a freelance writer living in Berkeley, California. She writes about school food, urban eats, people with edible interests and more. To visit Sarah's blog, "Lettuce Eat Kale," CLICK HERE.

FREE Seed Catalogs 2010. Parents, Teachers, Garden Clubs, Civic Groups...

I encourage parents, educators, schools, garden clubs, civic groups to order free seed catalogs; they're excellent teaching resources!

If I had a class of students, I would send the list of FREE SEED CATALOGS home so parents can order for summer reading. This is free education at it's best, in my humble opinion.

If we can inspire children (and adults) to learn about nutrition, biodiversity and self-sustaining agriculture, perhaps they will learn to make more intelligent food choices and promote healthier living. I have read many seed catalogs in their entirety. I believe and hope future generations will come to understand how wonderful growing our own organic food and saving seed truly is. My daugher Ava understood what a seed was long before her second birthday. It is never too early to give the gift of gardening to our babies.

Let us also teach our children what an heirloom vegetable is, how to save seeds, and which seeds can even be saved! Have fun. Grow something and happy harvesting!

FREE Seed Catalogs 2010
A few to get you started:

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds
http://rareseeds.com/catalog
(417) 924-8917

Seeds of Change
http://www.seedsofchange.com/garden_center/catalog_request.asp
(888) 762-7333

Bountiful Gardens
http://www.bountifulgardens.org/inforequest.asp
(707) 459-6410

Seed Savers Exchange
http://www.seedsavers.org/CatalogRequest.aspx
(563) 382-5990

Territorial Seed
http://www.territorialseed.com/catalog_request
(800) 626-0866

Wild Garden Seed
http://www.wildgardenseed.com/requestcatalog.php
(541) 929-4068

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange
http://www.southernexposure.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=99006&Category_Code=CAT
(540) 894-9580

Select Seeds
http://www.selectseeds.com/cgi-bin/start.cgi/mngmnt/catalog_request.htm
(800) 684-0395

National Gardening Association
http://kids.garden.org/inquiry.php
(800) 538-7476

Free Field Trip Money For Schools. Mt. Diablo High School was a winner last year...

Registration open until September 30, 2010. Target gives away Field Trip grants to schools. Did you know that? Mt. Diablo High School in Concord, California knew, because they were one of 5,000 fortunate recipients of last year's grant money. Congratulations to all the 2009-2010 field trip grant recipients!

CLICK HERE for TARGET GRANTS.

Wonder where the school children wish to go? Perhaps visit an urban farm, art museum, science center, play, ballet. Hope. Dream. Be inspired.

CLICK HERE for other fun CONTESTS and GRANTS to inspire you.