Friday's Gala Helps Group that Makes Somerville Greener

Groundwork Somerville gets its hands dirty to make the city a greener place. It holds it's annual gala Friday night.

Groundwork Somerville hosts its annual benefit gala Friday at The Center for Arts at the Armory. The urban environmental group says on its website, "Join us this special once-a-year night when we clean off the dirt, get dressed up, and celebrate the amazing accomplishments of the past year, while raising money for the big year ahead and toasting to our amazing volunteers and interns who have put so much effort in over the past 12 months." Groundwork Somerville conducts numerous programs and initiatives in Somerville. It runs and maintains community gardens, teaches school children about planting and growing, participates in urban agriculture, plants trees, composts waste and even produces maple syrup from local trees, to name just a few …

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Maple Boil Down Festival Scheduled for March 9

Groundwork Somerville hosts the event as part of its Maple Syrup Project.

Groundwork Somerville's Maple Syrup Project is approaching the climax of the season with a boil down festival planned for March 9, according to the organization's website.  At the boil down festival, residents can learn how to boil down sap, collected from local sugar maple trees, into pure maple syrup. It's done over a wood fire. There will be children's activities, waffles, hot chocolate from Taza Chocolate and, most important, syrup tasting, according to the website. It's all part of the Maple Syrup Project, where Groundwork Somerville works with local students in the Somerville school system to tap trees and collect the sap. The project includes a four-week curriculum with second graders, and the evaporator pan used in the oil down was…

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Maple Syrup Project Fundraiser Brunch

Try some maple-themed food and cocktails for a fun cause.

Vote: Somerville Organization Could Win $10K Worth of Trees for City

Somerville could win $10,000 worth of trees, but it needs a surge in votes to have a fighting chance to get the money.

Groundwork Somerville is in a national contest to win $10,000 worth of trees for Somerville, but it needs a boatload more votes to have any chance at winning. Odwalla, a company that sells bottled smoothies and energy bars, is running the online contest in which 20 projects from around the country are vying for a $10,000. The top 10 finishers in the contest will get the money. This means Groundwork Somerville only has to finish in the top half, in terms of votes, to walk away a winner. As of Thursday morning, however, the Somerville team was in 15th place with 190 votes. That said, only 70 votes separated it from the current 10th place team. The top-place team, out of Los Angeles, had 1355 votes. One of Groundwork Somerville's plans, …

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Summer Jobs: SCATV Hiring Somerville Teens for TV Production Project

The Summer Video Green Team will produce documentaries about water issues in and around Somerville.

Editor's note: the following was provided by SCATV: SCATV Summer Video Green Teem Hiring Teens SCATV’s Next Generation Producers, in collaboration with Groundwork Somerville, is hiring up to 8 high school age youth from Somerville to learn video production skills and produce documentary-style video projects about clean water in Somerville. The group will be led by experienced filmmaker, Gordon Nelson. Each student will receive a stipend of $8/hour for their work. The teens, ages 14 to 18, will work together to learn about where Somerville gets its drinking water, where rain water goes, how the Mystic River affects Somerville, and the effects of climate change on water. The students will learn to shoot and edit video, and the final projects…

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Groundwork Somerville Gala Friday Night

There will be live music, prizes and samples of Somerville beer. Tickets are required.

WHIZ KID

Children Explore Nature and Wildlife at the Library

Children can learn about birds, seeds, plants, flowers, trees and insects at the Somerville Public Library through a program run by Groundwork Somerville.

Patch Whiz Kids of the Week: The "Eco-Explorers," aged 6 to 9.  Accomplishment: Every Tuesday since July 5, they've gathered to learn about the birds, seeds, flowers, and trees that live and grow in the city.  How they do it: There are still two more weeks for children to explore and learn fun facts about nature and wildlife at the Somerville Public Library with Groundwork Somerville.  Children and their caretakers can meet Tai Dinnan, who runs many of the organization's youth programs, inside the library's central branch at 4 p.m. Tuesday, August 2 and the same time and day the following week.  At the July 26 program, Dinnan taught a small group about trees in general and the ornamental crab-apple ones that grow on the lawn in front of …

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5 Things to Know Today

Ice Cream, Singing, Spelling

And kids explore nature right here in Somerville.

East Somerville First Tuesdays Celebrate East Somerville tonight with a "buy one, get one" ice cream social at Louie's, 193 Broadway, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Somerville Sunsetters The Somerville Sunsetters travel around the city all summer singing classic show tunes and modern musicals. Tonight, at 7 p.m., they're at 25 Mount Pleasant Street. Eco-Explorers Children six to nine years old can participate in weekly explorations of nature right here in Somerville with Groundwork Somerville. Tonight's exploration is at the library from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. Spelling Bee at Highland Kitchen On the first Tuesday of the month, Highland Kitchen gives its patrons a spelling test, and if you don't pass the test, they won't serve you a cocktail for the …

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