Dear Green Bronx Machine Friends,
We are thrilled to announce that we have been chosen as the winner of the 2015 TEDx Manhattan Prize. This is a huge honor, and all of you who voted for us were the ones who made it happen – THANK YOU!
Check out the announcement, and follow the link to see how you can help now. Also be sure to watch on March 7th as El Capitan takes the stage to speak about GBM and our community.
Si se puede!
Dear Friends of Green Bronx Machine:
If you haven’t voted for us yet, please take a moment – voting closes Sunday!
Please VOTE GREEN BRONX MACHINE! It only takes a click!
http://www.tedxmanhattan.org/2015-tedxmanhattan-award/
Si se puede!
Dear Friends of Green Bronx Machine:
We’re thrilled to announce that we are finalists for the TEDxManhattan Award! We need your support!
Please VOTE GREEN BRONX MACHINE! It only takes a click!
http://www.tedxmanhattan.org/2015-tedxmanhattan-award/
Si se puede!
In the midst of the busy holiday season, we wanted to wish you all well and share a few of the latest developments here at GBM. 2014 has been a great year for us, and we are looking forward to even more in 2015.
Best wishes for a wonderful holiday season to you and those you share it with.
GBM’s fearless founder, Stephen Ritz aka El Capitan, was recently selected to be among the top 50 finalists in the world for this year’s Global Teacher Prize. Being nominated is a huge honor in and of itself, and making it through to the final round is an acknowledgment of just how important and impressive Stephen’s and GBM’s accomplishments have been to date.
In addition Stephen went off script to deliver an inspiring hyper speed presentation to business leaders from around the world at the Social Innovation Summit in California.
Horyou, the action-oriented social network for social good, has recently released a beautiful 7-minute film documenting GBM’s work.
Please check it out, share with your friends and family, and let us know what you think.
“Everyday there is an opportunity to do something great to change the world,” Stephen Ritz tells us. In order to do that, he and his wife Lizette created Green Bronx Machine, a non-profit organization based in New York which offers healthy alternatives to junk food for children and adults.
The Health, Wellness, and Learning Center at CS 55 is up and running! We have begun to fill the old library on the 4th floor with Tower Gardens, Growums kits, food education materials, alternative energy systems, and a variety of other science equipment. Though we are only just beginning, we are already seeing roughly 300 students per week in the center from grades pre-K through 5th. These students are learning about vegetables – how they are planted, what they need to grow healthy, how they are harvested and prepared, and especially how good each one tastes. Students are also learning about how energy is created, stored, and used on our bicycle generator system – they are pedaling to power blenders to make smoothies with the very vegetables they just grew!
WE ARE ACTIVELY SEEKING DONATIONS, EQUIPMENT AND SPONSORS – please contact us if interested. We need microscopes and technology including computers, tablets and interactive science equipment; gently used and refurbished functional equipment is welcome!
GBM has a brand new student managed Instagram account! Follow us to see all the latest photos from our events, and to keep up with all the action in the Health, Wellness, and Learning Center. Watch for our new student blog – we believe in student voices! Please keep up with us Facebook and Twitter. HELP US SPREAD THE WORD and share with your friends and colleagues! Remember, together we can all prosper!
Keeping up with our founder, Stephen Ritz, aka El Capitan, is a full-time job in and of itself. He has been speaking to motivate and help other organizations and schools create similar programs of their own. Of note recently was his trip to WOBI in Mexico City, where he shared the stage with Richard Branson, Peter Diamandis, and Rachel Gutter, amongst many other notable speakers. Everyone appreciated his “Si se puede – Mex-I-CAN” message! EL Capitan is proud to be working in Mexico, collaborating with Instituto Thomas Jefferson and in Medellin – dedicated to innovation and social justice / workforce-community development.
Later this month, El Capitan will take his energy and enthusiasm to California for the Social Innovation Summit, where he was invited to speak to leaders from around the world about his experience with GBM and have conversations about how to tackle the world’s biggest problems.
Welcome to our first post live from the garden and campus of CS 55! After an amazing summer at our Food for Others Garden, we’re off to a bold start building the Borough’s FIRST EVER Health, Wellness and Learning Center in the heart of Claremont Village and working with Instituto Thomas Jefferson in Mexico City. In the Bronx, we just finished feeding hundreds of folks at the CS 55 Back to School Fair with partner organization Veggiecation and thanks to our Tower Gardens – areoponic technology – we are growing strawberries, leafy greens and curious minds and bodies four stories up in the library. In Mexico, we helped roll out GrowUms and gardens across five campuses and we’re just getting started. All this his month we are featured in the Healthy Schools Revolution. El Capitan has been speaking at schools and organizations spreading seeds, hope and our Si Se Puede Amer-I-Can spirit across the nation and globe to critical acclaim; proof that the Bronx is poised, ready, willing and able to export our talent and diversity! From day one, we said we would be coming to a city near you soon and we are absolutely committed to growing something greater here at home and abroad. Our phunky-fresh GBM organic tee-shirts are now available and we’re planning the greenest, gala ever – see highlights below!
T-shirts For Sale
After years of requests, GBM now has tee-shirts for sale! From Milan to Hunts Point, you too can be an eco-fashionista in these student designed, 100% organic blend t-shirts. To spread the message and help fuel the machine, check out our shop. All proceeds from t-shirt sales support GBM operations.
GBM Winter Gala
We are in the process of planning our greenest and greatest party ever, coming this winter. Date, venue, and other details will be coming soon. El Capitan will debut locallly grown drink specials! Stay posted and please come join us for the best party of the upcoming holiday season!