Thank you to those of you who VOTED for our Vallejo People’s Garden to win $25,000 of funding through the Justmeans contest online. Our Mare Island neighbors, the local newspaper, Mare Is Elementary School, and partners in Vallejo have rallied to support the USDA People’s Garden project here. I’ve been amazed: we have already beaten out hundreds of proposals from across North America for the funding. We are currently in a neck-and-neck race for the grant with a garden in Whitefish, Montana. As of this morning, Whitefish has 889 votes of support and Vallejo has 885. Please vote!

All you need to vote is a personal email address and 60 seconds. (Your Forest Service email address won’t work.) Please vote for us and pass the link along to friends and family too. The voting deadline has been extended to Tuesday, June 15.

1. Go to http://www.justmeans.com/contestidea?ideaid=NDUz and click on “VOTE”

2. Create an account by giving your name and personal email address (fs.fed.us won’t work). Make up a password.

3. Check your personal email, and click on the link to activate your account. You have now voted for Vallejo!

Our two future USDA People’s Garden locations on Mare Island will be a fantastic way to raise the Forest Service’s visibility in Vallejo and to make the RO a more engaged citizen of the city. To see the site of the first garden, please stop by for a few minutes after work on Monday, June 14. It’s directly on your way home from work, just one mile from the RO. See attached flier.

Thanks for voting, and we hope to see you on Monday after work!

Amanda

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Amanda Jane Cundiff

U.S. Forest Service

Partnership Coordinator for the Pacific Southwest Region