WILPF BUSINESS MEETING
WILPF will meet Thursday Oct 13 at 7 PM, at Fresno Center for Nonviolence, 1584 N Van Ness. This meeting is open to all members.
WOMEN IN BLACK Oct 5, (first Wednesday of each month) at noon at Fresno County Courthouse; come on the month in which your birthday falls! Wear black, bring a sign if you wish, and stand in silence for peace.
STIR IT UP – WILPF – ON KFCF 88.1 FM (Listener -supported Free Speech Radio for Central California)
Oct 26, 3 PM (4th Wednesday of each month) Jean Hays does outstanding interviews on subjects involving WILPF interests and activities. Tune in to 88.1!
RAGING GRANNIES
Meetings on selected Mondays at 7 PM. Ellie Bluestein’s new phone # is 559-449-1817.Call for details.
WILPF WELCOMES OUR INTERNS
I have been interning with WILPF for a month now and already I am learning a lot about different social issues in the community, as well as the world. I am inspired by this group of women who are so courageous to stand up and be a voice for the people against social injustice. WILPF not only advocates for, but also helps empower, those who are in need of help. My internship has been fulfilling because all these different social issues I am learning about through WILPF can be put to use by educating the community at events. I have participated at events such as Cineculture at Fresno State, Women in Black, and Reforma. Certain issues are about the drought and pesticides in the valley, Israel and Palestine issues, Black Lives Matter, and so much more. I am looking forward to working with such an inspirational group of women this upcoming year.
— Karla Aguilar
ECOGARDEN NEWS
Don’t Miss This Potluck, October 16
POTLUCK at Dakota EcoGarden, the WILPF sponsored transitional homeless shelter, Sunday, October 16, 1:00- 5 p.m. 2231 W Dakota. We’re just past Hughes Avenue. Look for FastTrip Gas and the police substation. If you get to Marks, you’ve gone too far. House phone: 225-2767. Phone for anything regarding the Dakota EcoGarden or Eco Village: 224-1738. Come see our progress on the Art Dyson Eco Pod.
— Nancy W.
PEACE CRAFTS FAIRE NEWS
Our 2016 Peace Crafts Fair will be on December 3 (which is the first Saturday in December). The time will still be from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m., but we will be at a new venue: Fresno City College.
We will use the Student Cafeteria Main Hall, the Staff Dining Hall as an annex for more vendors, and also the patio areas outside the hall. Parking is relaxed – free – on weekends. We already have 26 booths paid for so the prime locations are going quickly. If you want to secure a place in the Main Hall, you need to get your application turned in ASAP. Feel free to forward this information to all of your friends, artists, crafters, and activists who you think may be interested in knowing about this special annual event.
Jay Hubbell – Chair Peace Crafts Faire 2016
5965 E. Shields Ave. Unit 170 Fresno, CA 93727-8061; Landline 559-292-4905; jayhubbell@comcast.net
WILPF – Fresno Branch PO Box 5114, Fresno, CA 93755
PESTICIDES IN SCHOOLS AND CHILDCARE FACILITIES
Our culture promotes pesticides as the only way to kill pests, however it is the least sustainable method. To live most creatures or plants need: food, water, air, shelter, a specific environment and each other. If any one of these is eliminated the population is eliminated. For example pigeons need water every day, if they cannot get water they will leave. Argentine ants (the black ones that bother everyone in Fresno) like water also. If you eliminate or severely restrict water in your yard you will likewise reduce the number of Argentine ants in your yard. When I worked at a school district they used power washers to clean their walkways. This resulted a constantly moist, temperature controlled area in every walkway crack. It also resulted in a tremendous Argentine ant problem at almost every school. Hopefully with the drought they now use sweepers to clean the walkways.
Pest Control is used in and around schools for various purposes: health concerns, fear of insects or spiders, food contamination, distraction (kids have difficulty concentrating with wasps flying around the room, or ants crawling across their desks), weed control, rodent control (on school grounds as well as in the buildings.) etc.
Many people, including those who work at schools, do not realize that most pesticides have negative effects on the health of students and teachers, whereas most insects and spiders are innocuous. Therefore they easily buy into with the cultural norm of see a bug, spray.
School administrations should be aware that young children are especially vulnerable to pesticide exposure because their bodies are growing rapidly and their behavior gives them more contact with surfaces that may be sprayed. The youngest children are particularly vulnerable because they frequently put their hands into their mouths.
The state of California has the Healthy Schools Act of 2000. This law requires the Department of Pesticide Regulation to offer training and promote the use of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) at schools. It also requires schools to notify the teachers, students and parents of most pesticide use in several different ways. For details see www.cdpr.ca.gov/schoolipm. As of July 2016 there are several additional requirements including: each school or district is to have an IPM plan posted, and anyone who applies pesticides at a school is to be trained on IPM and on issues related to school sites and pesticides. However, the training can be as short as one hour per year. With this short amount of time for training one cannot expect the person doing the application to understand anything beyond the minimum facts of IPM and the problems of pesticides.
There are times when pesticides are necessary to protect children, for example; controlling Fire ants or Harvester ants in playgrounds. But frequently there also are nontoxic alternatives to control pest problems; for example vacuums can be used to eliminate the nests of meat bees. (These are correctly called yellow jackets.) Los Angeles Unified uses solarization (clear plastic bags over the colonies) to kill Africanized honeybee colonies. Weeds can be controlled with flaming, with steam, hand pulling and with hand tools depending on the situation and the weed.
Most of us realize these laws are not sufficient to protect our children. The best way to reduce or manage safely the use of pesticides at schools is to tell the principal or plant supervisor why you are concerned and exactly what you observed. For example one grandmother observed the spraying of Roundup while the kids are going into or leaving a school. My label for Roundup PROdry states “Keep people and pets off treated areas until spray solution has dried to prevent transfer of this product onto desirable vegetation.” But for agricultural use it states “Do not enter or allow worker entry into treated areas during the restricted entry interval (REI) of 4 hours.” Showing this to a principal could have a profound effect on his thoughts on using Roundup around the kids. Parents (and possibly grandparents) do have tremendous pull with schools. Bring several articles with you on the health effects of the pesticide in question and maybe even some information from the Department of Pesticide Regulation’s school IPM website (above). If possible, research and bring reasonable alternatives to what they are doing.
—Ingrid Carmean, Board Certified Entomologist, former Pest Control Operator and former School IPM Trainer for California’s Department of Pesticide Regulation.
WILPF LIBRARY COMMITTEE IN ACTION
WILPF members showed up in force to show our work and help celebrate the Pura Belpré Award’s 20th Anniversary. The award is named after Pura Belpré, the first Latina librarian at the New York Public Library. The Pura Belpré Award is presented annually to a Latino/Latina writer and illustrator whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latinx cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth. This ties right into Library Committee’s mission to get the Jane Addams Peace Association Award books into the hands of children by donating sets to 4 local libraries; we displayed many award winning books and other WILPF information. WILPF Library Committee member Sandra Ríos Balderrama is a co-founder of the Pura Belpré Award and a can’t-be-stopped Library Activist, who recently sparked the organization of a Fresno Chapter of REFORMA, the library association devoted to meeting the needs of the Latinx community. This celebration featured award-winning illustrator Rafael López and award-winning local author Margarita Engle, who headlined a WILPF event last September at Central Library. A copy of Margarita Engle’s book The Surrender Tree was one of WILPF’s donated door-prize gifts, won by Patricia Wells Solorzano, long time music activist with Agustín Lira and Teatro de la Tierra; one of their groups, Generaciones, played for the event.
Intermountain Nursery 24th Annual Harvest Arts & Peace Festival
Sat & Sun, October 15th & 16th 10 AM to 4 PM
Exciting music and dance, community organizations and venders, trees and a creek, good food!
Is WILPF going to be there, tabling and enjoying? Are you kidding? – We wouldn’t miss it for anything!
Intermountain Nursery 30443 N. Auberry Rd. Prather, (1 mile past where Auberry Road meets Hwy 168 /Morgan Canyon at Prather.)
This is a family-friendly free community event. $1 parking per car per day to defray the parking area rent cost.
The WILPF Page is edited and compiled by Leni Villagomez Reeves lenivreeves@gmail.com or by Patty Bennett patriciajb@aol.com
