A Great Blog

Adrian on the Bus

2010-03-18T08:29:00.001-07:00

Please join us on this 3,000 mile journey to inspire over 10,000 children and plant 1,000 trees by sponsoring a portion of it at $1 a mile. EVERY DONATION HELPS.

Hello friends and family,

As many of you know, I am on the road with, Common Vision's 7th annual all-volunteer Fruit Tree Tour. For the next 5 weeks we will be traveling through California on the world's largest recycled-veggie oil caravan, with a group of 20 educators! While on tour we will be visiting a school a day, beginning with a green theater performance, and ending with an orchard planting on the campus. After the performance we spread out on the campus and work with the kids to plant an orchard on the school yard. By the end of the tour we will plant 1,000 fruit trees.

Common Vision is an incredible non-profit organization and being on tour has been an inspiring learning experience for me. The crew I am with is an amazing group of educators, organizers, farmers, permaculturalists, musicians, actors, veggie mechanics, videographers, photographers, artists, all putting their energy towards a common vision for the future. The dedication and work that is being put into this project is humbling.

You can check out the website to learn more about this organization's important work. If your inspired... get involved! There are a bunch of ways to help this solution based organization! Small contributions from tour friends like yourselves help purchase fruit trees and keep us on the road.

Hope this finds you all well and inspired!

James on Fruit Tree Tour

2010-02-24T21:47:00.000-08:00

Please join us on this 3,000 mile journey to inspire over 10,000 children and plant 1,000 trees by sponsoring a portion of it at $1 a mile. EVERY DONATION HELPS.

Hey All,

I am boogieing around right now on the world's largest veggie-oil powered caravan and we are in the process of planting 1,000 fruit trees at high schools and elementary schools all across California. We are an all-volunteer crew of educators, and I am acting as the head chef for the tour....cooking up lots of delicious grub aboard the kitchen bus! The kitchen has an all-bamboo interior with an 8-burner commercial Wolf range stove! Needless to say, I am having tons of fun! Check out our calendar to see if we will be in your area anytime soon so that we can meet up and plant trees together!

The crew I am with is an amazing group of educators, organizers, farmers, permaculturalists, musicians, actors, veggie mechanics, videographers, photographers, artists, all putting their energy towards a common vision for the future. The dedication and work that is being put into this project is humbling, and we are excited about bringing such a positive message to kids.

You can check out the website to learn more about this organization's important work. If your inspired... get involved! There are a bunch of ways to help this solution based organization! Small contributions from tour friends like yourselves help purchase fruit trees and keep us on the road.

Owen and Whitney on Fruit Tree Tour

2010-02-17T22:52:00.000-08:00

Please join us on this 3,000 mile journey to inspire over 10,000 children and plant 1,000 trees by sponsoring a portion of it at $1 a mile. EVERY DONATION HELPS.

Hello friends and family,

As many of you know, we are on the road with, Common Vision's 7th annual all-volunteer Fruit Tree Tour. For the next 5 weeks we will be traveling through California on the world's largest recycled-veggie oil caravan, with a group of 20 educators! While on tour we will be visiting a school a day, beginning with a green theater performance, and ending with an orchard planting on the campus. After the performance we spread out on the campus and work with the kids to plant an orchard on the school yard. By the end of the tour we will plant 1,000 fruit trees.

Common Vision is an incredible non-profit organization and being on tour has been an inspiring learning experience for both of us. We uploaded a video we made of tour-life, which is so multi-fauceted that it is hard to explain in words. The crew we are with is an amazing group of educators, organizers, farmers, permaculturalists, musicians, actors, veggie mechanics, videographers, photographers, artists, all putting their energy towards a common vision for the future. The dedication and work that is being put into this project is humbling, and we are excited about bringing such a positive message to kids.

You can check out the website to learn more about this organization's important work. If your inspired... get involved! There are a bunch of ways to help this solution based organization! Small contributions from tour friends like yourselves help purchase fruit trees and keep us on the road.

Hope this finds you all well and inspired!

Dan Bean's Mile-a-thon

2010-02-17T22:29:00.001-08:00

Dan Bean: Beard-free for the Vision!

Dan Bean: On the Bus

Please joining me on this 3,000 mile journey to inspire over 10,000 children and plant 1,000 trees by sponsoring a portion of it at $1 a mile. EVERY DONATION HELPS. From $5 to $3,000, whatever you can offer. Please take the time to invest in the youth, and the health of our planet. Thank you so much!

Hi friends, as some of you know I am giving up my sedentary, status quo life and joining with seventeen other goofball educators, to plant over a thousand fruit trees and well that’s just the bit I can fit into one sentence. Commonvision (.org) is an all volunteer non profit that has been making this ‘fruit tree tour’ happen for seven years now. In a time when school programs of any worth (my biased opinion) like music, art, and hands on science are being cut; Fruit tree tour is reaching over twelve thousand students (mostly in underserved communities) with a full music, dance and giant puppet filled program, not to mention the students planting the trees. And yes the big ol stylee busses that will be taking us on the three thousand mile tour, run on used grease from restaurants. The breakdown is pretty amazing, schools pay two hundred to eight hundred dollars to plant trees and inspire their school, and the actual price per school is around two thousand dollars; so where does the rest of the money come from, yep you guessed it. Obama raised millions of dollars in smallish donations from people who usually don’t find themselves giving money, and that’s exactly how we make up the difference of school money spent and the money needed. Of course even tiny donations help.

This is more than a call for money, I am mostly exited to share this project that has been inspiring me, for years even though this is the first year I have joined the tour. We are going to be updating a newsletter weekly and putting new pictures and movie clips.
Yay,
Danbean
Ps. I am oh so stoked… and a little nervous about waking up at six thirty in the morning most days (yikes).

Daver's Mile-a-thon

2010-02-15T21:33:00.000-08:00

Daver and LA High School Students Plant the Neighborhood

Daver on the Bus!

Please joining me on this 3,000 mile journey to inspire over 10,000 children and plant 1,000 trees by sponsoring a portion of it at $1 a mile. EVERY DONATION HELPS. From $5 to $3,000, whatever you can offer. Please take the time to invest in the youth, and the health of our planet. Thank you so much!

Greetings and Blessings friends and family!

As many of you know, I have dedicated the next six weeks of my life to California based non-profit Common Vision's spring event, Fruit Tree Tour! This tour recognizes the need for better access to music, art, and healthy food in low income communities, and we strive to provide a creative solution to these problems.

As one of 20 volunteers living, working, and traveling on the worlds largest vegetable oil powered caravan, I will help create and lead a day long program which we will bring to over 30 schools and share with over 10,000 students. The program includes:

- an exciting, involved, and colorful performance designed to inspire the youth about the environment.

- Eco Beats, an expressive workshop of drumming, dancing, hip-hop, and painting.

- Fruit Tree Planting where we help kids plant over 1,000 fruit trees.

Through this process of inspiring the youth and planting fruit forests, we are helping solve environmental issues and hunger problems for years to come. This work is very important , totally satisfying, and greatly underfunded.

If you would like to help with this inspirational work, please joining me on this 3,000 mile journey by sponsoring a portion of it at $1 a mile.

EVERY DONATION HELPS. From $5 to $3,000, whatever you can offer. Please take the time to invest in the youth, and the health of our planet. Thank you so much!

Sarah's Mile-a-thon

2010-02-15T18:42:00.001-08:00

Jack's Mile-a-thon

2010-02-15T12:31:00.000-08:00

Please joining me on this 3,000 mile journey to inspire over 10,000 children and plant 1,000 trees by sponsoring a portion of it at $1 a mile. EVERY DONATION HELPS.

Hello Friends,

Many of you may have not heard from me for awhile but I just want to share with you a magical journey that I am a part of this winter. I am on the Common Vision Fruit Tree Tour the world's largest veggie oil powered caravan planting fruit trees, singing songs, a Green Theater, and mostly inspiring children to connect with food and the earth throughout California. Our focus is reaching out to children in under served communities such as South Central LA, Oakland, and also rural areas that don't have access to fresh nutritious food. Each tree we plant is a teaching opportunity for a group of kids to learn how to plant, learn about the basic science behind tree growth and the importance of local foods and connect with the earth. Check out the inspiring 5-min EMMY AWARD-winning documentary made about the project at the bottom of the page.

I have been following the amazing work this organization has been doing for the past couple of years and feel extremely blessed to be on the tour this year. This grassroots organization is people powered and community supported with a core of volunteers and a lot of community donations. As it seems to be in a lot of places, the budget is a tight one this year.
If you have some money you want to flow in the direction of making the world a better place, go ahead and support the tour! I will be sending out a personal update through my google group and through the Common Vision website.

Common Vision on NPR ~ March 2009

2009-03-26T20:38:00.001-07:00

This NPR coverage of Fruit Tree Tour at a Southern California school (Nuview Elementary with sponsor Nutrilite), really captures the magical energy of the day program.

GIVING OPTIONS:
For $25 you can dedicate a fruit tree planting at a school in someone's honor.
Also the Fruit Tree Tour Mile-A-Thon fundraiser enables you to give on many different levels. You can sponsor as many of the 3,000 miles we travel each year for only $1 a mile. The tour is definitely feeling the financial problems of the world so anything helps. Donations can be given through our PayPal account or sent by check. If you are inspired to participate in our Mile-A-Thon, please use the PayPal button below to sponsor me on this trip for only $1 a mile!

Joscelyn's Mile-A-Thon

2009-03-19T13:51:00.000-07:00

I am grateful for the honor of growing with a group that shares a similar objective: sowing seeds of hope and the impulse to assume our collective responsibility to restore earth's balance.

We are a living learning community formed by a fleet of three buses running on vegetable oil. We are 24 volunteers from diverse cultural backgrounds come together to make a better future through substantial projects.

The talent of each member is exposed in our eco-theater performance, where the people of the past and future, and nature messengers like the bird and the bear, integrate a inspirational sequence that empowers children to realize how valuable each members work is in the present for construction of healthy communities.

In the drum group we have drums made with reused materials like barrels, and buckets (bass drums), tin cans, pot tins and sticks (bells), water bottles and tin cans, round and smashed with seeds inside (shakers), complementing with the djembe drums.

Each child rotates, in order to play all of the instruments, and to bring that experience back home, making their own tools to explore rhythm. The heart beat is one of the main rhythms which the whole group gets involved in, and then we do a mini orchestra, were we play hip hop and other joyful rhythms, that are near to daily life.

The expression session group lets the children explore their own potential to speak up on how they see, and want to see, the world. This holds a space for envisioning the power of each ones truth.

Our physical seed is the tree planting, a way the children keep connected with Common Vision's inspiration, through the stewardship of the growth of the fruit tree they have planted together with the crew members, an empowering action that makes us conscious and grounded on how we can all grow food forests, so necessary in this times of global food crisis.

Complementary to this, is all of the sites that we have been camping in, from a 600 year old tree garden, and the old oaks, to the ocean, the birds, the wind in the trees, and all of nature's messengers blessing us with their greetings.

My home is now the Jah Lioness, the medicine bus, with the turtle conch protecting on the back, teaching us how the natural cycles and boundaries of the earth, are already being restored, if we learn to be present and useful.

We have the support and abundance, like the farmer's markets donations so we have enough to eat, and keep on rollin, but for now we still have other expenses, which have to be covered, and we don't have the economical resources to do it, so this is an open request for all of those who feel connected to this work, and that want to support, this is the exact moment we need you to be part of this effort. Use the Pledge button below to help make it possible.

The future generations thank you infinitely....

Published Photographer

2009-03-17T20:19:00.000-07:00

I returned to our camp site after a busy day of green theatre, planting trees, taking photos, and riding in the utility truck to be on call in case any vehicles had trouble. I then got word that a newspaper reporter urgently needed photos of the school day for an article. I got on the computer and uploaded the photos as quick as I could, chose some good ones and sent them out. The next day the article was printed in the Orange County Register with my photos included. . . read the article here. . . . Fruit tree planters roll into OC — in veggie-powered buses

Brian Flynn

2009-03-14T19:15:00.000-07:00

Thank you for taking a moment to visit my Fruit Tree Tour Mile-A-Thon page and considering to pledge your support for our tour. For the last four years, I have the amazing opportunity to join over 20 other volunteers for Common Vision’s annual Fruit Tree Tour! For 10-weeks, we travel in the world’s largest vegetable-oil powered caravan to bring our day-long program of tree planting, drumming, and creative expression to schools throughout California. Click on the video to the right to view a short clip from the Emmy Award winning documentary about Fruit Tree Tour.

One of the most amazing aspects of Common Vision is that the entire organization is run BY VOLUNTEERS! In order to continue providing scholarships to underserved schools, keeping our veggie-oil powered fleet (3 buses, 1 refrigerator truck, 1 fuel truck, 1 soil pick-up, 1 Mercedes wagon) on the road, and keeping the volunteers fed, we rely on donations from people LIKE YOU. Over 70% of our operating budget comes from individual donations! Whether a donation is large or small, every penny helps to keep our tour rolling!

Fruit Tree Tour has been the most inspiring project I've ever been a part of. I love having the opportunity every day to convert barren schoolyards to urban/suburban orchards. Getting the students out of the classroom to get their hands in the soil while learning about our connection to the food we eat and the earth we live on is an experience the students won't soon forget!

To support Fruit Tree Tour, I encourage you to use the PayPal button below to sponsor me for $1 a mile on our 3,000 mile journey. Even if you can only pledge $5, your donation is incredibly appreciated. Whatever your donation may be, thank you for putting your money towards the health of our planet and of future generations!
For more info, visit www.commonvision.org and check us out on Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube!

Interdependent Radio

2009-03-13T20:56:00.001-07:00

Documentarian Extraordinaire

2009-03-13T18:09:00.000-07:00

I've been Making Movies! Taking the footage is pretty fun but then comes the many hours of slaving over a hot computer. Its well worth the work though to be able to tell the amazing stories that happen day after day on Fruit Tree Tour. Check out my latest film on youtube.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNwIki01-r0

2009-03-13T18:05:00.000-07:00

Hanging out on the Bus after a long day of planting Fruit Trees east of LA at Nu View Elementary.

2009-03-13T18:00:00.000-07:00

Here's a nice sunset photo of turning soil at a community planting in Malibu.

Anna Apples

2009-03-13T17:53:00.000-07:00

At the campus shared by Mariposa Charter and Sumac Elementary just north of LA I was able to plant two Anna Apple trees with two groups of kids. The Anna Apple does well in the warmer climates of Southern California. I haven't tasted the apples yet but I'm looking forward to it. . .

2009-03-13T17:45:00.000-07:00

Here I am enjoying the newly remodeled interior of the Jah Lioness bus. My friend Colton refinished the bus before tour taking out the old bunks and making it more spacious by installing new hanging bunks. Also new is the Moon Gate key hole doorway. While all this remodeling was going on inside the bus I was remodeling the Vegetable oil fuel system, taking out the old tanks that had sprung a leak and installing new better designed tanks.

First Planting

2009-03-05T20:41:00.000-08:00

Here I am at our first planting in San Ramon at the MA Center. We planted 185 trees that day, and broke our record for the most fruit trees we have ever planted in one day, all on our very first day of tour! We're off to a good start!

Michael's Mile-a-thon

2009-02-26T22:46:00.000-08:00

Please joining me on this 3,000 mile journey to inspire over 10,000 children and plant 1,000 trees by sponsoring a portion of it at $1 a mile. EVERY DONATION HELPS.

Dear friends,
I am writing for your help in keeping a powerful environmental education project alive that has brought hope, inspiration, and orchards of local organic fruit to low-income schools across California. For the last 7 years I have been working as the Director of Education for Common Vision. I have poured my heart into the all-volunteer-run Fruit Tree Tour project because I have seen the impact that program had and I would be honored and grateful if you would consider giving what you can to help the project continue its service in these challenged times. This year, more schools than ever need scholarships to make the program possible. Scroll down learn more about the project and to make a small or large tax-deductible donation for the Fruit Tree Tour Mile-A-Thon.

For 6 years we have run the project Fruit Tree Tour which has impacted over 45,000 students, planted 3,500 fruit trees, and worked with over 175 schools and community organizations. The tour brings 25-all-volunteer educators and performing artists for 3 months in a vegetable-oil powered bus caravan to low-income schools and communities across California. Through a theatre piece that includes a live band, eco-hip-hop, larger-than-life puppets, and creative storytelling we inspire the students to make positive changes in their own communities. In all-day workshops, students work together to transform their schoolyard into an urban orchard, play drums together, and write & perform their own hip-hop rhymes about changes they wish to see.

Check out NPR's story on Fruit Tree Tour:

GIVING OPTIONS:
For $25 you can dedicate a fruit tree planting at a school in someone's honor.
Also the Fruit Tree Tour Mile-A-Thon fundraiser enables you to give on many different levels. You can sponsor as many of the 3,000 miles we travel each year for only $1 a mile. The tour is definitely feeling the financial problems of the world so anything helps. Thank you!!

All checks can be mailed to: Common Vision / IHC
860 Via de la Paz ~ Suite B1, Pacific Palisades CA 90272

Brian and Michael

2009-02-26T22:34:00.000-08:00

Hello family and friends,
Many of you know that we two Flynn brothers have devoted our last years to working with environmental education non profit Common Vision.

Doug Fuller

2009-02-13T17:44:00.000-08:00

Do you want to be a part of an incredible movement for sustainability? Do you want to help spread positive messages to thousands of kids? Are you looking for a tax write off that will benefit the planet? This email includes a quick and easy way to help support the 6th annual Fruit Tree Tour that Common Vision puts together. Contributing to this project has been the most fulfilling thing I’ve done and I’m sure you’ll get a lot out of giving to this cause.

This is my 3rd consecutive year volunteering with Common Vision and I hope to continue this important work for years to come. I get the opportunity to educate many kids on how to reduce their waste, make and play free musical instruments, envision how they want to shape the world and to write lyrics about it. I also drive one of our busses and participate in our daily performance that educated kids on global problems and solutions.

Common Vision is a non-profit organization that has developed a mile-a-thon fundraiser which enables people to give on many different levels. You can sponsor as many of 3,000 miles we travel each year for only $1 a mile. The tour is definitely feeling the financial problems of the world so anything helps. Donations can be given through our PayPal account or sent by check.

For the next 2 ½ months we will be educating kids about how to make a better world with your help. By the end of the tour we will have helped kids plant around 1,000 fruit trees.
If you want to directly sponsor a tree getting planted you can do that at www.commonvision.org
If you are inspired to particiapte in our Mile-A-Thon, please use the PayPal button below to sponsor me on this trip for only $1 a mile!

Thanks for reading this and considering supporting!

We will keep you regularly updated through our fun email newsletter if you wish. It will include video, photos, educational interviews, etc.
All checks can be mailed to: Common Vision / IHC
860 Via de la Paz Suite B1, Pacific Palisades CA 90272

Katelin

2009-02-09T16:11:00.001-08:00

I'm excited for Fruit Tree Tour, an epic journey that will carry me 3,000 miles, to 30 cities in California for more than 50 planting events with public school students and community members.

In the next 10 weeks, I will be:

- traveling with fellow volunteers on the world’s largest veggie fueled caravan!

- educating 10,000 students through performance, drumming, hip-hop, and planting workshops.

- planting 1000 Fruit Trees

- eating meals made from produce by local farms

- acting on my beliefs and actively creating the world I want to see.

- looking forward to every one of the 3,000 miles that lie ahead.

I’m grateful for this opportunity to share my energy in such a positive way and participate in healing the planet. This year we could really use some extra monetary energy.

Here is an opportunity for you to participate!

Fruit Tree Tour is funded through grants, sponsorships, and donations by people like you!

I invite you to use the PayPal button below to sponsor me on this tour for $1 a mile. Support me for a few miles or the whole tour! Absolutely anything helps! Please forward this to anyone you think might be inspired.

Fruit Tree Tour Mile-a-Thon

2009-02-09T12:37:00.000-08:00

Thank you for visiting the Fruit Tree Tour Mile-A-Thon page!

Common Vision's Fruit Tree Tour is on the road, an epic journey across 3,000 miles, to 30 cities in California for more than 50 planting events with public school students and community members.

Fruit Tree Tour is now:

- traveling with 25 volunteer educators in busses fueled by recycled vegetable oil

- educating 10,000 students

- planting 1000 Fruit Trees at California public school

- cooling the planet

- creating local food resources

- collaborating with community organizations

- looking forward to every one of the 3,000 miles on the road

In these times when schools are among the hardest hit, and non- profit funding is pinched- we need to work harder than ever get the tour on the road and bring healthier foods and a healthier environment to California school kids.

Common Vision is calling upon supporters to make Fruit Tree Tour 2009 possible. Please join this grassroots movement and make a donation.
Common Vision invites you to use the PayPal button below to sponsor this tour for $1 a mile.

Please take the time to help out not only the youth of our world, but also the health of this planet we live on. Thank you so much!

Christine

2009-02-09T10:54:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Christine’s Mile-a-thon page!

Here I am on tour again! This the 3rd annual Fruit Tree Tour I have had the pleasure of joining.

We are traveling the length of California planting fruit trees at schools and in communities.

Previously on Fruit Tree Tour I have been a chef. This year on Fruit Tree Tour I am Volunteer Support. The daylong school program includes tree planting with small groups of children, in which I am one of the facilitators, encouraging the kids to get their hands in the soil and thinking about where our food comes from.

It is amazing that this Nonprofit Organization is run solely by volunteers!

All the crew members of Common Vision are dedicated, hard working, above and beyond in their efforts to share a brighter vision of the future with the children.

We travel in a fleet of seven vehicles and each has been converted to run on vegetable oil.

This is the world's largest caravan, powered by recycled vegetable oil!

This crew strives to set an example, sending ripples through all of the people we encounter on the road. We aim to bring health and awareness of our Earth Mother.I truly hope you enjoy cruising this site to learn all about this project and the other elements of the school program.

The tour depends on private donations for about 70% of the total cost of tour. I am asking for your help to make this tour happen, and absolutely every bit counts!

Please help us plant up to 30 schools and communities with over 1000 fruit trees!
Use the PayPal button bellow to support the tour for only $1 a mile!
And stay tuned to our website and see the progress of our plantings.

Thank You all so much. I love and appreciate every one of you and I hope you enjoy being a part of this project!

Siobhan

2009-02-07T17:41:00.000-08:00

Common Vision is a non-profit organization that takes twenty-five volunteers down the coast of California on the world's largest waste veggie oil powered caravan. We stop at elementary schools for a rockin' day program about re-connection with our earth, focusing especially on our connection with food.

We start the day with a performance full of costumes and music and then go into hands on workshops where we plant trees, create eco-beats, and drum.

You all can contribute Common Vision if you feel so inspired. We are holding a mile-a-thon. So, for $1 a mile, you can sponsor as many miles as you can, whether that is five miles or the full 3000.

Common Vision can definitely use the funds at the moment. They have had to give more scholarships this year to schools then ever before and their big donors have tightened up donations going to non-profits because of the economic shifts happening in our country. Being that funding for the arts is being cut exponentially, few schools are able to afford such programs. This is our grassroots attempt to continue getting these essential messages to the children, our future.