Archive for May, 2011

by Ronni Lacroute

I have had a relatively long relationship with the Oregon Food Bank in that I began donating to this fine organization shortly after arriving in Oregon. When I lived in California, I donated to the community food bank there, both financially and in kind because I grew abundant fruit and donated the excess harvest to the food bank every season (mostly citrus fruit).  After moving to Oregon in 1997, I discovered the OFB and learned of their mission to end the food insecurity in Oregon and SW Washington that causes poor health and impaired cognitive development in children as well as behavioral problems and impaired academic performance. Childhood hunger is extremely  detrimental to the health of the entire community. Since food donations only go part way towards solving the problem of food insecurity, I was especially interested in the Oregon Food Bank’s emphasis on education, teaching clients how to grow and prepare their own food so they would not be dependent on less nutritious fast food or only canned and shelf stable donated foods. Through education in gardening and nutrition, clients have more ability to feed their families with highly nutritious foods, so I decided to invest resources in the development of the new Garden Education Center in the new Oregon Food Bank West facility in Beaverton, which began to serve the community West of Portland and Beaverton area in 2010.

This post was written by Ronni Lacroute, owner and founder of WillaKenzie Estate.
For full bio please click here: http://willakenzie.com/about/people-matter/ronni-lacroute/

Come to WillaKenzie to recycle your corks!  We have partnered with Cork Forest Conservation Alliance (www.corkforest.org) to become a collection point for used corks. These corks will be reincarnated into those pulp shippers used for wine shipping.  We are really happy to be helping out a local organization; especially one, which directs affects the wine industry.

Here are some things we learned from Patrick Spencer, Executive Director at CFCA (Cork Forest Conservation Alliance):

- Cork is a natural, renewable, recyclable and biodegradable material that is obtained through environmentally friendly harvesting process.

- Trees are not cut down to harvest cork; rather the bark is hand harvested every nine years. Cork oak trees live up to 200 years old.

- The cork forests extend over 6 million acres across Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.

- Containing one of the world’s highest levels of forest biodiversity, this region supports ecosystem services including air quality, climate (eg CO2 sequestration), and prevention of erosion.

- Cork oak trees store carbon in order to regenerate their bark, and a harvested cork oak tree absorbs up to five times more than one that is not [harvested].

You can recycle your corks at WillaKenzie Estate’s tasting room daily 11am to 5pm.