Training

The Common Ground garden is a visible representation of the work of Common Ground, but the Common Ground training program entails much more than helping refugees understand how to work on the farm, or to offer home services, or to work in restaurants.

Common Ground uses these and other settings to teach job skills that can be used in a variety of jobs and situations. For example, we work on customer service skills. Whether they are learning to answer the phone and write down a “take out” order or are learning to accurately determine what a home owner is needing done around the house, the most important thing our trainees learn in these role plays is how to provide cheerful, respectful, helpful customer service.

Some job attitudes are engrained in every facet of training – be on time, take responsibility, be proactive, be accurate, be respectful and helpful, call in when unable to get to work (or class), listen to directions and ask questions. Most of the things we teach can be applied throughout the marketplace.  We are not preparing gardens, or housekeeper, or waitresses, we are working to prepare qualified, well-rounded workers who would be a benefit to any company in as many areas of the job market as possible.

Everyone working together

Thank you! Thank you one and all!

It is so amazing how many people, groups and organizations from around the Treasure Valley have pitched into help with Common Ground! We are seeing the “American spirit” at work and it is amazing.

We’re posting the thank you from our newsletter.

Our Common Ground team–Farmer Mac, Devi, Debbie, Tracy, Ben, Steve, Keshav, Sandi, Justin, and Danielle.

Eastwind Community Church
Home Depot
Easy Office
Lee Rice Family Farms
Kevin and Liz Duesman
Will and Patty Northrop
The Cottengims
Western Supply Company
Integrity Plumbing
Morning Owl Farm
Peaceful Belly Farm
The IRC, ANA, WR, IOR, META, and Global Gardens
AMI Property Management
The Watercooler
Idaho Power
United Way

Dusty Acres Stables
Sage Land Design
Borbonus Landscaping
BMC West Manufacturing

Riverstone International School
Bishop Kelly
Bown Tavern Wine Market
Dream Cafe
Idaho Fry Company

Anser Charter School
Albertsons

And every individual (too many to name) who has given your time to make this happen. You are all bringing economic independence to refugees looking for hope in a new land. 

CG

Gardners at work

Summer is upon us! And with it, many families look for ways to keep enjoy time together beyond TV,  junk food and video games. Have we got a deal for you?!

Every day, Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m.  – 12 p.m.,our master gardners and landscapers are on site at the garden preparing beds, pruning, weeding, picking, and generally…gardening. You are welcome to join us any day.

What to expect

Before we start you in the garden, we will ask you to sign a volunteer application. This allows us to share our safety guidelines and make sure minors are supervised by a responsible adult.  We’ll give you a little tour and then, you’re ready to help with the tasks for that day.

What’s in it for you?

Helping at the Common Ground garden is a great way for children and teens to learn to give back to the community. They will also work side-by-side with refugees and learn a lot about our delightful friends.  All of you will get to learn a little about gardening. And, you’ll be out in the fresh air, enjoying some good physical activity. There’s something very wholesome about “grubbin’ in the dirt” and making plants grow.

So come on down to the Common Ground garden at 4750 S. Surprise Way, in Boise, and give it a try!

Victory Garden in the making

How often can you enjoy fresh garden fruits and vegetables all summer long and help give people a fresh start, too? That’s what leasing a Victory Garden Plot does.

Fresh Start: The proceeds from the Victory Garden Plots help to create and maintain the Common Ground  job-training program for refugees settling in Idaho. When you lease a plot, you are helping folks who have lost everything, including their homeland, begin again here in the U.S.   You help create economic independence for those that have the least among us.

Fresh garden vegetables and fruits: When you lease a 4′ x 8′ garden plot, our master gardeners will do all the work of planting, feeding, watering and weeding your garden bed. All you have to do is come pick you produce when it is ready. (We’ll notify you when fruits and veggies are ready to pick.)

This is definitely a winning opportunity on every level!

For more information on the Victory Garden Plots available to lease, please scroll down to Victory Garden Plots – Get ‘em While You Can.

To order your plot today, please go the the Victory Garden Order option in the right hand column of this page.

First graduation

There are many unsung heroes here at Common Ground, people who work tirelessly and few people know what they are doing. Debbie Randall is one of those heroes. Tara (Varga Russell) tell us, “Debbie is the brainchild behind the innovative + experiential Common Ground job-training curriculum. Her passion for words and people is the perfect combination for both working with this incredible international community and for continually shaping and molding the curriculum as needed. Her flexibility, fluidity really, are essential to working with this ever-changing population with ongoing needs. We couldn’t do what we do without her.”

Common Ground is all about providing economic independence for our international friends through training, and Debbie is training. Debbie, a credentialed ESL (English as a Second Language) educator, worked through the winter developing the four-week training curriculum we use with our trainees. Every day this mother of two young boys comes to class ready to give her entire morning, 5 days a week, to helping the refugees who come. Some days life happens and only one student can come, but Debbie is still there, working one-on-one with her friend. Sometimes the whole class comes and Debbie is engaging 10 people  of varying skills, educational levels and English language development and cultures. I know very few people who can respond so graciously to the ever-changing landscape of the daily training.

What I love about Debbie is that she sees each student as a person she wants to get to know. Just teaching isn’t enough, she connects with them, respecting, learning from and enjoying each one just as they are and seeing the potential they have to fulfill the dreams that blossomed in their hearts as they came to America. Debbie’s reward for her time is the people, getting to know and become friends which each one if possible.

Today was graduation day for another group of trainees. And it was a sad day, because it was Debbie’s last day in our Common Ground classroom. Debbie and her husband have a new opportunity in Washington state and will be leaving in a few weeks to start a new adventure. We are immensely thankful to Debbie for her dedication, perserverance, clarity, creativity, joy and for setting the tone for our refugee training. Lives have been enriched through you Debbie, not only our students, but those of us who have had the privilege of working with you in a small or large way. You are an amazing woman. We don’t know what we’ll do without you, but we know we wish you the very best. And hope, someday, you get to travel and make friends around the world! For yours is a life of global proportions!

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Debbie Randall!

Victory Garden in process

Sometimes you can have the best of both worlds. Imagine garden fresh vegetables, all your own, without having to plant, weed, water, weed, feed, weed…did I mention weed? That’s what a Victory Garden Plot is all about. Here’s the scoop.

We plant and maintain a 4” x 8” garden plot for you at our Common Ground garden. All you have to do is choose the type of garden you want (or totally customize the plant choices) and pick when produce is ready. We will plant, nourish, water and, yes, weed, your garden. Plots may produce as much as 500 lbs of produce, however, we cannot guarantee produce yield of any victory garden plot.

Does it get any better than this?

Your Community Victory Garden Options are:

The Victory Garden – $250.00

Farm fresh flavors for everyone! Includes: a slicing and a cherry tomato, green beans, a hot pepper and a mini bell, eggplant, variety of lettuces, snow peas, summer squash, chard, carrots, radishes, potatoes, a lemon and a slicing cucumber, melon, chives, basil, dill, cilantro, parsley, nasturtiums, marigolds, and a sunflower (or two!).

The Foodie Garden – $250.00
A fabulous selection for the home chef, includes: An heirloom Caspian pink and striped German tomato, yellow pear tomato, chard, chioggia beets, parsnips, haricot vert and yellow beans, a variety of lettuces, edamame, satsuki midori and lemon cucumbers, petit gris melon, scarlet nantes carrots, french fingerling potatoes, 4 types of basil, fennel, dill, flat leaf parsley, shallots, chives, edible nasturtiums, etc.

The Eat Global Garden – $250.00
Selections chosen by Devi, our Bhutanese farmer: a variety of asian greens incl. komatsuna, bau sin mustard; shiso, shungiko edible chrysanthemum, satsuki midori cucumbers, okra, Hokkaido squash, edamame (soy beans), lettuces, snow peas, Thai basil, shallots, chives, daikon radish, japanese white sunflowers, etc.

Space is limited so Victory Garden leased plots are available on a first come-first served basis. You can sign up here or contact Justin Cooley at justidaho@gmail.com if you have any questions.

To purchase a “Community Victory Garden”–scroll to the bottom of the page.

Have you wondered what we do in the Common Ground (CG) training? Let’s take a look. Actually, this is a half-day in the life of a Common Ground (CG) trainee.  Class begins at 9 a.m. and goes until noon. It’s amazing how much our trainer, Debbie Randall can pack into the tiny 3-hour block of classroom time.

For our trainees the day begins sometime before 7:30 a.m. when they get ready and catch the bus, sometimes changing buses twice before reaching the stop closest to the CG site. A CG volunteer (and sometimes Debbie, our trainer) picks the trainees up at the bus stop and brings them to Eastwind Community Church, which provides the facility for the training.

9:00 a.m.(depending on buses)  Hellos, settling in, backpacks opened, we all find a seat around the table.

9:30 a.m. We’re reviewing yesterday’s work. Maybe we play a flashcard game, maybe we practice a dialogue written the day before. Lots of laughter.

10:00 a.m. Debbie begins to aquaint us with today’s topic. Restaurants. We learn about what we might find in a restaurant kitchen, dining room, bakery, freezer. Some things are funny…others are puzzling (why are there so many knives?)…Asking questions and rephrasing answers are the most important part of the discussion. Well, not true, the pictures help keep us all on the same page (otherwise we may have very different perceptions of   a “mixer” 

Break Time

 or a “walk-in”).

10:30 Break – We disperse for 15 minutes…or so. Some of the guys play the foosball in the corner, others go outside for a bit of air.

10:45 Out to the garden – today just a little weeding is needed, a huge group of volunteers did most of the work on Sunday. Only a half hour or so. When crops come in we’ll be able to practice more of what we’re learning in the classroom about harvesting and selling.

11:15 Back to the classroom – Who’s in the Kitchen – that’s the topic. We learn about the various positions in a restaurant from chef to busboy. What does each person do? Who do they answer to? How do they get paid? We talk a bit about what positions are most interesting to each of us. Now comes the challenge. Debbie hands out scenarios. We are to write a dialogue for the restaurant scenario we find in our hand. One says, “You are the host. Someone is calling to make reservations.” First thing we learn, we must say more than “Hello.” We must say something like, “Hello, thank you for calling the Golden Goose. How can I help you.” When we’re finished, we practivce with a partner.

12:00  Class dismissed. How’d that happen, it’s time to go. We need to leave fairly quickly (by 12:15-ish) to make sure we catch the bus for the trip home.

And tomorrow we begin again. No day is exactly the same. But every day is filled with learning, comeraderie, and a bit of fun.

Training

It’s hard to believe we are already in the third week of training with our second group of international trainees!! Each group is unique as far as ages, abilities, countries of origin. It’s an adventure and a privilege.

Thought you all might enjoy a glimpse of the training program, since this is the crux of the matter. Common Ground is all about creating financial independce for those with the least in our community. The training program is a huge part of that.  This post we’ll take a bird’s eye look at the program.

Each week, we focus on a different set of skills, lingo and cultural issues related to working in our community.

Week One: Farm Basics

Our focus in week one is to help trainees develop a solid grasp of terms used around farm and garden work, how to follow instructions, basic skills for working the land (in a garden setting), using hand tools, and we practice their English(and often ours) through constant dialogue.

Week Two: Money Basics

This week our trainees are immersed in the intricacies of US currency, retail pricing, how to interact with customers regarding sales and pricing, and making change. We also help them understand the unigues characteristics of the US buying experiences. 

Week Three: On The Job

Focusing on the entry level jobs in which most refugees find themselves, this week, we traverse the idea of managing time, personal and work schedules, home gardening, the finer points of restaurant work, interacting with diners, the art of tipping and more.

Week Four: Job Seeking

Who enjoys job seeking? Imagine doing it  while translating every question in your head, and answering in writing in a different script. This is an important week. We cover everything from how to dress, to job interviews to resumes and follow-up. Dialogue is very important this week.

When trainees graduate, they receive documentation of the areas in which they have developed new skills. Some are quite qualified already, but having documentation can make all the difference in whether a candidate is considered for a job.

Thanks to all who came out yesterday to make it such a great event!

The heat didn’t stop any of the 70 community volunteers from coming out to get involved for “Church Without Walls Day.”

It was awesome to see people–both adults and children–working their tails off to help make the Common Ground–”Eat Local, Live Global”  community garden / small farm site a success.

We couldn’t do the experiential job training for the refugee community without your help–thank you for the role you are each playing to make this happen!

We’re currently taking orders for our Victory Garden Plots and custom Common Ground gear. To place an order for a Victory Garden Plot, please pick one of the options below:

Thanks for your support!