San Diego Green Building Council chose National City’s Olivewood Gardens as their legacy site for 2021 and will be continuing work they began in 2020 to revitalize the newest parcel of land acquired by the learning center.
The historic 7.85-acre Olivewood Gardens and Learning Center property serves as an interactive, indoor-outdoor classroom for children and adults from around San Diego County.
The San Diego Green Building Council is a community of building industry professionals and sustainability advocates with expertise in areas such as architecture, construction, design, urban planning, policy who work together to promote sustainable building and community practices throughout the region.
Jessica Joelson, a co-chair on the council’s Legacy Project Committee also volunteers at Olivewood Gardens and said the two non-profits are a good match for each other.
“The Green Building Council’s focus is to drive efficiencies and promote a green environment. They do a lot of training sessions to help designers and architects promote a greener lifestyle. When we put in the cistern to help water plants at Olivewood, that’s a good example of the council’s targeted approach, to not rely on city water,” Joelson said.
Olivewood, she said, was a natural pitch for 2021 organizations the council considered supporting. The facility had already received funding from the Green Building Council in 2020 and continuing on developing the new space was a logical choice for the 2021 award.
“They have a new acre of space, the ability to make a sustaining contribution to the community, they won’t require ongoing maintenance— it fits the bill,” Joelson said.
Each year, after choosing which organizations they will support, the council typically provides support in the form of professionals who donate their time and expertise.
“It’s like a second job for a couple months. In 2020, we probably had ten donors, all from different companies,” Joelson said.
Each company tends to bring volunteers to complete their portion of the larger plan. Over the course of two years, Joelson said, there have been over 500 different volunteers participating in the council’s projects.
“One of the biggest projects in 2020 was to take basically a blank slate where they wanted to expand food production to give to local elementary schools and put it into a master plan. I contributed labor hours, laid out an entire plan… there was a lot of project management,” Joelseon said.
In addition to coordination gutter installation, rain barrels were installed to make use of natural resources, she said.
The 2021 selection was officially announced at the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo on Sept. 21, Joelson said, but the work being completed at Olivewood Gardens is a continuation of 2020s projects, including a big landscape design project.
Visit olivewoodgardens.org for more information on their classes and activities.
