Many of you may have noticed the sign, but have no idea what lies behind it. Tucked into a small corner of MHS is Cornucopia. This pilot program "focuses on going back to nature and modeling a more natural lifestyle that in turn can provide a better quality of life." Founded in 1998

Debra Bianco , President and Co-founder

Remy O'Neill, Vice President and Co-founder

contact at: malibuag@aol.com

Start up the path, where different fragrances invite you in.

Take some time to look,

 Cornucopia provides a training laboratory for Webster, Cabrillo and MHS.
If we can connect people to the joy and beauty of Nature and the marvel of how Nature actually designs and functions, then they will have a vested interest in protecting it and learning its stunning lessons.  Imagine manufacturing without hazardous chemicals and pollutants and accumulating greenhouse gases. Imagine no wast and all things breaking down to nurture oher natural systems. Nature does it every day, all day, and has for billions of years.
really look!!

Next step, an organic garden

     The creation of this Cradle to Cradle mentality for sustainablity, is the reason Cornucopia was founded in 1998. We decided that one of the easiest ways to connect people to Nature was outdoors and also in the garden. Our 1/1/2 acre Environmental Learning Center behind Malibu High School, was a degraded piece of land, full of fennel with a degraded stream and a big concrete drainage culvert. It was hand-cleared, mulched and native plants to supporting all forms of wildlife and pollinators plus water conservation were established and interspersed with fruit trees and herbs. Atree-stump Outdoor Classroom with shade arbor now seats 100 who not only learn from their teachers, but can directly work and observe on the land. That concrete culvert is now a beautiful boulder-lined dry creek bed.

     The programs and events that have and are taking place at Cornucopia's Environmental Learning Center are:    
1. The Juan Cabrillo Elementary School Before & After School Enrichment Program. Teacher Zoe Langley has incorporated Cornucopia's Nature As Teacher and the class maintains the big worm farm and has taken the pumpkin cycle from seed planting through growing, a harvest parade, preparation, cooking - both soup and pies, and scraps to the worm farm to create great fertile worm castings.

2. Ongoing Riparian Restoration of the creek and banks with natives. Both National Parks Service and Cornucopia teach these.

3. Family Gardening every other Sunday from 9am-3pm and the potluck is from 1-3pm. Since this now attracts a varied ethnicities, people are happily exchanging heirloom seeds and recipes. They are getting ready to plant an edible cactus garden and people are harvesting the watercress now growing in the stream.

4. Kids can earn Community Credits working at Cornucopia

5. A Bi-Lingual group, headed by psychologist, Ana Maria Gutierrez, is using gardening, cooking, picnicking and story-telling at Cornucopia to combat the damage of domestic abuse.

6. Cooking classes for high school students in conjuction with local chefs, have just started. They teach life and social skills, working in teams and they emphasize organic locally grown foods. The first graduating dinner just took place with our excited Young Chefs, in their long chef's aprons, serving their parents and invited guests a full banquet dinner. The parents were stunned and delighted at what they had learned. All of the kids are interested in continuing our next courses.

7. Starting shortly will be a joint project between Cornucopia and Juan Cabrillo Elementary School, featuring once a month family cooking night - again emphasizing organic, locally grown foods. We believe that this helps foster sustainable families which are also an endangered species.

8. The City of Malibu's Book of the Year event will be held at Cornucopia this year.

9. All teachers in the Santa Monica Malibu School District have access to field trips at our Outdoor Classroom

10. Cornucopia has a beautiful biology laboratory cottage which was built and donated by two  benefactors. It is meant to headquarter the Citizen Scientis curriculum from the esteemed Cornell Ornithology Lab. At this writing, we still need electricity, certain furnishings and funds for the teacher in order to launch this wonderful part of our program.