Magic Incorporated

Cooperation & Individual Well-being - In Palo Alto 28 residents from 12 countries and 10 states and in Mammoth Lakes seven residents from two countries and three states flourished as valuescience based residential service learning communities. Four Palo Alto fellows, five Palo Alto residents, the Magic Mammoth fellow and two residents, a Magic founding board member, and four Magic affiliates joined in an organizational "advance" in the Eastern Sierra. We strengthened our partnerships within the communities movement by introducing to valuescience 40 people who are forming the Abundant Ponds community, advising a recent Magic resident in establishing Rainbow Junction Community, consulting with Montaia Community's founder about her new initiatives, publishing "Generational Bonding" in Communities magazine, hosting a Churchill Fellow community researcher from the UK, and becoming sponsors of the Foundation for Intentional Community. With Reduce Waste. Feed People. we collected 17 tons of surplus food from 24 California Avenue Farmers' Market vendors, sorted it, and delivered acceptable items to Community Services Agency and to 1,000 Grains for distribution to hundreds of hungry fellow humans through food bank, hot meal, and nutrition education programs. We delivered over 450 hours of instruction in hatha yoga, swimming, running, biking, resistance training, and nutritional counseling.

Environmental Stewardship - A hundred volunteers gave 600+ hours to plant 20 oaks, irrigate 200, and maintain 2,000 on public access open space visited by 500,000 people each year. We completed a partnership with Stanford's Fukami Lab to establish 512 plants at 16 research sites around the Stanford Dish. Magic was featured on the Plant a Trillion Trees Podcast and in The Tree Collectors by New York Times bestselling author Amy Stewart. We grew Silicon Valley Barcode of Life both on the SF Midpeninsula and the Eastern Sierra, deploying Malaise traps at five sites and hand collecting hundreds of unique specimens. We published, "So You Think You Don't Like Bugs?" in The Sheet, the Mammoth Lakes newspaper.SVBOL principal scientists were among 20 biodiversity researchers who participated in a California Insect Biodiversity Initiative strategic planning meeting with former California Governor Jerry Brown at his rural retreat. We received permits to collect on Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District lands, and we completed the first of several planned deployments of a dozen Malaise traps at Stanford's Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve. Our affiliate Escondido Outings Club organized rafting trips for 75 participants on six different rivers in Northern California: camping trips for 70 in Yosemite and other places; and ski trips for 30. We adopted as a sponsored project Project Green Home--a LEED Platinum, net zero energy Passive House used extensively for education public awareness (4000 visitors since 2008) that is featured in annual Peninsula Electric Home Tours.