Last year, my business had the opportunity to partner with a charity and build a community garden at our local youth center. In one day, the community came together, young and old, to build raised beds and a fence to surround the garden. Now the youth center includes gardening as an after-school activity for the kids. They feed them after school snacks and meals out of the garden, and send the extra produce home to their families.
Seeds of Grace (dreambigaskbold.org), the non-profit
that organized and fundraised for the event, has now built nine community
gardens in Washington State and Mexico. Each garden donates their produce to a
specific organization to help the community. Homeless shelters, food banks,
after school programs, and Meals on Wheels are a few of the recipients.
I sat down with Seeds of Grace
founder, Karole Johnson, to ask her how others can start building community
gardens where they live. She offered several helpful suggestions based on her
own experiences.
