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The Seed Vol. 44 February 1, 2011 A Giving Tree Gardens Newsletter
Photos by Colin Cureton and Art Serotoff ©2011 ,
Text by Russ Henry
©2011 by Giving Tree Gardens, all rights reserved.
An optimist looking over their own garden fence might be inclined to say something like “Wow, the vegetable patch is half full.” A pessimist looking at the same plot would say, “shucks, the vegetable patch is half empty.” but when a giving person comes upon that same garden they say “Look at all those vegetables, I’m going to go find some hungry people.”
Gardeners are natural givers, because the garden teaches us the importance of giving. When we give our plants compost, they thrive and produce. When we give our bodies home grown foods, we thrive and are productive. When we share all this productive health by giving the gift of access to gardening to folks who wouldn’t otherwise have it, we share one of the most profoundly transformative gifts imaginable. For many a gardener there’s almost no greater feeling then to share a skill, tool, piece of land, or even just a nice conversation that will help another gardener grow. Minneapolis is a giving and green city. As a gardener and volunteer, there’s never a shortage of great organizations here that I can get involved with in order to share the gifts gardening can give.
Get ready for Growth with a
home consultation from
Giving Tree Gardens.
We'll help you turn your yard into an
oasis of health and beauty!
Thinking of Going Green? Start by Growing Green!
These organizations can help residents, neighborhoods, and groups in Minneapolis and St. Paul learn to live and grow sustainably!
Midtown Farmers Market: Shop for locally grown organic foods, and meet your farmers and neighbors!
Diamond Stone Oriental Medicine: Your first wealth is health. Treat your body with love, care, and expertise!
Sister's Camelot provides free organic food to folks in need throughout the Twin Cities!
Kids learn to grow, cook, and sell food. Sharing skills that will sustain for a lifetime!
Offering on-site energy and sustainability consultations for families, businesses, and non-profits in Minnesota!
Rainwater is not only the best water for your gardens, but it's free! Don't let another drop go to waste!
No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.
Gardening Matters tell us on their website that right now,
“A collaboration of individuals and organizations are working together to develop neighborhood-based local food resource hubs that would support growing, selling and preserving of food by households, community gardeners, and urban farmers all within their community.”
This is some of the most important work that is happening to help preserve our environment, strengthen our local economies and boost our communal well being.
Gardening Matters website states that the plan for this year includes these main focus areas:
- Serve as local points of distribution for physical resources
- Provide physical space for education classes
- Focus on building leadership capacity at the community level
- Develop a community network of gardeners and urban farmers that are able to support one another,
- Build community connections
The organizing work that is currently underway is truly impressive. In South Minneapolis one of the hubs that is forming includes some very well known volunteer driven organizations that have each been encouraging gardening in their own ways and improving the quality of life in Minneapolis for a very long time. Here’s a few of the heavy hitters:
Homegrown food is homegrown health and wealth! From the soil to the market, this organization prepares tomorrow’s city farmers for a successful and healthy future.
Youth Farm utilizes their 9 garden sites that sit on over 2 acres of city land to produce, and distribute over 11,000 pounds of organically grown garden produce each year, while 400 volunteers give over 4,000 hours to serve the 500 youth that are enrolled in the program. Now those are some impressive numbers.
Utilizing experiential education and training, in gardens and greenhouses Youth Farm builds youth leadership through planting, growing, preparing, and selling food. Youth Farm and Market Project currently works in 3 Twin Cities’ neighborhoods, Lyndale and Powderhorn in Minneapolis, and the West Side of St. Paul.
I love how Youth Farm teaches all of us that if we are to raise children who honor themselves and their community, we must honor our children by giving them our best. Organic gardening is among the most sustainable food production methods that we can teach our youth, and Youth Farm is at the forefront of educating twin cities youth to build a sustainable future. Click here to find out about volunteering with Youth Farm!
Sabathani Community Center is one organization that has been increasing folks access to food, health, and wealth since they opened their doors back in 1966.
The community center’s latest addition of a computer lab adds to a long list of services and resources that Sabathani effectively offers including a food shelf, a senior center, a donation clothing closet, a tax service, and a large community garden.
I spoke with Art Serotoff, Sabathani’s Health and Wellness Manager about their community garden space. This community garden offers large 20 feet by 20 feet plots for neighborhood residents to come grow their own food in. Offering this level of access to land in addition to the regular offerings of garden classes run on-site by experts from the University of Minnesota’s extension program allows gardeners who wouldn’t otherwise have any access a foot in the door to start producing their own health and wealth. To get involoved with Sabathani's good gardening work call 612.821.2300 and ask for Art Serotoff.
Serving the Phillips neighborhood since 1969, Waite House’s offerings include a food shelf, gymnasium, classrooms, a kitchen, and a beautiful community garden. Operating with a holistic approach that acknowledges the diversity of their participants’ cultural backgrounds, languages spoken and life circumstances, Waite House is building strong relationships and offering programs that empower and encourage active participation in order to create positive changes within the community. The folks at Waite House will be yet another giving and growing partner in the south Minneapolis gardening resource hub.
Food is the basic tool for achieving health and wealth. Access to gardening reduces the cost of food and increases our food's health-giving potential. If you are a gardener that would like to help your community grow, consider volunteering time at any of these great organizations and help your community grow strong!
We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles, rather than by the quality of our service relationship to humanity.
How lovely to think that no one need wait a moment: we can start now, start slowly changing the world! How lovely that everyone, great and small, can make a contribution toward introducing justice straight away.
In every community there is work to be done.
In every nation there are wounds to heal.
In every heart there is the power to do it.
Gardening Matters, a Minneapolis based non-profit agency has been busy organizing several social service providers city-wide in order to help them work together in the garden. Many local agencies such as Waite House, Sabathani Community Center, and Youth Farm and Market Project have been working to increase Minneapolis residents’ access to gardening for decades. Gardening Matters plan is to link up all these great organizations along with local gardening volunteers and businesses to create Garden Resource Hubs that residents in need can access for garden classes and information, planting space and gardening resources.
Gardening Matters is working with activists, businesses, and neighbors from across the city in order to have the resource hubs up and running by the spring of 2011. In the meantime, this month’s issue of The Seed will introduce you to a few of the grand gardening groups getting together to give their green gifts through the gardening resource hubs. If you’re a gardener with some time to give, you may consider a donation of your expertise and elbow grease to some of these great organizations. Scroll down to find out more!
ATTN: GARDENERS
Don't waste garden planning time
stuck in the snow!
Giving Tree Gardens offers high quality residential and commercial
For the greater Minneapolis area!
Gardeners Get Involved!
Sabathani Community Center Serving the community in south Minneapolis since 1966. Community Garden and much more!
When gardeners get involved in their community they make a more beautiful future. These Youth Farm and Market Project gardeners are leading the path toward a sustainable future.
With so many giving gardeners in Minneaoplis, this is one green and growing city. Even in such a progressive place as this, a truly sustainable future won't be possible until we all take part in growing our own food. The work of uniting our communities in the garden is among the most important work being done to protect the planet and grow a sustainable community here at home.
Gardening is fun, and so are gardeners! Get to know some down to Earth friends by volunteering in a garden like these happy folks working in the community garden at Sabathani Community Center.
Youth Farm and Market Project grows healthy food and happy gardeners!
