Bay-area gardens produce community benefits
Houston nonprofit Urban Harvest has planted a seed in the Bay Area with gardens that are flourishing as sites to grow local food and build communities.
Local community gardens include: San Jacinto Community Garden, 2005 Ave. N½ in Galveston; Providence Garden at Saint Christopher Episcopal Church, 2508 St. Christopher Ave in League City; the Bay Area Unitarian Universalist Church Community Garden, 17503 El Camino Real in Houston; and Challenger 7 Community Garden, 2301 NASA Road 1 in Webster.
Urban Harvest’s executive director, Sandra Wicoff, said the nonprofit was established in 1994 to help individuals gain access to healthy foods — to feed themselves and revitalize the community.
Now Urban Harvest supports more than 100 community gardens, which vary in type. Some offer an opportunity for neighbors to grow food together and others at schools provide a hands-on learning environment for children. Donation gardens supply fresh fruits and vegetables to feed those in need.
San Jacinto Community Garden’s manager, Kay Sandor, has been part of that garden since in 1999, when Galveston City Council agreed to sell the site to San Jacinto Neighborhood Association for $1.
Volunteers from the association cleared the land and began to work.
“We did all the labor ourselves,” Sandor said. “And this little green space we created changed the whole neighborhood. We think community gardens are that powerful.”
Volunteers built a gazebo and installed a fountain on the site.
After Hurricane Ike devastated the garden in 2008, “we had to start all over again,” Sandor said. “Urban Harvest gave us an award for most tenacious garden.”
Now the garden is back to its former glory and has become a gathering spot used for picnics and meetings.
During the first weekend of June, the garden hosts an annual plant sale. In the meantime, neighbors gather there to weed, plant and harvest.
“We have such an array of gardeners,” Sandor said. “These are people who wouldn’t meet anywhere else besides in the garden.”
The space is open to the public from 9 a.m. to noon on the third Saturday of each month.
Volunteers needed
The garden at the Bay Area Unitarian Universalist Church was created in 2012 as part of a congregation initiative to connect to area residents and make lasting change.
“We invite members of the church and of the community to work with us,” garden administrator Nathan Veatch said. “It’s one way to get into gardening because we have some very good gardeners around who can advise on what to grow and when to grow it.”
The garden has 20 beds, of which a number are reserved for growing produce to provide to charitable organizations such as Bay Area Turning Point and Interfaith Caring Ministries.
Volunteers are needed, Veatch said. A workday occurs from 8:30 a.m. to noon on the second Saturday of each month.
Gardening space is also reserved for members who harvest for weekly church meals.
Area residents are invited to rent a plot to grow their own food.
“In our church, we don’t have enough gardeners,” Veatch said. “So, we would love it if people came to garden here.”
Oscar Nelson, manager of the Challenger 7 Community Garden, is also looking for a few more hands to help.
“I’m having trouble getting people to volunteer,” he said.
All of the produce is donated to local charities. Weekly volunteer workdays are slated from 8-11 a.m. on Saturdays and from 5-8 p.m. on Tuesdays.
“It’s good to help other people, and you get a reward, too,” he said.
Learning to grow
The Providence Garden at St. Christopher Episcopal Church, which started in 2008 as a way for the congregation to provide produce for the food pantry at Interfaith, is undergoing a major change.
At first, members planted a small garden.
“It failed, because we didn’t know what we were doing,” garden ministry leader Ally Hardick said.
Then she took a class with Urban Harvest that prepared her to take on a larger project.
The head pastor, the Rev. Dr. Tom Day, agreed to clear more land and add raised beds. Members made space for a greenhouse and an orchard.
“We were just growing and giving it all away, bringing it to the food pantry,” Hardick said.
But the group realized that the bigger problem of food insecurity in the region was not going away and wanted to do more.
“We need to change this,” Hardick said. “And we need to get kids involved and teach them how to grow food.”
Hardick said that more than 20 percent of the children in Galveston County don’t have enough food.
She worked with church members to create a 10year plan to steer away from the current one-way avenue of donations toward a more interactive ministry.
Phased project starts
The first phase is to create a committee that will discuss projects, funding and outreach. Members will also redesign the garden’s layout to make better use of cultivated space, replace tools and dilapidated structures and find a parttime garden manager and program administrator.
The second phase will be to create an outdoor teaching pavilion, a fence for the garden and a driveway to make everything accessible.
The goal is to offer free programs such as a junior master gardening course, cooking and nutrition classes and family gardening events.
Hardick has started a course about healthy diet choices in which children and their families visit the garden, pick vegetables, make fresh juices and learn quick recipes.
“It’s all about getting kids out in the garden,” she said. “When they plant it and pick it on their own, they can’t wait to eat it. It just works.”
Hardick is eager to see the project move forward.
“My goal is to flip things around, make a difference and make gardening cool again,” she said.
To meet the program’s objectives, the church will need volunteers and donors.
“We need people showing up on a regular basis,” she said. “There’s something to do here every day.”