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Garden of Health planting seeds to provide special dietary foods for those in need
Garden of Health planting seeds to provide special dietary foods for those in need.
SOUDERTON » Garden of Health lists its mission as being to “help communities get healthy one community at a time one person at a time.” Ultimately, though, founder Carol Bauer says, the goal is to help food pantries nationwide provide special dietary foods — such as allergy friendly, gluten-free, low sodium or low carbohydrate foods — to its clients who have conditions requiring those foods. Roughly 25 percent of the population has either diabetes, heart disease, food allergies or celiac disease, requiring those special diets, she said.
“The food pantries get very few special dietary foods in because they can cost so much more. They can cost up to four times what the regular version of it is,” Bauer said.
The result is that people with special dietary needs who go to a food pantry often end up not going back a second time, she said.
“If they have food allergies, it’s really hard to find stuff that doesn’t include some of the top eight allergens, so they just kind of give up on using the pantries, which is a shame,” Bauer, a Souderton resident, said. “They need that help and they don’t have any place to go so my goal is to get it so there are places to go.”
Garden of Health, which received its nonprofit organization designation in February, is working with corporations that make special dietary foods and reaching out to local individuals, churches and other organizations for food drives and contributions to provide those special dietary foods, she said.
Garden of Health is also working with local food pantries to help identify clients that have special dietary needs and is offering to help sort out special dietary foods that
are received.
“We’ll help them set up a certain area if they want it so that those clients know where to go and can just quickly identify the foods that they need as being there,” Bauer said.
The local pantries Garden of Health is working with include Keystone Opportunity Center, Pennridge FISH, Manna on Main Street and Shepherd’s Shelf, she said.
Using gardening space provided by Zion Mennonite Church, Garden of Health has also helped four families who are Keystone Opportunity Center food pantry clients set up gardens that will give additional fresh produce for the families this summer, Bauer said.
For next year, she’d like to start a larger community garden where food pantry clients could volunteer, then receive the fresh produce, with additional produce grown there going to the food pantries or senior housing communities, Bauer said.
The community garden could also be used to teach others about growing their own garden, she said.
“People could learn how to grow their own organic produce no matter
“The food pantries get very few special dietary foods in because they can cost so much more. They can cost up to four times what the regular version of it is.” — Carol Bauer
how much space they have, whether it’s a pot on a patio or whether it’s a small, like three foot by three foot raised bed, or all the way up to much bigger,” Bauer said.
“Especially in raised beds, it’s very easy to grow organically,” she said. “Get a load of mushroom soil, throw it in there. That’s what I do. I have raised beds at home. I fill them with mushroom soil and the amount of produce that comes out of that is amazing.”
Another of the Garden of Health goals is to hold classes teaching people to eat better and make health- ier meals.
Still another goal is to have a group of volunteers glean fields at local farms at the end of the crop season, with the food that is harvested going to places such as food pantries, lowincome senior housing communities and domestic violence shelters, Bauer said.
“We think of farmers as getting everything out of the fields that they produce, but that’s not always necessarily true,” Bauer said.
“They may not have the manpower,” she said, “or they’ve gotten to a point where they’re done with that crop and they’ve moved on to the next crop.”
Information about Garden of Health is available at www.gardenofhealthinc. org, the gardenofhealthinc Facebook page or by calling 267-664-4397.
Donations may also be made through the website. Lists of specific food items being sought can be provided for individuals or groups to do food drives, Bauer said.
Volunteers are needed for things such as to help with the gardens, food drives, provide garden supplies or places to have a garden, help with social media and website updates, run fundraisers or be board members.
“My goal is to continue to reach out and find places for next year to get bigger gardens to be able to help more people,” Bauer said, “just help the community in general get healthy as much as we can.”