Fresh, Local, Healthy Food for Everyone

Community Gardens 
Community Gardens are a great way to get both children and adults involved in beautifying the neighborhood community while working with nature and growing your own fresh, local food.

Starting a Community Garden.  American Community Gardening Association

Planning a Vegetable Garden   /news/2008/dec/061801.htm

Beyond the Garden:  Ideas to increase access to fresh, locally grown food to low-income families

  • Installing raised-bed mini-gardens for families living on low incomes

  • Assisting in the creation of new community gardens

  • Publishing gardening resources for home gardeners

  • Funding equipment purchases for local community gardens

  • Distributing free garden planning slide-charts to home gardeners

  • Providing a summer stipend for a community garden advisor

  • Recruiting gardeners to share their harvests with local food pantries

  • Invite youth groups to participate in the garden

  • Donate extra produce to the local food pantry

  • Take extra produce to the Farmers Market to raise funds for the garden

  • Plan a canning or freezing day with garden members to preserve garden produce

  • Offer free plots to low-income families

 

Food Pantries and Local Food
Map and Details for Northeast Iowa Food Pantries

 

Harvest Sharing, New York.  Citizens grow food for food pantry.
http://www.gardenshare.org/harvest.html


Iowa’s HUSH program.  Donated deer meat.
http://www.iowadnr.com/other/hush/index.html


Northeast Iowa Food Bank
http://www.northeastiowafoodbank.org/managed/index.asp

 

Iowa Poverty and Needs Profile for Each County

/hunger/existingdata.htm

 

The new Spend Smart Eat Smart interactive Web site features dollar-saving tips, interactive activities, recipe videos, and blogs hosted by ISU Extension nutrition specialists.  Visitors to the site will be able to figure their family’s cost of food at home, test their smart shopping skills, and compare meals prepared at home versus eating out. 

 


Involving Churches

 

Just Eating: Practicing our faith at the table.  Leader's Guide   Participant's Guide

 

 

Involving Youth
The Campus Kitchens Project is a resourceful anti-hunger program for communities around the country.  Thousands of students each year to recycle unused food from their cafeterias, turn these donations into nourishing meals, and deliver those meals to those who need it most in communities across the country. http://www.campuskitchens.org/

 

Garden of Eating: Middle Schoolers grown own lunch

http://www.edutopia.org/garden-of-eating-middle-schoolers-grow-lunch

 

Gardening with At-Risk Youth. Seeds to Success Community Project. New York.

http://www.cyfar.rutgers.edu/seeds.asp

 

School Gardens

http://www.edibleschoolyard.org/

 

Farm to School

http://www.farmtoschool.org/

 

 

Field Gleaning

Denver, Colorado.  About 40,000 people showed up to a Weld County farm in the hopes of getting some free food.  Within an hour the food was gone. Instead of letting the remainder of the crop freeze in the ground, the farm decided to let people come and clean the fields.

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/18040980/detail.html

 

Washington Area Gleaning Network

http://www.cvc.vipnet.org/cgi-bin/cvc-view.cgi?org_id=1a061191933202f5700

 

About Gleaning: Pick crops to help feed the needy, Virginia.

http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2008/092008/09022008/405982/printer_friendly

 

Food for Your Community: Guide to Gleaning and Sharing

http://www.umext.maine.edu/onlinepubs/htmpubs/4301.htm

 

Gleaning Initiative: How Americans can help recover food (USDA)

http://www.usda.gov/news/pubs/gleaning/five.htm

 

 

 

CSA Shares for Low-income families

Iowa City, IA.  http://www.localfoodsconnection.org/

Local Foods Connection purchases produce, bread, eggs, meat and other products from local earth-friendly farms and donates these goods to families who cannot afford such nutritious, tasty and fresh food.

 

CSA partnership with local farms and Cooperative Extension in New Yourk http://www.earlymorningfarm.com/emf_foodforall.html

 

Food Shares Program, Wisconsin.

http://www.cals.wisc.edu/wfsp/psp.html

 

Share Iowa.  A community service and food program.                                   

http://www.shareiowa.com/

 

 

 

Farmers Market Programs

Iowa Farmers Market EBT program
http://www.dhs.iowa.gov/Consumers/Assistance_Programs/FoodAssistance/FarmersMarket.html

 

Iowa Farmers Market Nutrition Program (WIC and Senior coupons)

http://www.iowaagriculture.gov/Horticulture_and_FarmersMarkets/farmersMarketNutritionProgram.asp

 

"That's my Farmer":  A handbook on starting a grassroots farmers market coupon program.

 

Policy Change

Vancouver City Councilors issued a challenge to establish more food-producing gardens in Vancouver.  Creation of 2010 new garden plots in the city by January 1, 2010.

http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/socialplanning/initiatives/foodpolicy/projects/2010gardens.htm

 

 

Shared Garden Space

Sharing Garden Space or Looking for Garden Space, Vancouver.  Google Maps.

http://www.sharingbackyards.com/browse/Vancouver,BC&welcome_box=3#

 

Yard Sharing Matching service. Portland, Oregon.  Google Maps

http://www.yardsharing.org/

 

 

12/18/2008