Empowering Community One Garden at a Time!
Creating Access to Local, Organic Food
The Gardens Project of North Coast Opportunities' Community Action Agency is the coordinating agency for The Gardens Network and facilitates the development of community-supported gardens throughout Mendocino County.
Additionally, we support various Projects from After School Nutrition Programs, Farm-to-Cafeteria, Food Stamp Outreach, and our Food Policy Council.
The Gardens Project relieves hunger and inadequate nutrition in low-income neighborhoods, senior communities, schools, and youth enterprise projects by providing:
Education - methods for growing organic food and its nutritional, social, and economic benefits. Leadership training for garden members and organizers.
Nutrition/Physical Health - a nutritious food supply to individuals, children, and families in a physically engaging, community-supported environment.
Economic Development - life-long, transferable, and self-sustaining skills in food production, cooking, surplus food sales and reducing household food costs
The Gardens Network
We are a regional network of community-supported gardens and nutrition programs throughout Mendocino County. The partner gardens and programs reflect the diverse nature of our region and represent gardeners and participants from residential areas, low-income housing units, senior communities, community centers, K-12 schools, pre-schools, youth projects, homeless shelters, health centers, and correctional facilities.
The Gardens Network is:
- A collaborative forum for local residents and organizations to build an accessible local food system
- A resource pool of expertise, tools, materials, and financial support
- An interface for community members to participate in the formation of a local food system and the production of local produce.
Sustainability
The essential operating principle of the Gardens Network is to ensure sustainability of the individual gardens and the network as a whole. Three key ingredients to this sustainability are:
- Collaboration with local and regional partners,
- Facilitating ‘ownership' and leadership of the gardens by the gardeners
- A resource support network of garden supplies, educational materials, staff time, and financial resources.
