King Kitsap Pierce Skagit Snohomish
WSU Snohomish County Extension created The WSU Growing Groceries Volunteer Mentor Program to increase the capacity of communities and families to grow healthy food.
In 2009, there was a sharp rise in calls to the WSU Snohomish County Extension office from both families and groups wanting to grow community and food bank gardens. Fueled by record unemployment in the county number of people seeking food at food banks rose sharply. Compounding the problem was that many of these new clients had once been donors to food banks, further reducing food bank supply while demand increased.
In response to this need, Sharon Collman and Bick Hang called a meeting of those already interested in food gardening and teaching others (Jana Ferris of WSU 4-H, Colleen Fullmer of the WSU Food Sense Program, Wendy McClure of the Everett Office of Neighborhoods, and others in Everett Tilth, Sustainable Everett, Green Everett, Bayside P-Patch).
Together we identified existing resources that would allow a quick start-up, and began planning a volunteer training one means of increasing the number of trained volunteers available to help instruct those wanting to build community and food bank gardens or increase their family role in growing food.
The program has several components
- Training volunteer mentors
- 35 in 2009,
- 19 in 2011 and
- 29 in 2012.
- Organized Events:
- Growing Grociers Expo (January, 2009)
- Growing Groceries Community Fair (Fall, 2009)
- Growing Groceries Coordinator Potluck
- Growing Groceries Learning Fair (March, 2011)
- Website Resource List
- Still in it's flegling state and will include a growing list of WSU and other resources relevant to the Pacific Northwest growing conditions.
- Community and School Gardens
- Built by
students from U.W. Bothell
-
Resource lists,
- How to information
- interviews from current community garden activitists,
- ample donation request letters and thank you letters and general encouragement and
- map of all school gardens in Washington
- Snohomish County Community Gardens* and Resources
- Listed by community
- Gardens and community resources such as food banks
- Other County Community Gardens* and Resources
- expansion for other county information.
- GrowFood Listserv
- for disseminating and sharing information within WA.
- * Community Gardens
- Sharon J. Collman- 425)357-6025
- Horticulture and IPM
- Bick Hang- 425-357-6022
- Healthy Families
- Master Gardener Hotline 425-357-6010
To locate a neighborhood, city, church, community, school, resident, MG demo, P-patch, or food bank garden near you, take a look at this list of community gardens located in Snohomish County. The list is currently being updated. If you have a community garden to list contact collmans@wsu.edu Gardens can be listed by street address or if it is a sensitive privacy issue listed by nearby coordinates. A contact person would be make it easier for residents in your community to locate your garden or other resources.
The gardens will be listed by local within the county, along with food banks, and other community resources.
First year results are described at March 10 Extension 'Cord: http://snohomish.wsu.edu/extension/extensioncords/hortextcord.pdf
For more information contact WSU Snohomish Co. Extension
News feed/ Events
For WSU Extension Snohomish County events, see our Calendar
WSU Growing Groceries Volunteer Mentor Training - Next training is 2014
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