KNOWLEDGE GARDEN PROJECT PROPOSAL

This post is excerpted from a project proposal that linked the Knowledge Garden with Chabot’s FRESH Food Pantry. The project had two features. The first was to leverage the Garden as a source of fresh vegetables to be provided to the weekly food pantry. The 2nd feature of the proposal was to support teachers to conduct  Garden-Based Action Learning.

This proposal outlines a collaboration between Chabot’s FRESH Food Pantry and Chabot teachers who will leverage the Chabot Knowledge Garden in two ways: 

1.  Providing fresh vegetables and fruit to the pantry;

2.  Conducting Action Learning in the Garden.

Chabot College is located in a region of Hayward, California, that meets the US Federal designation of a Food Desert. In addition, many Chabot students come from surrounding service areas that also meet the Food Desert designation. One of the features of a Food Desert is lack of access to fresh fruits and vegetables. 

In addition, most Chabot students report that they have very little access to gardens or to nature. Many students live in apartments or in suburban houses, and as such do not have easy access to gardens or nature. One consequence of this nature/garden deficit is that because Chabot students have almost no experience with gardening, they have almost no understanding about how gardens work. This lack of access to gardens and nature--and to what gardens and nature provide--is a kind of deprivation, and thus a source of inequity. 

This project proposal seeks to alleviate these inequities. The Chabot Knowledge Garden is a food oasis and a nature oasis. The site covers 7,000 square feet, and features over 25 fully irrigated plots for growing vegetables and herbs. In addition, the Chabot Knowledge Garden features an outdoor school house, a pond, a composting area, several picnic tables, and 8 fruit trees. 

Project Parameters:  

1. Grow fresh vegetables and herbs for the FRESH food pantry  year-round:

Last year’s pilot Knowledge Garden food dispersal program resulted in over 2 tons of food being pulled from the Knowledge Garden and integrated into FRESH pop-up pantries. This proposal endeavors to build the capacity to continue to do this throughout the year. In order to continue to deliver food in the fall/winter months, we will acquire wooden planters to be dispersed indoors around the Chabot campus as part of a program called “Adopt-A-Planter.” Planters will be placed in sunny in-door areas that allow for winter crop growth. Chabot staff, clubs, classes, and areas will be invited to adopt a planter installed near them. SIC personnel will support these volunteers to make sure that each planter is properly cared for. As the veggies and herbs become ready, SIC personnel will harvest and bring them to the FRESH pantry. 

2. Provide a teaching/learning environment where FRESH’s clients can learn more about food, nutrition, and gardening. 

There is an entire cycle of work and effort that goes into every vegetable grown. For most of our students, all of this remains invisible because they have no access to gardens or nature. To address this problem, we propose that FRESH clients be given the opportunity to learn about a garden’s  growth cycle in a hands-on way. SIC personnel will create and provide materials that demonstrate to FRESH clients (who of course are mostly Chabot students) that they can create their own gardens, and grow their own food. 

This is Action Learning at its most robust: For example, SIC personnel will give FRESH clients the opportunity to harvest herbs right from the planters. This project also bridges students back to their cultures and families. Many Chabot students report that they have family members who engage in gardening--but that the students feel completely cut off from these endeavors. This project will help shrink this generational divide. 

What this proposal advocates for is providing FRESH clients the opportunity to learn how to take more control of the growing of the food they eat. This collaboration between FRESH and the Knowledge Garden will help to alleviate the food deserts that our students live in, and will in addition invite students into the rich world of gardening, as well as the Nature that surrounds it all. 

Garden-based Action Learning promotes:

• Culturally responsive teaching

• Improvements in the sciences, math, and English

• Interacting with bacteria in the soil improves cognitive function

• Provides reason to learn math, english, science

• Increases positive attitudes toward learning