I was listening to NPR this week and heard of a program called “Lettuce Links” in the Seattle area that collects seeds and gives them to local low-income families so I looked it up. In their own words, here’s some of the things Lettuce Links does:
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We encourage people to grow food for their families. To promote self-sufficiency, we distribute seeds, plant starts and gardening information to low-income gardeners all over the city.
- We educate children about nutrition and sustainable food production. Also at Marra farm, we facilitate experiential learning programs so elementary students learn about healthy food and how to grow it.
- We coordinate with over 30 P-Patch community gardens.We link P-Patch gardeners with food banks and meals programs. In 2006, over 30,000 pounds of fresh, organic produce was grown and given to over two dozen providers, feeding hundreds of people. To download various P-Patch signs to use in your garden, see “More Information” below.
- We harvest fruit from neighborhood backyards. Lettuce Link’s Community Fruit Tree Harvest project engages volunteers to pick fruit from neighborhood trees and deliver hundreds of pounds of locally grown, unsprayed fruit to meals programs and food banks.
- We garden and donate our organic produce to food banks. At Marra Farm, we cultivate 1/2-acre of historic, urban farmland and donate harvests to a food bank in South Seattle. Read more about our Giving Garden at Marra Farm.
I wrote a post a ways back called “Processing Apples and Neighborhood Stewardship” in which I talked about all the fruit in my neighborhood going to waste. It’s wonderful to see that there is an established organization that is dealing with this issue already. I’m looking around for other organizations like this one. Do you know of any? I’d love to hear about what’s out there.
(“Lettuce Links” is part of a larger organization called Solid Ground-”building community to end poverty” which I’m excited to explore a bit more.)
