Category: Sierra Harvest News

Since the Sierra Gardens Program was launched eight years ago, 119 veggie gardens have been installed across Nevada County to homeowners, renters, local organizations and institutions, with the vision that community members would learn to love the benefits of growing their own fresh, local food.   We have loved hearing from participants about the joy of growing their own veggies, how they started eating more vegetables at home, and how these gardens have given them a new space to unwind and recharge.

While these unique gardens have touched the lives of thousands of adults and children, there were also real challenges for others in maintaining the gardens without continued assistance.  After much reflection, we are now transitioning away from the Sierra Gardens program as we explore how to best support the community at large in getting their hands on their own freshly grown veggies.  A recent partnership with Interfaith Food Ministry in a 6-month community centered design process will inform this evolution.

We have clearly seen how the Sierra Gardens experience has changed the lives of people in our community.  One single mother told us that the garden was a “God send” when money was tight and the garden provided abundant fresh food for her family.   A retiree shared how tending her garden kept her going day after day in the isolation and uncertainty of the early pandemic.  A toddler with a severe developmental disability ate food for the first time away from his mother – a fresh strawberry from the garden – at his daycare center.  A local woman lost over 50 pounds when she started planning her meals around what was growing in the garden.  The stories go on and on! 

The very last build the Sierra Gardens team completed was installed in July – 10 garden beds at Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital, where it will serve as the foundation for the hospital’s vision to offer garden-based nutrition education and a beautiful space for patients, visitors and staff to enjoy. We are incredibly grateful for Malaika Bishop and Leo Chapman for their vision to launch the Sierra Gardens Program in 2014, and for the community of volunteers and donors who have supported this work for so many years.   We want to give a very heart-filled thanks to Edy Cassell who has lovingly stewarded the program since 2016 and has invested her passion, creativity and care to empower so many in growing their own food.  Our gratitude also goes out to Dylan Drummond, David Fernandez and Claudio Mendoca, program assistants and of course to the “dream team” core volunteer crew who have invested hundreds of hours into these gardens so that others could grow their own food, including ‘Gate Master Larry’ Diminyatz, ‘Side Hill Matt’ Marquet and ‘Heart Love Christian’ Gutt, as well as Suzanna Elkin, Steve Danner, and Karen Wcisclo.

Putting Community and Collaboration at the Center of our Program Evolution

Marleen (name changed) is 73 and lives in Nevada City.  She has worked her whole life and has never been in a situation of needing to use a food bank.  Due to health challenges, eating organic is a major priority, yet the high cost is a challenge due to finances.  She often has to use a time-consuming “defensive shopping” method – clipping coupons, and visiting multiple stores to find the best prices.  She loves the idea of a community garden and sees it as a way to build trust and community while also gaining valuable food resources to support her health.

Marleen’s story is one of many as food insecurity is on the rise in Nevada County.  Interfaith Food Ministry (IFM) is just one local food distribution sites and they now serve over 11,000 people – up from 8,000 before the pandemic. In a recent survey of nearly 300 clients of IFM, 41% expressed a desire to grow and prepare their own food and explicitly expressed interest in a community garden.

For years, Sierra Harvest has been supporting the community in food access through gleaning and by supporting over 100 residents in having their own backyard garden.  Despite the positive impacts on many families of the Sierra Gardens program, distance between garden sites makes this program costly and many families have been unable to keep up with the garden without Sierra Harvest support.  Over the years, we’ve increasingly heard the desire from participants for a centralized community garden park that would provide opportunities for connection and educational workshops.

With these insights and a shared goal to increase access to food and education to support community health, Sierra Harvest and IFM applied to the Catalyst Accelerator in early 2022, to see how we might design a collaborative program that better meets the current needs of the community.  Over the past 6 months we have learned how to investigate, analyze, and orient solutions based on engaging community in thoughtful dialog about their experiences.

Building on IFM data, community garden research, and anecdotal data from current clients, our process of community interviews has fortified our understanding that a community garden will provide so much value and meet multiple community needs at once. 

We value our community and all voices in it – we know this design thinking approach builds trust, deepens authentic understanding, elevates innovative solutions, and ultimately creates sustained impact.  Not only have we deepened relationships with our community through this process, we have strengthened our invaluable relationship with IFM which strengthens the fabric of our work.

If you have ever thought to yourself, I can’t give enough to make a difference, think again! 

70 community members are a part of the Sierra Harvest Row-by-Row Monthly Giving Program, contributing between $10 and $100 per month. Their combined contributions total $27,800 per year!  This is the very definition of synergy: two or more things working together to create something bigger or greater than the sum of their individual efforts.

What can $10 per month do?

13 Row-by-Row monthly supporters currently give $10 per month, for a combined total of $1,560 per year.

$1,560 provides 87 hours of school garden education. That’s great!

What if 13 additional people signed up at $10 a month, the total would be $3,120 per year. $3,120 would provide 173 hours of garden education over the course of a year. 

WOW! That’s even better!

What can $25 per month do?

17 Row by Row monthly supporters currently give $25 per month, for a combined total of $5,100 per year.

$5,100 is about half the budget of the Gold Country Gleaners program, which last year gleaned 28,579 pounds of fresh food and delivered it to Interfaith Food Ministry.

What if 17 additional people signed up for $25 per month for a combined total of $10,200, we could pay our harvest leaders a stipend and bring our gleaning totals up significantly.

Your monthly donation to Sierra Harvest can’t do it alone, but when you join with others, more students get their hands in the dirt, more food is gleaned and delivered to our local food pantry, and more farmers get critical training. It’s a community effort.

Row-by-Row monthly giving lends stability, and sustainability, to the Sierra Harvest programs that yield results. It is an effortless way to donate small amounts over time, avoid transaction fees if done through electronic funds transfer, and make a significant impact in our community.  

Become a Row-by-Row Monthly Supporter! You don’t have to be financially wealthy to make a big difference. Our combined efforts yield meaningful results. Click here to become a monthly supporter.

Thank you to all our present and future Row by Row members! 

For more information about monthly giving, follow this link, or call Jan Bedayn, 530-265-2343.

Inch by inch, row by row
Gonna make this garden grow
Gonna mulch it deep and low
Gonna make it fertile ground…

Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger

By Sarah Arndt

For those of us who are white and who also identify as farmers, land stewards, and good food advocates, what does it look like to understand, uproot, and transform a cultural inheritance of white supremacy into an embodied practice of liberation, abundance, and justice? One of our white farm educators reflects on the intersection of farming and anti-racism and what white people and white-led/white-dominant organizations need to do to root out racism…

My name is Sarah Arndt and I’m a farm educator at Sierra Harvest’s Food Love Farm. I’ve worked as an educator, facilitator, and advocate at the intersection of food, youth, and education for the last decade. My experience at the farm has also been shaped by my passion for transformation, healing, and accountability as an everyday practice in service to racial justice and collective liberation. As a white cis woman working in mostly mission-driven and non-profit spaces, this practice requires being in constant relationship with the question, “what does it look like to understand, uproot, and transform a cultural inheritance of white supremacy into an embodied practice of liberation, abundance, and justice?”