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Everyone should have the opportunity to reap the benefits of growing one’s own food, and Grow Local strives to ensure that all Central Texans have access to the education, space, and resources they need to do so. Grow Local helps create, support, and sustain community and school gardens and hosts a variety of educational workshops to help gardeners get growing.
Community Gardens
If you’d like to grow your own food, but don’t have adequate space or sunlight, consider planting in a community garden. Community gardens are vibrant, productive gathering places for neighbors to grow food and learn together. Refer to the map below to find the community garden closest to you, and visit the Community Gardens in Austin Google spreadsheet to find contact information for each garden. If you don’t find one near you, or if the garden in your area is full, team up with neighbors to start your own community garden (check out SFC’s events calendar for the next Community Garden Leadership Training).
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If you participate in a community garden located on City, church, school, or Housing Authority land, your garden may be eligible for fiscal sponsorship by Sustainable Food Center. SFC holds utility accounts, provides liability insurance coverage, and serves as an umbrella non-profit organization for sponsored gardens. For more information, contact Grow Local staff.
As our city grows, strong advocates are needed to ensure that space is saved for community gardens. The Coalition of Austin Community Gardens (CACG) formed in 2008 to serve this role, and to provide a communication and support network for community gardeners. The mission of the CACG is to promote the stablility and propagation of community gardens in Austin. The group meets regularly to discuss ongoing work. If you would like to get involved, visit the CACG website or contact Grow Local staff to find out the date of the next meeting.
Youth Gardens
Youth gardens can serve as outdoor, living classrooms and help to inspire awe of the natural world. They help improve students’ understanding of science concepts as well as increase overall test scores. Grow Local helps youth gardens thrive at many schools in the Austin area. Here are some of the ways Grow Local can help:
- Provide comprehensive information about planning, building, and using school gardens in our publication The School Farm ($15). Includes budget worksheet, grant opportunities, activities and curriculum ideas, central Texas gardening, and community organizing
- Offer classes about basic organic gardening, composting, and seed saving, as well as Teaching the Garden trainings for teachers and School Garden Mentor trainings for volunteers
- Provide seeds, transplants, and compost for schools through our Spread the Harvest project
- Match School Garden Mentors to your school. School Garden Mentors are volunteers who are trained to assist with school gardens (contact Grow Localstaff if you’re interested in becoming a mentor, or are seeking a mentor for your school).
- Lend tools from our tool lending library
- Lend books about Texas gardening and gardening with kids from our resource lending library
- Recruit volunteers for workdays
- Provide consultation
- Provide access to a network of local school garden groups, the Austin School Garden Network (www.austinsgn.org) (including a listserv)
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