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Growing Hope Programs

	Building Community Capacity through Gardens... Growing Hope works to help people improve their lives and communities through gardening, by supporting local community gardens and efforts to start & sustain gardens in Washtenaw County Community & School Garden Development Institute Directory and Map of Gardens Looking for a garden plot for this year? See where you can grow...
	Helping Schools and Youth Grow... Perry Learning Garden: Where it all started, our first youth and school garden in Ypsilanti's gateway community Roots & Shoots Youth Entrepreneur Program: Our after-school youth development program. Showing youth how to grow and profit from garden based ventures Growing Futures-- School Greenhouses & Gardens: Developing greenhouses at area schools and productive learning spaces Head Start Seeds of Learning Garden: Gardening with the little ones at Head Start's early childhood program
	Educating and Reaching Out... Downtown Ypsilanti Farmers Market: Improving access to healthy foods and building community on Tuesday afternoons! Home-Grown Health: Our cooking-nutrition-gardening series for low-income families SpringTransPLANT: Connecting home gardeners to their community through a plant donation drive Plant A Row for the Hungry Campaign: Gardeners helping neighbors in need by donating extra harvest Growing Hope Center: Our future demonstration & training center.

About the Kitchen Garden Project

Since 1993, the Kitchen Garden Project (KGP) has given over 1,300 gardens to low/no-income families in the greater South Sound! KGP garden recipients receive 3 raised beds, a trellis, fertile soil, seeds, starts, a gardening guide, and the opportunity to work with a garden mentor. The gardens are built with the help of the KGP coordinator, KGP assistant, interns, the GRuB Youth Crew, and many community volunteers. The gardens can produce up to $650 of fresh organic produce each growing season!

KGP End-of-Season Surveys 2007

As many of you know, this past year we installed 100 free backyard vegetable gardens for low-income families in Thurston and Mason Counties. This work could not have happened without the deep support of donors sponsoring gardens, businesses like Olympia Supply, Lumbermens, and Great Western Supply donating in-kind supplies, volunteers investing in building these gardens, and recipient families and individuals committed to the power of growing food on their own! To honor all of our partners and supporters, here are some quotes from recent end-of-season surveys that have come in the mail:

"My garden was extremely gratifying and I had something to look forward to. I have an illness and don’t get out and do much physical activity because of pain, but the garden gave me the right amount of outside activity."

"I’d like to say thanks to Garden-Raised Bounty for helping me and my family to grow and eat healthy, more than we ever have in the past!"

"Our garden gave my daughter and I an opportunity to share responsibility in growing food. She was very willing to try the vegetables we grew from the garden because she had a part in growing it from start to finish!"

"People came (to visit my garden) and were inspired to grow food in their own yards. I shared food with neighbors and friends, ate food in season, and expanded the growing space so next year I can grow even more! I think what you guys do is the BEST way to heal the world."

• 88% have extra produce to give away to people outside the household.
• the majority get more regular exercise or physical activity and spend more time outdoors now that they have their gardens.

Proverb:
Good Food is Good Medicine.
<> Garbage in, garbage out.
Why be Sick?
eat Local Organic food
http://www.organicconsumers.org
http://sarahteach.livejournal.com/1555.html
http://remineral.livejournal.com
http://communitygard.livejournal.com
http://greenhouse101.livejournal.com
http://urbanag101.livejournal.com
http://studentfarm.livejournal.com

Please setup and support Organic COMMUNTIY GARDENS
and Organic Edible Schoolyards in your community.  Thank you.
http://communitygard.livejournal.com
http://www.edibleschoolyard.org/classroom.html