Gardens and Food Pantries are Sharing the Harvest
June 12, 2015
Across Iowa, school, faith-based and community gardens are partnering with
local food pantries to provide their communities with increased access to
healthy, nutritious food. Organizations such as Cultivate Iowa, Food Corps,
and Iowa Interfaith Power and Light are helping gardens to get started.
Newer gardens join a variety of established gardens, including the 12-year
old garden at Saint Paul Presbyterian Church in Johnston, which produced
1200 pounds of produce during the 2014 growing season. All 1200 pounds
were distributed locally to people in need through collaboration with a food
pantry operated by the Johnston Partnership for a Healthy Community.
Beginning last year, the church also shared produce through two Pop-Up
Markets at the Johnston AHEPA complex where low-resource senior
citizens live. Many residents of the complex do not have transportation and
have limited incomes. This effort brought the produce directly to their site
and was offered free of charge. There are plans to do that again this
summer.
The Saint Paul Presbyterian Church garden thrives off of the combined efforts of the congregation and the
wider community. Collaborators include the Church Garden Committee, Sunday school students, youth
groups, service organizations, and other churches that provide volunteers to care for the garden.
The Community Garden has been blessed with several grant awards that allowed for the expansion:
In 2013, they were awarded a United Way mini-grant to install a water source in the garden area
In 2014, Hy-Vee provided additional funding to install a drip irrigation system
In 2014, Johnston High School 9 th grader Sydney Hedgepeth wrote a grant request while attending the
Reformed Church of America (RCA) Conference in Colorado that was chosen out of 100 entrees and
allowed for the addition of two composters that are operational for the 2015 growing season
Church garden organizers share the following insights from their experience:
1. We simply felt called to do it and it felt right, that we were pleasing the Lord.
2. Gardens, like life are messy. A lot of unforeseen problems come up, and you just have to have faith
that it will work out.
3. Church ladies don't like to ask for help – we are supposed to be the givers. But in the asking we have
enjoyed new friends and gained a lot more insight into this project than if we had tried to do it all alone.
4. Gardens are like kitchens – if you are there working someone nearly always wanders in to see what
you are doing or to talk.
For more information about the Saint Paul Presbyterian Church garden and its collaboration with the Johnston
Partnership for a Healthy Community, please join their Garden to Table Celebration on June 20 or contact Ms.
Kelly Renfrow at [email protected] or 515-868-1357.
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