Capital Region Cares Capital Region Cares 2017-2018 | Page 55

from our farm, and we transform all of our revenues into
garden spaces, educational programs and workforce de-
velopment opportunities for the community.”
Too often, he says, the commercial food economy
provides “pass-through” value to the community. “We
want to keep those dollars circulating in the local econo-
my and create more food security and jobs where people
need them most,” he says.
GROWING AND GROWING
Al and Inez Aldridge, husband and wife, started out gar-
dening on the PUENTES farm five years ago after retire-
ment and now farm for PUENTES with the group they’ve
founded, the Black Urban Farmers Association, where
they serve a mission of growing and providing healthy,
nutritious and affordable food to underserved commu-
nities.
“Our original farm started out as a plot here at PU-
ENTES. We took the monthly classes and everything that
we learned from PUENTES allowed us to start our own
farm and to then start Black Urban Farmers Association,”
Inez Aldridge says.
Though they also do work with regional partners to
address bigger food system needs, “95 percent of our
work happens at the neighborhood level where we work
with residents and partners to envision and create a
health-promoting food system,” says Co-Director Shawn
Harrison. This includes the Growing Together initiative
of helping to develop sustainable school garden pro-
grams that teach children about nutrition and science,
similar to the goals of the PUENTES school program.
Alongside their CSA program, PUENTES focuses their
efforts on the Boggs Tract Community Farm in Stockton,
a garden at the San Joaquin County Fairgrounds and the
Black Urban Farmer’s Association plot, located in three of
the major food desert areas of San Joaquin County.
The nonprofit also runs other programs to serve
their mission of empowering at-risk communities to
feed their families healthy food through the knowledge
and development of sustainable technology and urban
farming.
“PUENTES CSA is an entirely community-based pro-
gram,” Terhune says. “We harvest and sell boxes of locally-
produced fresh fruits, vegetables, eggs, honey and more
SPONSORED BY
Hope, Strength, Healing for children with cancer
formerly known as Keaton Raphael Memorial
Celebrating
www.childcancer.org
916-784-6786
®
20 Years
of Caring
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