farm to table
Initially, students and staff planted trees, built water
harvesting swales, and grew vegetables and herbs as part of
the school’s City Works gardening class. “Fond memories,”
says Lowen. “We started with raw desert—dug all the beds,
built the armadas, installed irrigation systems. Although a
Rototiller did come into play, we dug most of the beds down
to a depth of two feet by hand.”
Today, as part of a college preparatory curriculum that
promotes hands-on learning experience with direct
community engagement, students go to the farm weekly to
tend plots and help out with general farm chores.
“
Nearly 90 per cent of our folks have been
able to decrease the size of their grocery bills
because of the produce they grow.”
“Our Farm Crew is part of our after-school program,”
says Annie Holub, dean of student life. “We have several
students who participate every year, and some have actu-
ally been employed by the farm through their internship
program. We think of the farm as part of our campus and
have brought the whole school there for a retreat to get to
know the site. And we meet there once a year during part
of our Community Day activities. We’ve also brought in
food from the farm to serve at school lunches and on our
Family Night get-togethers. Additionally, we incorporate
our studies of food and farming into a variety of subjects
ranging from local history to culinary arts.”
The food bank’s involvement is part of its ongoing effort
to increase access to healthy produce while training a new
generation of urban farmers through its Youth Farm Project
Apprenticeship Program. (A similar program is also under-
way at a nearby 10-acre plot called Marana Heritage Farm).
Michael McDonald is the food bank’s CEO and president,
and he brings 30 years of non-profit experience and
helping others help themselves to the job. And it’s a big
one, with over 100 full-time employees and a long list of
volunteers working to assist families in need over a nearly
24,000-square-mile area. He says the community garden is
important on both fronts—community and garden.
“It provides a space for people to connect with food as they
grow it and in the process, builds community where individ-
uals and families connect and share,” says McDonald. “It’s a
life-giving way to make real our overall mission of a healthy
and hunger-free community.”
McDonald generally wears a suit and tie to work, but he’s
a believer in the project to the point where he says “I took
this morning off from managing spreadsheets to spend
some time getting my winter garden bed ready, i.e., dirty
hands all the way up to the elbow. (Then), I’ll meet with a
philanthropist who similarly loves to garden and has done
so as a volunteer at Las Milpitas who also provides the
farm with a generous donation.”
Las Milpitas is an equal opportunity farm with no
restrictions on gender, age, or financial status. “There will
be challenges in any kind of project in a community made
up of a bunch of different folks from different backgrounds,
but these things quickly work themselves out. It doesn’t
matter what walk of life you come from, your background,
or the language you speak, that’s what’s great about this
place. It doesn’t matter because they’re commonality and
compatibility here,” says McDonald.
110
groundbreakers