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Date: 7/19/2021
WESTERN MASS. – In order to promote more sustainable programs and offer more food to its constituents across its 53 agencies, Rachel’s Table launched its new Growing Gardens program with a needs assessment in June.
Jodi Falk, Rachel’s Table’s director, said the Growing Gardens program will help their agencies grow their own food.
“We are expanding into something called Growing Gardens, which is a program where we are beginning to support any of our 53 agencies that want to grow their own food, whether it is supporting through mentoring, materials and partnering to help grow gardens,” she said.
Falk said the idea for the Growing Gardens program came from a search to offer more sustainable programs at each agency.
“It is all about the thought of sustainability and creating the possibility that everyone has a right to healthy, nutritious, personally desired and culturally relevant food. It was part of thinking more about how we sustain greater food security programs in the counties we serve,” she said.
While Rachel’s Table is setting up the program, Falk said it is about supporting each agency to grow its own food.
“We are not doing it for them, we are partnering with them so they can create their own sustainable programs. Some already have gardens so it is just about supporting,” she said.
Falk said the first step in the program is to conduct a needs assessment of each agency.
“You can grow food in many places, you do not need an open plot of land to do that necessarily. We are beginning that process with a needs assessment on all our agencies that might want to do this. Hopefully those agencies include their constituents so anybody can be a part of growing food too,” she said.
Despite releasing the needs assessment on June 23, Falk said some agencies received starter plants back in April.
“We just put out the needs assessment, but we have been talking to some of our agencies already and we did initially launch the program with some starter plants when we donated about 640 starter plants back in April at some of the locations,” she said.
The Growing Gardens program will be rolled out to each agency over the next five years.
“It is a five-year process, and we are slowly onboarding a few agencies at a time. Each agency will have its own needs to serve their own unique population, so we expect this to take some time and that is good, it is about serving each individual agency’s needs,” Falk said.
Rachel’s Table Associate Director Sarah Maniaci said each agency will be looked at on a case-by-case basis based on their own situations.
“Every agency is different; every agency has specific needs and specific space. There are some places that do have some land and other places that do not, so they have to have raised beds or container gardens,” she said.
Falk said she is hoping the Growing Gardens program can help agencies with constituents that have disabilities to learn how to garden.
“We are really interested in agencies that have constituents with disabilities so how can we arrange gardens for folks who can maybe garden with accessible tools or raised beds,” she said.
With Rachel’s Table expanding its efforts across the region, Falk said they are looking for volunteers to join.
“We are growing in many ways where we are going to need people who are going to carry and move things, but we will take any one because there is always an opportunity,” she said.
Maniaci added that the volunteer schedule is flexible and there is no required time commitment.
“It is flexible, you can do it one day a week or one day a month, there is an online calendar and you can sign up, but it is up to you and there is no time requirement. We are a family, and we welcome everybody,” she said.
Anyone interested in volunteering with Rachel’s Table can go online to rachelstablepv.org or call 733-0084.