The federal budget shutdown is dragging on. The Trump White House responded to orders from two federal judges. The administration says it will provide partial funding for Food Stamps. That could include three quarters of a million Alabamians who reportedly depend on SNAP to afford groceries. When the state of Alabama announced there would be no food stamp dollars as of November first, one suggestion was that hungry state residents seek out community gardens. APR news spoke with several before the shutdown began. Here’s what we found…
“So food pantries and food banks do the best they can, but being able to store large quantities of fresh food is really difficult. So what we're doing is we're kind of filling in that nutritional gap,” said Leah Connell.
She serves as the president of the board for Jeremiah's Community Garden. Connell started at the garden after teaching an organic farming course at the University of Alabama, she began to bring her own students to the farm for some hands on experience.
“The people who volunteer for the garden include a lot of student groups from UA, which we really appreciate,” she said. “The Master Gardeners come out sometimes and help us. We have an affiliation with an organization that lets parolees do community service with us. We have school groups sometimes, and then just people around town that either like gardening or want to learn more about it will come and help us.”
Connell says they partner with local Tuscaloosa groups to distribute the food the West Alabama Food Bank, Table of Grace, and Catholic Social Services are just a few donation sites.
“Our impact through food is often not seen by us, but sometimes, when I delivered to a table of grace, there's usually a line outside of the food pantry waiting to get in, and sometimes you can see people get excited when we bring in fresh greens and stuff like that. So that's really nice. It's a good feeling,” said Connell.
Connell says her passion for clean, fresh food drives her to inspire others to create their own small gardens. She says an apartment window or balcony can produce some tasty fruits and vegetables, another organization is making strides to educate and provide healthier food options in Alabama. The James Valley Teaching Farm in Birmingham uses food to teach young people to create and grow healthy futures for themselves.
“Seeing that connection of coming from the ground going to your plate, and it's not a connection that's made for kids very often anymore, and so seeing the kind of shock and surprise on some students faces when they pull a carrot out of the ground and then go chop it up and put it in a salad. It's pretty cool.”
That's Will Cushman. He's the development and communications manager for Jones Valley Teaching Farm.
This group has a different audience compared to Jeremiah's community garden, which focuses on college students. Cushman explains how Jones Valley works to bring food based education to children and young adults from pre K through 12th grade.
“We use food as a foundation, and these lessons is talking about where food comes from and why food grown locally and more sustainably can be more nutritious.”
Cushman says their food based education follows Alabama education standards. He says it's important to give consistency to students as curriculum. He also says the farm enhances the students' coursework and attitudes through education.
“Parents and teachers of students that are involved in our programs report that 100% of their students are more excited to attend school on days with our programming, and so I think we just hope that it's an exciting a new way to get kids involved in their education and excited to learn and go to school every day.”
The program teaches lessons on other subjects using food like math.
“So we're using the recipe process, taking kids through cooking a pretty simple chili dish, but dividing ingredients or measuring ingredients as a way to teach them about fractions,” he said.
He says having a hands on approach to teaching gets the kids more engaged and excited to learn. They currently have eight teaching farms around Birmingham. The two largest sites both have two acres of growing space. The produce they teach the community with goes right back to Birmingham natives.
“The vast majority of that food is being distributed through farm stands at both of those sites for free to community members once or twice a week through the growing season. So that is where the bulk of that food goes that we grow last year, that was about 21,000 pounds of produce that we distributed for free to the community,” said Cushman.
The produce from Jeremiah's community garden and the Jones Valley Teaching Farm may be needed now more than ever.
