A Community Garden is a place where a group of people living in close proximity work together to cultivate a piece of land in herbs, flowers, or vegetables. Community gardens cultivate both food and community.
More and more researchers are documenting the positive effects that plants and gardening have on human and ecological health—facts which are already well understood by folks who garden! Community gardens can bring numerous benefits to low income families, neighborhoods and the larger community. They are an important way to increase access to fresh, healthy food (at almost no cost). While producing inexpensive, nutritious food, community gardens also encourage neighborhood beautification and community building; stimulate social interaction; help to conserve resources; and, provide bountiful opportunities for recreation, exercise, therapy, and education. (Each garden will be a venue for outreach and educational workshops on such topics as organic gardening, seed harvesting, composting, nutrition, healthy food preparation, water conservation, and many other topics.)
A major focus for us right now is on building two new community gardens that are also school gardens, at both the McKinley and McDowell Elementary Schools. Parent groups, administrators and teachers from these schools have enthusiastically embraced these projects and are working together with Petaluma Bounty volunteers to get these gardens growing during spring, 2007.
We are also looking for at least two additional community garden sites to develop over the next several months, so if you know of a potential site (preferably between Lakeville and Sonoma Mountain Parkway), please let us know. You can call us at 775-3663 or e-mail us at info@petalumabounty.org.
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