We grow nutritious, organic food to supply it to the hungry and teach life skills education workshops. Dear Supporter,
This unique program involves the entire community and ultimately produce a series of community gardens growing organic food at no cost to anyone hungry. The mission of the project is to reduce illness and improve the lives of Butte County residents by educating them in nutrition, gardening, harvesting, cooking, preserving, and even marketing their own healthy organic food. From The Ground Up Farms, Inc. is a non-profit organization founded after realizing how critical good nutrition and organic food was. We realized that our community has a serious food security issue. We don’t believe healthy organically grown food should be a luxury only the wealthy can afford. A group of local farmers, educators, artists and activists have come together to establish a nonprofit organization dedicated to bridging the nutritional gap through community gardening. Our organization’s mission is to heal our community by feeding them healthy nutritious food, but also by educating them which leads to self-reliance and food security. The following goals guide our efforts:
- To bring our community members together so that they can learn about nutrition through gardening and workshops, all for free. We will provide the volunteers and basic tools to establish new gardens, all for free. Landowners can enjoy the tax benefits that come by donating the use of unused lots and water on seasonal agreements.
- To provide quality workshops that will teach gardening, harvesting, cooking, preserving, and even marketing their own healthy organic food, all for free. We have a wide range of professionals donating their time to teach these workshops, as well as, a certified kitchen to cook in.
- To help fill the gap for programs that feed our young and old alike, for example, daycare's, after school programs, summer lunch programs, nursing homes, residential rehabilitation programs, and food pantries. These all struggle to obtain anything fresh and we would provide it all for free.
- The less fortunate could learn so much from “working for food” initially at a community garden. They could learn responsibility, self reliance, improved nutrition, how to grow and have fresh food (even while living homeless) by preserving, and even learn marketing from a farmers market type program. Those who earn it could work into possible paid part time maintenance positions in the future.
