How it Works: The garden bed program is combating food insecurity while giving community members an experience in how to grow their own food. Our garden beds program empowers community members from historically underserved communities to grow their own food. The program provides logistical support, materials, and installation at no cost to the participants. This program created a foundation and partnership through the community in order to build raised garden beds at their residency or organizational site within the surrounding area. We are able to provide those receiving beds with all the materials to build, fill, and plant into the garden beds being built. We receive generous donations from local businesses and community volunteers to get the job done.
Previous Year’s Projects:
Through a collaboration with Our Core in 2021, we donated the supplies for 7 garden beds and consultation time to support them in the renovation of their Grand Street Garden (one of their hubs for garden education and urban food production). In 2022, we were a part of another community bed build for the Food Hub Garden at Deacon Jack’s Food Pantry in Newburgh.
We also constructed three garden beds at the local ARC of Mid-Hudson residences at Sand-Hill, Gardiner, and Crescent. We worked with local residents with intellectual and developmental disabilities to build, fill and plant garden beds with vegetables, herbs, and flowers. We created a garden bed subcommittee this year with the goal to expand the program as a learning service program for SUNY New Paltz students where they will learn the valuable skills of constructing and planting garden beds while giving back to their community.
Get Involved!
We will continue to provide access to garden beds each season and continuously look for new volunteers, families, organizations to serve, and donation sites. Please email foodjustice@philliesbridge.org to find out more about the program and how you can get involved.