About one in six Clarke County residents are food insecure, according to Feeding America’s 2019 “Map the Meal Gap” study. Yet, according to the same study, over 6,000 of these residents do not qualify for SNAP benefits due to their income. UGArden offers these locals a unique solution, but they may have to get their hands dirty.
UGArden is a student community farm just down the road from the University of Georgia. The farm is eight acres and was founded about 11 years ago. A group of students on campus expressed that they wanted somewhere they could learn to grow food and through communicating with the agricultural department, they were able to get funding through a grant to acquire the land they have now.
“It serves as a place for students and community members to come out and learn how to grow food. And they’re a part of the process from seeding the plants, maintaining the plots to harvesting and processing, so they’re a part of it from start to finish,” Rachel Dingley, the volunteer coordinator at UGArden, explains.
“A lot of people really do like coming out here because because they know that like they’re learning new skills… and that when they leave, they’re able to leave with a bag of okra and some tomatoes.”
Rachel Dingley
UGArden relies heavily on volunteers to keep the farm going. Each week they hold two harvesting events and volunteers that work these events get first dibs on any produce harvested that day.
“A lot of people really do like coming out here because of that, because they know that like they’re learning new skills, they feel connected to the community and that also when they leave, they’re able to leave with, you know, a bag of okra and some tomatoes or something like that,” Dingley says.
The rest of the harvest gets donated to Campus Kitchen, a local organization dedicated to providing nutritious meals and groceries to the local community. Dingley says that about 70-80% of the harvest goes to the group, which then pairs the produce with items from Trader Joe’s or Earth Fare and distributes the packages throughout town.
Dingley says that the team at UGArden cares about the local community and even tries to factor in their wants to the production schedule.
“There’s one community member we try to harvest all of our muscadines by Wednesday because her community really likes our muscadine so we like to try to factor in what the community wants.”
Article by: Victoria Eymard