Behind Faith Lutheran Church in Sonoma lies Faith’s Garden, the church’s 1,750 square foot community garden. Sprinkled throughout the garden, you’ll find inspiring garden art only adding to the visual appeal of the flourishing produce. The beautiful garden was started three and a half years ago by Faith Lutheran’s Jim Griewe, a long-time member, stewardship chair, and care minister.
Every Saturday morning, members of the congregation and members from other neighboring congregations come to care for the garden. After a few hours of work, the volunteers always prepare lunch with a variety of produce grown in the garden. Although much of their time is focused on the garden, Saturdays are also a time for the volunteers to tend to the rest of the church’s landscape. The backyard of Faith Lutheran has transformed into a gathering place by design, in addition to the garden. With nice lawn chairs, a fire pit, and lots of open space, the backyard is a place for groups to get together for a barbecue on a nice summer day, as well as a place where individuals come to meditate.
This past year, Faith Lutheran partnered the local Youth at Risk program, allowing four youth to complete community service hours by helping out in the garden. Some of the youth have even come back to help in the garden even after their community hours are complete. The garden has also been utilized by Faith Lutheran’s youth group. The group’s “fun area”, as Jim calls it, is filled with straw bales, corn, beans, and pumpkins the youth planted to sell to congregants for a fundraiser last fall.
Jim plans out the year-round garden in three cycles: summer, spring, and fall/winter. He says the church mainly grows produce suited for soups and salads since much of the produce is donated to places who serve meals to those in need. Currently the garden has 9 different types of lettuce, cabbage, beets, beans, 5 types of kale, and garlic, just to name a few. Due to gopher problems and the deep adobe, the garden has a number of raised beds and pots where the produce grows. Thanks to Sonoma Compost, over $1,000 of mulch and compost have been donated to the garden. Alone, the fall/winter garden produced a total of 990 pounds of fresh veggies!
So, where does all of this fresh produce go? Throughout the month, Meals on Wheels (MOW) receives fresh produce from the garden and in return, MOW volunteers offer helping hands in the garden a few times a month. Faith Lutheran’s kitchen is stocked with pounds of frozen soup made with the garden’s produce ready to be thawed for the local soup kitchen when necessary. Faith’s Garden produce also gets delivered to a local teen center on Saturdays and throughout the week to members of the congregation who may be unable to leave their homes. Additionally, the first Wednesday of every month, FISH (Friends In Sonoma Helping) uses Faith Lutheran as a site to distribute food to local community members. The list of organizations and people benefiting from this fresh, local produce goes on. Despite all of the hard work that goes into the garden, Jim and the volunteers selflessly keep very little for themselves.
Faith’s Garden has created a sense of community and brought congregants together. “Fellowship is very, very important, which this garden has been incredible for,” Jim says, “we like what we’re doing for people and we’re having fun.”