In early spring 2014, Sleepy Hollow Presbyterian Church in San Anselmo had a dream to begin a garden. Their newly formed Green Team met with staff from Interfaith Sustainable Food Collaborative and applied for a mini-grant (which they received). Pastor Bev Brewster shares, “We put our heads and hearts together, and God called us to plant a Justice Garden to bring organic sustainable produce from our church back yard to seniors, children, and others in the community who otherwise would go without.”
In May, high school volunteers and their adult leaders built seven raised beds in the church back yard, as a practice exercise for their upcoming homebuilding trip in Mexico. Thereafter volunteers from the church and the community filled the beds with topsoil and compost, set up irrigation, and planted dozens of heirloom tomato, beet, lettuce, squash, and pumpkin plants. Meanwhile their Presbytery, the church’s regional governing organization, provided an additional grant.
Very soon, the garden was producing lettuce, with squash and peppers soon to follow, to be donated to the Marin Food Bank, and sold at church, with all proceeds returning to the garden to help with purchasing more plant starts and materials. It was a bit of a wait for the tomatoes, but when they came in, there was an abundance to donate to the delighted residents at the Bennett House in Fairfax which is a facility for low-income seniors.
During that time, they also started taking tomatoes to Short Elementary School in San Rafael. The poverty rate of students at Short is 93% so the fresh produce was well received by the families. The parents used one of the tomato deliveries to make salsa which was sold at the district fundraiser. Sleepy Hollow hopes to help the parents build on this enterprise as a way to raise money to support school programs in future years as well. To this end, the church became a sponsor for a new school garden at Short and donated $500 in seed money to leverage future grants. Since that time Sleepy Hollow’s grant writing efforts on their behalf have been successful in raising enough money for the school to build a garden this spring. The church will continue to serve as a sponsor to further the school’s efforts.
The church also had a farm stand on Butterfield Road to raise more money for the garden and to educate. On three Saturdays, they were able to sell approximately $750 worth of tomatoes and veggies which proved to be a lot of fun and was great outreach for their church.
Garden Team Leader Patti Vance shares that “the Justice Garden has been a tremendous success on all fronts. This past year we harvested over 1,065 pounds of vegetables – a shock to us that the garden was so prolific (truly divine intervention)!” The church has provided education to well over 50 volunteers and the community at large about sustainable food production and just distribution. Patti devoted the summer to educating and mentoring three college/high school Garden Managers: Emma, Sophie, and Serena. They have served as a model for eating from their own food shed and adopting sustainable gardening practices.
The County of Marin recently invested in Sleepy Hollow’s success with a grant to help them add a rainwater catchment system for irrigating the garden. In looking ahead, their garden committee will meet in early March for a planning summit to talk about their learnings from the first year, and their hopes and dreams for the coming years.