‘Together We Can’: The Garden providing education and produce to community

AMARILLO, Texas (KFDA) - The High Plains Food Bank offers many programs to the community to help alleviate hunger, but The Garden goes beyond just feeding those in need.

The Garden is an educational platform, it’s an organic garden built on an acre of land behind the food bank’s warehouse.

It’s used to teach the community how to grow and raise their own food in an affordable and sustainable way.

“We want to get people in here, show them what they can do to replicate it at their own home,” said Justin Young, nutrition education director, The Garden.

The Garden also distributes produce that is grown there.

“We designed our mobile harvest program, where we take a food truck out four days a week and anything that’s grown on site here at the food bank, plus any of the most vulnerable produce of the food bank, the stuff that needs to go out right away before it spoils, we load it up in the truck and distribute it for free to the community,” said Young.

Young says produce items are often the missing piece for those who are food insecure.

“Those fresh items are a little more costly and so we can take and not only increase the health of the food that they’re eating, but also just the enjoyment of the food, so add a little bit of extra to make it a more enjoyable experience for their family,” said Young.

Where ‘Together We Can’ comes into play is with donations. The Garden is especially in need of monetary donations.

“A big thing is always staffing, if we can afford to hire more bodies to further our reach, that’s great,” said Young.

He says volunteers are another great way to help further its reach, whether you come out and pull weeds or turn soil.

“That all goes a really long way, every weed pulled by a volunteer is time that we get to spend in the classroom teaching people,” said Young.

To volunteer your time, click here.

If you would like to participate in ‘Together We Can’, click here for more information.

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