Because of you, more children will start the school day ready to learn, without the pang of hunger as a distraction. Our Back-to-School campaign reminds us that along with pencils and paper, children need a daily supply of food to take on new concepts, run on playgrounds, and socialize more successfully.
Our Community Health and Agriculture Education teams have collaborated to develop the new Food Shuttle Academy, an online learning platform with free, self-paced lessons on health, nutrition, agriculture, and more!
Our Spring Match challenge, made possible by generous funders, including SOLV Energy and the Mead Family Foundation, exceeded the $105,000 goal, raising an additional $70,000 to erase hunger!
Love, Tito’s has a heart for community gardens and increasing access to fresh, healthy foods. Their philanthropic Love, Tito’s Block to Block program, reconnects neighborhoods and creates community gardens and farms throughout the United States. Our hearts are in full bloom knowing that our Camden Street Garden will be the next beneficiary of Block to Block, allowing neighbors with mobility challenges to access our many activities more easily.
On a quiet corner near downtown Durham, great things are happening. Fresh, nutritious food is being grown to share with neighbors in need. Community members come together to work the soil and tend what’s growing. Knowledge is provided to help others become skilled at growing their own gardens and cooking healthy on a budget. Strangers become friends and lives are changed for the better, all on the quarter-acre lot of Geer Street Learning Garden.
Inter-Faith Food Shuttle’s Gardens For Everyone program took off like a rocket ship after launching in 2020, with new raised garden bends completed at homes, community centers, preschools, transitional housing facilities, and other sites throughout the community
Visitors to Camden Street Learning Garden will notice something new upon arrival. Posted throughout the Garden are “Education Stations” —interactive sites where guests can find opportunities for reflection, activities, and information that give a whole new meaning to the “Learning” in Learning Garden.
Citizens were encouraged to plant Victory Gardens to provide their own fruits and vegetables. The Durham Bulls are carrying on the tradition today in partnership with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina and Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, by growing fresh local food for our community at the Victory Garden at Durham Bulls Athletic Park.
As the Gardens For Everyone program continues to bloom in Wake and Durham Counties, sprouting new garden bed boxes each week for new gardeners in the community, the need for gardening knowledge and hands-on familiarity with the soil has grown along with it. Enter the Gardens For Everyone Mentorship Program—an opportunity for seasoned gardeners to pass along their gardening wisdom and experience with newcomers to the joys of growing food in the earth.
The idea of gardening had occupied a tiny corner of my mind for quite some time, but the idea of growing my own “clean” organic vegetables did not come full circle until late fall and early winter of 2016. I was confronted with what could have become a serious physical challenge that turned my attention to eating organically.
In the interest of helping to care for our resident bees at the Food Shuttle’s Urban Learning Gardens, this past winter I and fellow Food Shuttle garden coordinator, Fern Hickey, took part in a beekeeping class with the Durham County Beekeeper’s Association.
