Thank you to Davis ACE hardware for a generous soil donation!
Helping Knights Landing to help our planet grow
The KL Community Garden Project was founded in 2017 with the aim of alleviating food insecurity, improving nutritional outcomes, and increasing community collaboration. This project would not have been possible without the partnerships between the community, community organizations, and volunteers. Below, we have outlined our progress over the past 2 years and our future goals.
How we began
We identified that KL had an inconvenient public transportation system and lacked resources such as grocery stores, community parks, and recreational centers. The idea of a community garden was proposed to provide the community with a source of fresh foods, a recreational space, and a platform for the youth to learn hands-on skills through community service projects.
Community Recruitment and Surveying
We partnered with a group of women leaders from KL, the Promotoras, to survey the community regarding their opinions on a community garden. 80% of survey participants supported building a community garden. Subsequently, we held a series of community-engaged workshops involving 100 community participants to create a final garden design. In Summer 2018, we began developing a small lot as our pilot garden project to evaluate the sustainability of the project.
Pilot Garden Project, Fundraising, and Further Construction
Throughout Summer 2018, community members actively participated in the maintenance of the pilot garden project. After a successful pilot project, we decided to proceed with the construction of the larger front lot. We submitted grants and conducted online and community fundraisers to successfully raise over $20,000 from March for Science Sacramento, the Donald A. Strauss Foundation, and the Blum Center for Developing Economies. Throughout Summer 2019, we collaborated with our partners to establish the main irrigation system, create ADA-accessible walking paths, and build a perimeter fence. In November 2019, we arranged a garden workday with volunteers from the community, KLOHC, and Americorps to build garden beds and paint a mural.
Current and Future Goals for Sustainability
We recently secured a $20,000 grant from the Yolo Human and Health Services Agency to complete the construction of the garden. Nutritional workshops are also being offered to educate community members on cooking healthy and affordable meals. In the future, we plan on implementing educational youth programs that emphasize the farm-to-fork concept and encourage greater community participation. For sustainability, we intend to establish a garden committee to coordinate future community events in the KL Community Garden.