About Us

Growing GREENS Eating LEAN

  • Learn Gardening Basics
  • Tips to grow your own vegetable/fruit garden
  • Composting
  • Eating healthier utilizing fresh fruits and vegetables
  • What to plant during the Summer/Fall and Winter/Spring
  • Hands-on and informative

Have you ever thought about growing your own fruits and vegetables but didn’t have the skills or know-how to get started? Fresh fruits and vegetables are not only good for you but provide an abundance of vitamins and nutrients. Growing your own fruits and vegetables also helps you save on money, encourages family participation and enables you easy access to your own farmer’s market in your backyard.

Recently many communities have become involved in an agricultural movement that has grown in numbers. More and more community gardens and individual home-based gardens are being created in underserved and urban areas where access to fresh, locally grown produce can be limited. Communities are becoming more self-sufficient involving families and community members to create and maintain community gardens and inspiring families to plant their own gardens at their homes or apartments!

It is vital that our community is well supported in health and nutrition through access to sustainable and locally-rooted food systems for meeting nutritional needs of the community! This need comes in a time when unemployment rate exceeds 15% in San Joaquin County, Food Banks facing a 30-40% increase in client count and San Joaquin County being ranked 51st out of 58 CA counties for highest percentage of overweight/obese adults, we are faced with an unmitigated health disaster (source: www.cfpa.org).

The Emergency Food Bank’s Growing GREENS Eating LEAN Program is here to help you learn how to grow, create and sustain your own vegetable/fruit garden while sharing helpful cooking recipes, techniques and knowledge on the nutritional benefits of incorporating more fresh produce in your daily eating! We will be hosting classes about gardening, agriculture, when to plant a certain type of seed, health and nutrition and how to use fresh fruits and vegetables towards cooking healthy.  If families and households can learn that access to fresh produce can be sustainable at home with the skills and proper training, they can positively impact their lives towards better health and nutrition!

Please check back for future classes.  For more information contact the Emergency Food Bank at 209.464.7369.