It was a weekend in the garden and promoting local food in Houston.
On Thursday, a group from Starbucks weeded, planted and mulched in the Backyard Nature area and the vegetable gardens at Shlenker School.
On Saturday, Urban Harvest hosted three Dig It Days – Memorial Elementary, Laurenzo Early Childhood Center, and Blackshear Elementary. At Memorial ES, we partnered with Lift Memorial to improve the school garden. Pavers were laid in a flood-prone area of the garden, in addition to fruit tree weeding and vine planting. At Laurenzo ECC, students from Rice University performed spring maintenance in the garden Our partnership at Laurenzo ECC is made possible by an HISD Healthy Tomorrows grant to increase student access to fresh fruits and vegetable nutrition education.
The Blackshear ES Dig It Day was held in conjunction with the Third Ward Complete Communities Clean Up Day. Thanks to the UofH School of Technology and Energy Institute High School volunteers, beautification of the school campus and gardens was completed by mulching trees, planting pollinator plants, leveling benches and general garden clean-up. The day was topped off by a community lunch held at the Shape Community Center along with a tasty seasonal salsa cooking demo presented by Chef Nadia Ahmed of Green Roots Kitchen. Finally, our garden educators provided gardening advice along with a popular seed and chili pepper plant giveaway.
Urban Harvest also spoke on the new Double Up/SNAP incentive program at the Northeast Economic Development & Growth Town Hall meeting hosted by the Northeast Houston Redevelopment Council.
At the Living Health Sunnyside Health Fair at Worthington High School, we distributed information about the Double Up program and area farmers markets where SNAP benefits could be redeemed.
Enjoy more photos from the weekend.
Learn more about Dig It Days here.
Learn more about Double Up here.
