GARDEN OF HOPE
CSUMB invites visitors to Shoreline Food Garden
A garden that has sprung up on an empty lot on the former Fort Ord is producing nutritious food and offering opportunities for job training.
The community is invited to visit the Shoreline Food Garden on Sept. 29. The garden is located at 249 Tenth Street in Marina, off Imjin Parkway.
From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. that day, tours of the 1.5-acre garden will be offered, along with information on organic gardening and landscaping with native plants.
More than 70 varieties of flowers, herbs and vegetables are growing in the garden, including tomatoes, basil, beans, sunflowers, artichokes, carrots, chard, fennel, sage, quinoa and lavendar.
The garden is part of the Salinas-Marina Community Food Project and is funded by a grant from the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. It is designed to help local organizations fight hunger and to help people gain access to fresh, local organic produce.
At the garden, participants in Goodwill Industries’ Shoreline Workforce Development Service’s culinary job-training program learn about gardening and cooking with fresh produce.
Other community organizations involved with the project include:
• Hope Services, whose clients water, weed and harvest • Marina Tree and Garden Club • Peninsula Wellness Center, where it is part of the “Heart Healthy” program • Veterans Transition Center, whose clients work in the garden
The Community Food Project, which includes gardens in Salinas’ Chinatown neighborhood and at Pueblo del Mar transitional housing program in Marina, is an initiative of CSU Monterey Bay’s Service Learning Institute.