Chinatown community garden

Federal grant provides support for Community Food Project

The fragrant garden that sprang up on an abandoned lot in the Chinatown neighborhood of Salinas offers residents a daily reminder that hope can rise from unexpected places. By replacing urban neglect and illicit drug dealing with nutritious food and employment, the garden has brought lush growth and vibrant color to a community that had lacked both.

Now, through a $250,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, CSU Monterey Bay’s Service Learning Institute is about to start work on two new community gardens based on the Chinatown model. The award was made by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture and is designed to help local organizations fight hunger.

Part of what CSUMB is calling the Salinas-Marina Community Food Project, the new gardens will be located at: • The Housing Authority of Monterey County's Pueblo del Mar, a transitional housing program in Marina run by the Sun Street Center for formerly homeless families with substance abuse issues. The families will learn about gardening and nutrition as part of their recovery. • Shoreline Workforce Development Service, a division of Goodwill Industries, located in Marina. Participants in the culinary job-training program will learn about gardening and cooking using fresh produce. “The gardens will be green space to use as a living laboratory for organic gardening, nutrition, diet and health education and to teach job-related skills. They’ll also provide places where people can grow food for themselves and their families,” said project manager Iris Peppard. On May 5, a commercial worm bin will be installed at the Chinatown Community Garden site as the first step in establishing a composting business. And some of the grant money will allow university service learning students to develop and deliver nutrition education programs at all three garden locations. Work has already started on the nutrition program that will take place at the Pueblo Del Mar kitchen. Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula has agreed to support 10 garden beds, and Hope Services and the Veterans Transition Center are exploring collaboration opportunities at the Shoreline Garden.

The Chinatown garden – located on the corner of Soledad and Lake streets – is an island of fruits, flowers and vegetables that also serves as an employment center for some of the area’s most vulnerable residents. It has become a focal point for the renewal of Chinatown. The garden was established in 2006 through a job-training program funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.