Hello All,
I just wanted to bring everyone up to date on the garden.
As some of you know we have been facing some challenges working with the Las Cruces High School students this year. Ms. Gustin has had some classes that have been difficult to control and no TA to help her due to budget cuts. As a result we lost seeds, seedlings, and have many broken tools and hoses. The school also took back the grant that would have reimbursed for those things along with the cost for materials for pagoda and vertical garden. This was a real set back.
The good news is that Jacque Hair did get a grant, for her special needs students, to come out to work in the garden to gain jobs skills and get paid for their work through the DVR program for April & May.
In addition, I have partnered with La Semilla Food Center, a non-profit in Anthony (https://www.lasemillafoodcenter.org) to host a series of Urban Agriculture Workshop for the City Of Las Cruces Urban Ag initiative. The workshops will be geared toward low income folks on EBT/Food Stamps as a way to grow their own food for better nutrition, cost savings on grocery bills, and as an economic opportunity for additional household income (selling extra produce as a small business). The overall goal for the program is to help empower a vulnerable, marginalized population in our community to help improve the local food system and spur economic opportunity in our region.
There will be 6 workshops between April 2019 and Feb 2020, 4 gardening/farming skills classes and 2 farm business classes, the dates of each class have yet to be determined. The workshops are free and open to anyone who wants to learn about urban farming.
I think our garden/urban farm is the perfect site for this! Would we be able to present this at the church’s next board meeting?
The project stakeholders would like to tour the garden on Thursday, March 28th at 11am. You are all welcome to come and meet them and learn more about the Urban Ag Initiative project.
Thanks,
Rachael
Rachael Ryan
Owner
Backyard Farms
Las Cruces, New Mexico
(575) 323-1471
