LYNN — Who thinks about gardening in January? Answer: Lynn Grows — the community garden-grown food organization celebrating a year on Saturday.
Lynn Grows’ 25-member steering committee and community partners spent 2019 launching projects to, according to its website, “build a food system that works for everyone in the city.”
That work included creating better access to healthy food, building community gardens, increasing the availability of fresh local produce at area food businesses, and identifying how and where residents can shop for food.
Lynn Grows celebrates its efforts to promote nutrition and readily-available food sources for local residents on Saturday, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. at LynnArts, 25 Exchange St.
The organization got its start with a partnership in 2015 with The Food Project, an organization for 30 years on finding ways to help farms survive and find markets for their produce and providing healthy and wide varieties of food for people living in cities smaller communities.
The group’s priorities are focused on school food, food education, access, affordability, gardens, and local food business. This work encompasses ensuring adequate nutrition for children through school lunches and breakfasts, providing nutrition education, supporting community garden initiatives and identifying and helping to prevent “food deserts” – neighborhoods not served by groceries or markets.
On its website, Lynn grows describes its food for schools work: “FoodCorps service members help maintain gardens in 9 elementary schools and run Salad Days for 3rd graders. During Salad Days, every 3rd grader in the school gets to plant mixed lettuce seeds in the garden beds.
They water it and tend to the garden until the salad mix is ready to harvest. Before the end of the school year the students harvest the salad, eat it with homemade dressing, and plant carrots to harvest the following fall.
Salad Days are meant to give each student a seed-to-fork experience, the opportunity to see vegetables grow, and a chance to connect with the land and their food. Currently 800 students participate in Salad Days and grow over 1,000 square feet of salad mix across Lynn’s schools.”
Children are welcome at Saturday’s event and childcare will be provided.
