Students Proposing Real Options for Underutilized Territory (SPROUT)

Our organizational goals are: -To create a sustained collaboration between community members and university students by planting community gardens maintained by students that supply community members with fresh produce, and by organizing community events such as workshops, potlucks, trainings, film viewings, discussions and other activities. -To educate students and community members on how to grow their own food, as well as to engage in a process of self-education by hosting volunteers in the garden, creating educational signage for the various SPROUT projects, holding trainings and workshops, and organizing other interactive food-growing activities. -To recognize and unite the assets of the neighborhood and the university by seeking thoughtful collaboration with community stakeholders (neighborhood environmental groups, the Hamline Midway Library, business owners, homeowners and renters, churches, Hamline University student organizations, Hamline University Facility Services). -To provide low- or no-cost, organic produce for people who would otherwise be unable to access it by establishing community gardens on otherwise underutilized land and distributing the produce through a network of community groups. In our first semester of existence, we succeeded in securing land in a large plot outside of the Hamline United Methodist Church (adjacent to our campus) and another smaller plot behind houses owned by Hamline University. We prepared the beds, gathered donations of gardening materials and supplies and planted the gardens in the spring. Throughout the summer, we have been harvesting the produce weekly, goes to elders living in private residences as well as an assisted living facility in the neighborhood. This distribution is coordinated through the Hamline Midway Elders, a Block Nurse Program. Any excess produce is donated to local food shelves, or used for community meals. We were also successful in advocating for 10 container gardens with ornamental edibles on the university campus itself that enhance the already existing landscaping and points to attractive alternatives to thoughtful food growing in public spaces. Besides the gardens, we also hosted a film festival that focused on themes of food and environmental justice at our neighborhood public library (which is threatened by closure due to budget cuts) in the month of April (3 films total). We also hosted an interactive "newspaper pot" activity with grade school kids from the elementary school with which our university is affiliated, and a similar activity for a Sustainability Fair on the university campus during Earth Week. In the coming year, we hope to expand the gardening projects, while improving upon the management and planning of the gardens, and hopefully making them more efficient and fruitful in harvests to come! We also hope to continue to spark interest and discussion on our campus about food and environmental justice through hosting workshops, trainings, lectures, interactive activities, garden volunteer days, and other events.