This year, Gardening Know How's School and Community Garden Sponsorship was fortunate enough to help support 15 gardens with $1,000 each. These gardens represent a wide array of community and school programs from Canada to Puerto Rico and many places in between. Each has its own unique and powerful story, and we're excited to share them with you. We're taking the time to highlight our sponsorship recipients to help spread the word about how amazing they really are. Today we're featuring the Tri-Community W.E.B. Association of Tahlequah, Oklahoma.
The Tri-Community W.E.B. Association gets its name from the three adjoining communities it serves: Welling, Eldon, and Briggs. Located about 8 miles east of Tahlequah, OK, W.E.B. is a rural area where fresh, wholesome food isn't always easy to come by. That's where the Association comes in.
Under the guidance of President J.R. Sellers, the Tri-Community W.E.B. Association provides very affordable meals (just $2 for dinner, beverage, and dessert!) in its community building on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. They also run a mobile food pantry that serves 100 households. A non-profit organization, they are making it their mission to bring good, affordable food to the members of their community. And they're really doing it - in their first year of operation, they served 11,047 meals!
A lot of their food comes from an on-site greenhouse - this is where they grow tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, squash, okra, strawberries, and more. But they're always looking to expand, both in capacity and in the growing season. And they've used their sponsorship funds to achieve both. The community building now has a brand new aeroponic vertical grow tower. Now community members can enjoy fresh greens year-round and watch them grow as they eat. A few have even bought a smaller tower to grow vegetables in their own homes.
With Gardening Know How's help, the Tri-Community W.E.B Association is feeding more people with more nutritious and locally-grown food, and it's encouraging more people to grow their own vegetables. We're proud to be able to help them with their mission, and we can't wait to see what they do next!
The community center is open to visitors and anyone and everyone is welcome to come by and see the grow tower in action.
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Elmsdale Community Garden – 2022 Grant RecipientThe Elmsdale Community Garden is striving to bring food security to rural Nova Scotia, one garden bed at a time. Read their story here.
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Gainesville Giving Garden - 2022 Grant RecipientThe Gainesville Giving Garden was born from a dream of freedom from food insecurity during the height of covid. Read its story here.
