Good Roots Community Garden and Food Bank
Outside Portland, Oregon, there is a small town called Oak Grove, it is unincorporated and struggles to find a sense of community. While it is developing, it is still steeped in poverty. The Good Roots Community Church has found a way to create a community in their own corner of the world, speaking the common human language of food.
In 2010, the church began planting a garden on their front lawn that has grown more than just the produce that helps sustain the Good Roots Food Bank. It has grown a community of 45 volunteers, 10 from the Church, and the rest are former clients and “Good Samaritan” neighbors. Volunteer Coordinator, Tony Iannetta, remembers growing up in Oak Grove in the 1950’s, when the community was mostly a Japanese and Italian “truck farm” area, where small farms trucked in produce to Portland for sale. He feels the area needs to get back to the “old way”, when he was growing up he was poor but never knew it, because there was plenty of food to harvest and eat on their own land.
Not only does the Good Roots Community Garden and Food Bank feed 94 local families and assorted local individuals with food boxes and bread lines, but teaches the clients to be apart of the community. Iannetta states that,” We hope to impart life and job skills in the community. To teach them to give back, not just consume charity. The garden forms a community where there was once a fractured one, (we are) fighting obesity, Diabetes, and helping the under employed and mentally ill, teaching them skills and giving them someone to talk to.”
Iannetta teaches classes for the local elementary school and home schooled children of the area, focusing on: Botany, food choices, worm bins, composting, eating the seasons, regional foods, organic gardening, saving heirloom seeds, and energy independency, through the Good Roots Community Garden. His goal is to motivate other Churches to follow in their footsteps, to create edible gardens in place of lawns that need constant upkeep to remain decorative. Lawns would better serve the community as a food source and a way of connecting people through the common language of food.
Good Roots community Garden is available for volunteers Friday from 8 am to 1 pm and Saturdays beginning at 8 am. 1908 SE Courtney Ave, Milwaukie, OR 97222 Phone:(503) 654-0507. The Garden and Food Bank’s success is attributed to the generosity of volunteer, grants, and donations.
In 2010, the church began planting a garden on their front lawn that has grown more than just the produce that helps sustain the Good Roots Food Bank. It has grown a community of 45 volunteers, 10 from the Church, and the rest are former clients and “Good Samaritan” neighbors. Volunteer Coordinator, Tony Iannetta, remembers growing up in Oak Grove in the 1950’s, when the community was mostly a Japanese and Italian “truck farm” area, where small farms trucked in produce to Portland for sale. He feels the area needs to get back to the “old way”, when he was growing up he was poor but never knew it, because there was plenty of food to harvest and eat on their own land.
Not only does the Good Roots Community Garden and Food Bank feed 94 local families and assorted local individuals with food boxes and bread lines, but teaches the clients to be apart of the community. Iannetta states that,” We hope to impart life and job skills in the community. To teach them to give back, not just consume charity. The garden forms a community where there was once a fractured one, (we are) fighting obesity, Diabetes, and helping the under employed and mentally ill, teaching them skills and giving them someone to talk to.”
Iannetta teaches classes for the local elementary school and home schooled children of the area, focusing on: Botany, food choices, worm bins, composting, eating the seasons, regional foods, organic gardening, saving heirloom seeds, and energy independency, through the Good Roots Community Garden. His goal is to motivate other Churches to follow in their footsteps, to create edible gardens in place of lawns that need constant upkeep to remain decorative. Lawns would better serve the community as a food source and a way of connecting people through the common language of food.
Good Roots community Garden is available for volunteers Friday from 8 am to 1 pm and Saturdays beginning at 8 am. 1908 SE Courtney Ave, Milwaukie, OR 97222 Phone:(503) 654-0507. The Garden and Food Bank’s success is attributed to the generosity of volunteer, grants, and donations.