Mission High School - San Francisco
Mission High School - San Francisco

News & Events


Jan 11 2010 12:00AM

Healthy Food Access for Marin City Families


January 18, Martin Luther King Day: The Conservation Corps North Bay will be partnering with the Sausalito Marin City School District on a community service project to install the Martin Luther King Jr. Academy garden as part of Marin City’s MLK day celebration. Over 60 North Bay Conservation Corps volunteers are expected to attend. We are hoping to have 50 community volunteers joining in. EVERYONE is welcome! We will be installing garden boxes, laying out pathways, planting bare root fruit trees and vines, and much more.

This garden is made possible by funding from a grant given to the Milagro Foundation from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The funding was intended for communities that lack access to healthy food. Marin City is one of the 4 low-income underserved communities Milagro chose to support with the three-year, $720,000 grant from Kellogg. Other grantees are located in New Orleans, American Indian Reservations in New Mexico and Arizona. Marin City will receive $65,000 a year for three years.

Milagro Foundation collaborated with Sausalito-Marin City School District and GrowingGreat, a nonprofit school garden and nutrition education organization, to create GrowingGreat Marin City. GrowingGreat Marin City is a school garden, nutrition education and cooking program that is integrated into all schools’ curriculum, as well as providing access to healthy fresh food for the community of Marin City. Local businesses and community partners have generously donated soil, plants, other supplies and their time to make this program a success.

Another healthy food option will be available to Marin City residents this May. The Marin Farmers Market organization will open its eighth farmers market in the county in the Marin Gateway Shopping Center in Marin City. The market will be open on Saturday mornings. Locals are being encouraged to join the market as food purveyors.

The Milagro Foundation and its partners believe that the garden will inspire healthy eating by involving children in the process of growing, harvesting, and eating their own organic produce. The garden, combined with nutrition education and cooking will enable children to experience new foods, appreciate seasonality, and learn to make healthy food choices. All this will lead to healthier children.

A special thanks to Nancy Farese who has donated her time to document the progress of this wonderful project. All the photos you see associated with this article are Nancy's.





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