people's garden

I’m thrilled that I could join Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan last week when we announced the recipients of the People’s Garden Grant Program in Baltimore, Maryland.  The backdrop for the $60,000 grant announcement to Towson University was set at the Eat Healthy Live Healthy Urban Garden in the Cherry Hill neighborhood. Cherry Hill is an approximately one square mile, geographically isolated, food desert neighborhood. These residents are impoverished and experience some of the highest rates of chronic disease in Baltimore city.

Thanks to USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) office in Warsaw, children in Poland are learning about health and nutrition and are helping preserve the environment - all while perfecting their gardening skills.

As the harvest season comes to a close, the People's Garden has a lot to be thankful for this year. Last week, the Initiative’s 'Share Your Harvest' effort passed the one million pound mark of fresh produce donated to local food banks and charities across the country.

This week, USDA was recognized at the 3^rd Annual Feds Feed Families Closing Ceremony at the Pentagon.  Employees around the country started over 2,000 food drives that led the department to contribute the most pounds per employee of any federal department or agency: almost 15 pounds per employee for a total of 1,791,393 pounds of food!  USDA was also recognized for bringing in the most donations in the large division category and for donating the most pounds of food during the month of August.  Thanks especially to our People’s Gardens around the country and employees’ innovative gleaning efforts, USDA recorded 1,397,475 pounds of food for the final month of the food drive.

Employees from every mission area and state participated and helped the department exceed the initial call to raise 500,000 pounds of food.  Nearly 100 USDA employees were included on the Office of Personnel Management’s  (OPM) Hall of Fame for making one-time donations of 250 pounds or more.  And many more employees joined together to fill the shelves of food banks and pantries.  This further demonstrates our employees’ dedication to caring and sharing in the communities they serve.

USDA employees raised about 40 semi-trailers worth of food nationwide during the 3^rd annual Feds Feed Families Food Drive! Put another way, 40 semi-trailers is equivalent to an astonishing 1,791,393 pounds of food. This number shattered USDA’s already ambitious goal of raising 500,000 pounds of food this summer. Accomplishing this goal is a testament to the dedication of USDA employees around the country to feed our neighbors. Whether that is through the department’s 15 different nutrition assistance programs that touch the lives of one in four Americans, or from their own generosity, USDA employees are making a big difference during a time of need.

Fall has finally arrived. For many this is a busy time at home, at work and especially in the garden where there are crops to harvest, prepare and preserve; seeds to save; weeds to pull; debris to collect and compost; cover crops to plant and the list goes on. To help you save time, money and space, USDA’s People’s Garden Initiative has invited experts to share advice in its 2011 Fall Webinar Series.

A series of five hour-long trainings will broadcast live on Wed. Oct. 5, 12, 19, 26 and Nov. 2 from 12 noon to 1 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. They are free for anyone to watch online. To join the training, register at www.extension.iastate.edu/broadcasts/emg/.

Several top French chefs gathered on September 19 at the People’s Garden located at the residence of the U.S. Ambassador to France.  In a friendly atmosphere, the chefs prepared dishes using fruits and vegetables from the garden, as well as U.S. cranberries and seafood (crab, salmon) from Alaska.  The event guests featured writers from France’s food, lifestyle and gardening media, in addition to buyers from local restaurants, hotels and catering companies.  Guests had an opportunity to taste traditional U.S. products and recipes reinterpreted by starred French chefs.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, created a People’s Garden as part of their efforts to live a more “green” life at work. “Green Teams,” volunteer organizations present in many U.S. embassies, look for ways to improve green issues at the embassy through programs that promote green living such as recycling and saving water.

Cross posted from the Let's Move! blog:

When the word community is in your middle name, it’s only natural to start gardens producing healthy, nutritious foods.  The Jewish Community Centers (JCC) Association has taken on the First Lady’s Let’s Move Faith and Communities challenge of growing community gardens. They have started JCC Grows, a healthy food and hunger-relief initiative involving the creation and/or expansion of community gardens at JCCs and JCC camps. Most of the produce grown is donated to emergency food providers to help those in need. JCC Grows also promotes fresh food collection drives and connects JCCs to Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs and farmers markets.

A day in the life of a U.S. Department of Agriculture photojournalist is never the same. This one was no exception.

It started out testing a new memory card that transmits photos from a digital camera to our Flickr social media gallery (www.USDA.gov and click the Flickr link).  After making the card work in the office , a field test was in order.