Forage

Programs: The community food center is home to our office, kitchen incubator, and a community space that allows us to offer free and low-cost community workshops and trainings. It also lets us offer free or low-cost space to local organizations to help connect our community with other resources for food, health, and nutrition. In 2017-2018 we organized and collaborated to host over 30 events at the center. These programs were as diverse as food tastings, accessing capital for entrepreneurs, and community food and art classes for kids. In addition to the programming onsite, we also participated in many events to offer throughout the community provide education and outreach through talks and/or activities that focus on gardening, nutrition, and food entrepreneurship.

working food was able to open the doors to our kitchen incubator in april 2018. This program is designed to support low-income and fist time entrepreneurs developing food-based businesses by offering affordable kitchen and storage space, as well as technical assistance. The first phase is a simple minimum construction standards commissary kitchen, and currently has 15 entrepreneurs incubating. Our second phase production kitchen is currently under construction, and will offer more complete equipment and a larger space in order to accommodate a wider variety of business needs.

the southern heritage seed collective has grown into a well-recognized seed hub, both nationally and locally. Extensive efforts to develop our education and outreach have helped engage more members and tell the story of the importance of protecting regional seed biodiversity. We have participated in 36 special events, programs, and activities ranging from kids seed programs, full day seed school training for growers, and tasting events. Seed saving and trialing efforts were impressive this year and engaged more of our community. We saved seed from 70 varieties, trialed 42, published two seasonal seed catalogs, welcomed 18 new varieties to our collection with regional or rare status, and maintained a collection of about 225 varieties. We have also successfully secured a new seed growing and processing location with a partner non-profit, grow hub.

two years ago, during the 2016-2017 school year we piloted our youth gardens program at the wilhelmina johnson center (wjc) with twelve 3rd through 5th graders in the cultural arts coalition science academy. With the lessons learned and experience gained, we expanded the program into the greater duval neighborhood association (gdna) at the clarence r. Kelley recreation center (crk) for the 2017-2108 school year. We made great connections with the students, and reinforce learning in science, technology, engineering, math and the arts. We also built a great relationship with the city of gainesville parks, recreation and cultural affairs staff that loved the program and are discussing ways to have it expanded to all city recreation centers