A Path to Health and Empowerment
As the vibrant season of spring giveaways comes to a close, we are delighted to announce the successful conclusion of our spring program. We are thrilled to share that we reached our ambitious goal of engaging 800 families across New Mexico, expanding our reach and deepening our impact.This season, we extended our program to 15 new communities, each one welcoming us with open arms and a shared commitment to fostering health and sustainability.
The success of ¡Sembrando Salud! highlights the importance of community-driven efforts in combating food insecurity and promoting health. For many participants, this program is a lifeline, providing not only food but also hope, knowledge, and a sense of empowerment. By learning to grow their own food, families can access nutritious produce all year round, improving their health and well-being.
We invite you to support ¡Sembrando Salud! and help us expand our reach to even more families. Your donations will enable us to provide additional gardening kits, educational workshops, and ongoing support to communities in need. Together, we can ensure that more families have the tools and resources to grow their own food, fostering resilience and sustainability across New Mexico.
Provides bilingual organic backyard gardening workshops to local community organizations.
The Sembrando Salud! program, which translates in English to "Sowing Health!" addresses food insecurity in underserved New Mexico food desert communities by providing neighborhood hands-on workshops and demonstrations on gardening methods, empowering Indigenous and Mexicano/Chicano participants to develop a community network of backyard and community gardens to provide their communities with unimpaired access to healthy foods.
2024 Resilient Seed team (recruitment team) and CSC Staff.
Successful Sembrando Salud! participants who have a desire to expand to larger-scale production to generate an income enter CSC’s Community Development Center (CODECE) program to receive a full spectrum of business development resources and training to help emerging agrarians establish a formalized farming business.
Participants learn how to improve soil health by making compost and other natural inputs from yard and food waste, implement space-maximizing square foot gardening layouts and micro-gardening techniques, set up simple drip systems and calculate watering needs, increase biodiversity, plant resilience and pollinator populations through companion planting and cover cropping, and end-of-harvest seed saving techniques.
Each participant also receives start-up gardening supplies such as organic seeds for traditional crops and pollinator patches, drip irrigation lines and connectors, OMRI-certified garden soil and a corresponding guidebook developed by CSC that participants can keep for future reference. Additionally, each participant has access to a community rototiller to help them break ground on their new garden spaces.
