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Growing Gardening Partnerships in Massachusetts

Kathy Cunningham, MEd, RD, LDN: SNAP-Ed Multi-Level Specialist, NEP Acting Director

Darby Gavin: Nutrition Educator, Barnstable County

Carole Guerin, BS, MA: Nutrition Educator II, UMass Extension

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Southeast Extension

Carole Guerin

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Building Trust

Direct education in the community- identify opportunities and needs
Build partnerships, engage participants, increase fruit and vegetable consumption
Increase SNAP and HIP (Healthy Incentives Program) redemption, physical activity opportunities
Collect feedback and data, adapt programming to changing needs

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Committee and Collaborator Meetings

COMMUNITY HEALTH NETWORK AREAS (CHNA): CHNA 23 Plymouth Health Network Area
SCHOOL WELLNESS COMMITTEES: Plymouth Public Schools Wellness Committee
ADVISORY COMMITTEES: Plymouth County Sheriff’s Department Farm Advisory Committee
HOUSING AUTHORITIES: Plymouth Housing Authority Family Self Sufficiency Committee Meeting
EBT, SNAP, AND HIP PAYMENT PROCESSING CAPACITY WITH LOCAL FARMERS: Patti’s Patch Farm

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Partnerships

Terra Cura
Plymouth Public Schools
Plymouth County Sheriff’s Department
Plymouth Public Library

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Zion Food Pantry Partnership

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Plymouth Housing Authority Partnership

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Cape Cod Cooperative Extension

Darby Gavin

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Everyone Eats: Cultural Community Gardens

Partnered with local farms and community gardens to grow and distribute culturally diverse crops.
Developed and distributed over 750 multilingual cookbooks.

The program was created to increase access to culturally competent crops native to Brazilian and Haitian Creole cuisines.

Image One: Barnstable county food access coordinator with a cultural garden program participant.

Image Two: Jilo (gee-low), also called a Scarlet Eggplant, popular in Brazilian cuisine, can be cooked in many ways.

Gardens

Approximately 12 master gardener volunteered contributed to the project. They helped with initial installation and planting, and then there was a group that checked on the gardens weekly.
Commercial growers were Chatham Bars Inn Farm in Brewster and Pariah Dog Farms in Falmouth; both received a grant to grow the crops. Produce was given to local food pantries.
All the sites had 2 raised beds except for Hyannis Public Library (they had one raised bed).

Cookbooks

Cookbooks were in English, Haitian Creole, and Portuguese
Cookbooks were provided to all the agencies and churches that had gardens installed. Also, the YMCA received them for their preschool sites as a part of a Welcome Week event for immigrant families new to the Cape. Falmouth Coalition for Families and Chatham Elementary School also took cookbooks. They were made available at public libraries. The remaining 250 cookbooks were distributed at SNAP-Ed program sites.

English and Portuguese: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.capecod.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/2021-Everyone-Eats-Cookbook-Portuguese.pdf
English and Haitian Creole: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.capecod.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/2021-Everyone-Eats-Cookbook-Creole.pdf

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Everyone Eats: Cultural Community Gardens

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Resources

USDA SNAP-Ed Success Stories featuring Massachusetts SNAP-Ed Implementing Agencies:

Curriculums used:

What is CHNA?

https://chna23.org/about-us/what-is-a-chna/

PACTV Episode on the Plymouth Housing Authority Mobile Farmers’ Market
Everyone Eats Community Cookbook, Recipes in English and Portuguese
Everyone Eats Community Cookbook, Recipes in English and Haitian Creole
Bringing Access of Ethnic Foods to Caribbean and Brazilian-born Cape Codders

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Thank you!

Kathy Cunningham, kcunningham@umext.umass.edu

Darby Gavin, darbygav@gmail.com

Carole Guerin, Cguerin@umass.edu