Vancouver Food Network

The Clark County Community Grown program is a partnership whose goal is to create community through gardening. Formerly known as "Clark County Home Grown," they demonstrate how to garden and raise more of one's own, nutritious foods at home, with a special focus on low-income families.

Cooperation to Provide Supplies and Mentoring

Two major governmental partners include Clark County Public Health, Public Works and the Master Gardeners from the Washington State University extension service. Working with various grant money, the program helps qualified, low-income folks to build and manage a 32-square-foot, raised garden bed, including soil and plants. Participants are also provided with basic reference materials and a mentor who helps them do well in their new garden.

Immediate Success for Dozens of Families

The first year of the program established almost seventy home grown gardens throughout the county, with a strong concentration in the Rosemere (Rose Village) neighborhood, where there were enough to hold meetings and events such as potlucks where new gardeners shared questions, triumphs and advice. Over the next year, the program hopes to support even more families, and to provide composting education and compost bins, with the goal of improving quality of life through reduced food and health costs, while lowering disposal costs.

Plans to Expand Community Gardens County-Wide

The program also hopes to expand the county's 200 community garden plots by 25% over the next two years, by adding two new sites at Pacific Park and the "old poor farm" site on 78th Street, where the WSU Extension formerly had a research station. These two new sites would supplement existing gardens at four current locations: Ellsworth, Fruit Valley, Campus and Marshall Center. Community gardening "toolkits" and tips are also scheduled to appear shortly at www.CommunityGrown.com

Other Partners Host, Build Beds and Provide Plant Starts

Other partners include Friends of the Carpenter (which helps construct garden beds), Lewis and Clark High School (whose horticulture program grows starts) and the YWCA (with seven garden beds installed at a YWCA apartment)

Contact Information

Pete Dubois, pete.dubois@clark.wa.gov
Sustainable Clark County

For Further Information

• http://CommunityGrown.org (coming in 2009)
• The City of Vancouver and Clark County initiate sustainability programs" by Leslee Jaquette. City of Vancouver Senior Messenger, January 2009.
"Stake Your Claim: Community Garden Project" by Kate Dyer-Seeley. Vancouver Voice, February 26, 2009, p. 9.
• "Neighbors," The Columbian on Tuesday, October 7, 2008. Featured an article on a gathering of Rose Village "home grown gardeners."
• "Home Grown Answers," a Columbian editorial in support of the program on April 28, 2008.

* Updated to include additional article