Homeless Garden Project Receives $5,000 Grant

(HGP) a $5,000 grant that will provide important, general operating support for their transitional employment program for individuals experiencing homelessness.

The Homeless Garden Project serves individuals who apply and commit to an intensive transitional employment program on their organic farm. "Trainees" are matched with supportive staff, including social work support, while they engage in professional and personal development trainings for up to 12 months. Trainees earn wages and receive support in their pursuit of long-term self-sufficiency, utilizing our social enterprises of an organic farm, value-added workshop and retail store. About 90% of graduates obtain stable employment and housing within three months of leaving the program.

Currently, the Project provides 17 trainee positions but the organization's strategic framework sets a goal of providing 50 positions by 2024. HGP is working to build a permanent, consolidated site at Pogonip that will support this strategic goal of tripling their impact. The Homeless Garden Project will announce their campaign for Pogonip Farm later this year.

New Leaf Community Markets made the recommendation to Newman’s Own Foundation that resulted in the grant based on the store’s long-standing partnership with HGP. According to HGP Development Director Paul Goldberg: “HGP’s partnership with New Leaf is incredibly impactful and makes it possible to do our work. New Leaf’s values are the same ones we hold dear at the farm: supporting the community and understanding where our food comes from, in relation to our health and the health of the environment. We have received over $100,000 through New Leaf’s Envirotoken program over the years, and we are incredibly grateful for the various types of support they provide.”

Programs of the Homeless Garden Project

Through the Value-Added Social Enterprise, trainees help create more than 40 products from items grown at the Farm, as well as learn to dry a wide variety of herbs and flowers and design beautiful, long-lasting arrangements which are sold by HGP to support their transitional employment program.

HGP’s Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program enables community members to purchase a “share” of the farm in the Spring, then every week during the growing season, pick up their portion of the harvest.

The Connecting with Community program links job-training participants with appropriate local resources for housing, food stamps, drug rehabilitation, long-term counseling, and free to low-cost physical and mental health services. As a trainee nears completion of HGP’s employment program, Connecting with Community engages the individual in one-on-one job searching techniques, application review and coaching, and interview role-playing.

HGP is currently launching the Feed Two Birds campaign to raise funds to support trainees in their program by growing, harvesting, and giving more than 6,000 pounds of food to 10 local non-profits including Santa Cruz AIDS Project, Transition Age Youth, HUD-VASH (veteran housing organization) and the River Street Shelter. The produce reaches around 2,500 individuals being served by those nonprofits.

For more information about Homeless Garden Project, visit www.homelessgardenproject.org. For more information about Newman’s Own Foundation, visit www.newmansownfoundation. To connect with New Leaf Community Markets, visit www.newleaf.com