Gardeners In Community Development

GICD

A Dallas Area Community Gardening Program

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Our Saviour Community Garden

The Church of Our Saviour, 1616 N. Jim Miller Road

From our humble beginning in 2003, with the continuing help of Gardeners in Community Development (GICD), we have grown and embraced the idea of being a donation garden.  The mission of our “Plot Against Hunger” is to give back to the community, to help food insecure families have a place to grow vegetables, to be good stewards of the earth, and to pass along these gifts as we plant seeds of hope and faith.

The first year we were able to donate over 1,000 pounds of vegetables to the Southeast Dallas Emergency   Food Center .  In 2004 we donated over one ton.  In 2005, through GICD, our garden was included in Heifer International’s--Urban Agriculture Initiative.  Heifer funding has helped with raised beds, tools, soil amendments, education, seeds, fruit and nut trees and livestock (worms and bees.)  These gifts have greatly improved the garden, and increased the gifts we can pass on.  Last year, 2006, we donated over two tons (5,500 lb.) not counting what we used at our own tables and shared with friends!  How many meals does 5,500 pounds provide?  Enough for over 22,000 individual servings!   

Our Saviour Garden has grown into a GICD teaching garden.  School children, Science Clubs and Vacation Bible Schools extend their classrooms to the garden. Boy Scouts help harvest as a part of their service badge requirements. Classes are also held on canning, seed saving, composting, vermiculture, etc.  

GICD teaches us to successfully use inexpensive methods for gardening that benefit the environment.   We will never again look at unused spaces, bags of leaves and grass, chopped tree trimmings, old fencing or kitchen scraps the same way!  This awareness won us the 2006 Hearts of Hope Award for Environmentalism from the Volunteer Center of North Texas. 

Our community helps in the Plot Against Hunger!  Last year, WalMart at Balch Springs awarded a matching grant for our plant sale.  J.P. Morgan/Chase Bank donated monies for fencing and Master Halco help us with affordable pricing.  The Sparks Foundation gifted our garden with monies for fencing an additional garden area began this summer.  Starbucks sponsors a plot, workdays and pickle sales.  The list goes on…  The garden grows community!  The garden grows people!   

Join us in plotting against hunger.  Come to our garden for a visit, or to help harvest, plant, and weed.  Your support is needed to help us grow.  Grow with us.  See you in the garden!

Rebecca (Becky) Smith, garden coordinator

Church Office: (214) 391-2824, Becky’s cell (214) 564-5801.

For a story about starting this garden written by one of the gardeners, follow this link:  Getting Our Saviour Started.  

Garden Plots--Our Saviour Community Garden plans to have room for more gardeners.  To find out more send an email to Our Saviour.