Bonnie Turner took a chance on us in 1996 and let us use her backyard to start a youth garden project. When Bonnie passed away, her family graciously sold us the 2-acre parcel that is now the GRuB Farm. With great community and foundation support we completed our Capital Campaign in 2008 to purchase our farm and to build a new farmhouse to house the many people we work with. Thanks for helping us to create this beautiful space. More history...
Check out our Cultivator CSA, Ambassador Bouquet, and Compost Business Partner programs. You enjoy the bounty of our farm while supporting the Cultivating Youth Employment program and the hardworking young people who make GRuB rock it out! Would you like to VOLUNTEER at the farm? Check out our great farm opportunities.
Did you know that we send over 50% of our produce home with our youth crew and to the Food Bank? That's 5,000 pounds of fresh, nutritious fruits and vegetables! We need your help to succeed. It costs us $250 to provide food for one youth for the year. That's $7,000 in our budget for the 28 youth we will feed in 2010/2011.
We grow for the Thurston County Food Bank year round. It costs us $1,500/year to support their emergency food efforts. We also encourage you to support them directly.
You can contact us right now if you're ready to help!
Fall is coming, ahhh! We're heading into fall here with some celebrations, mostly around the fact that despite a horrible spring, we eventually had enough produce for our youth to take home, to sell at the market stand, to pack in the CSA boxes and to be able to donate to the food bank on a weekly basis. We've also helped to grow some amazing young adults in the process. Once our market programs wrap up, we'll continue to donate to the food bank throughout the fall and winter, as well as provide weekly meals for our academic year program
"I love bringing good food home...working at GRuB has influenced me to eat much healthier foods and to be more active." - 2008 Summer Youth Crew Member
Stewarding this land for more than 60 years, Bonnie Turner was an avid gardener who opened her space to our work in 1996. She watched our program grow and her legacy continued after her passing thanks to the generosity of her granddaughter, Linda Newcomb, who offered GRuB the first opportunity to purchase the land.
These past thirteen years, GRuB has operated its drop-out prevention, mentoring, and nutrition programs for low-income youth here at The GRuB Farm (formerly the Sister Holly Garden). This land is central to our mission of bringing good food to all people and is accessible to the community.
The GRuB Farm provides the soil, plants, trees, water, and microbes essential to the learning experiences we offer to youth. As stewards of this land we have expanded the rigor on the farm through increased food production and marketing including growing more food for emergency food distribution. We also have the capacity to employ more youth in our programs. As the rigor in the fields increases so does the self-esteem and pride that youth earn from a hard day's work.
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