Year Two of the
Garden Leadership Training program concluded on November 18th
with a celebration of photos, plans for the future and of course, cake!
15 Garden leaders from Willits, Laytonville, and Covelo spent the last ten months
strengthening community, building leadership skills and
sharing hopes, triumphs, tips, challenges and
delicious meals with each other.
The goal of this
three year program is to
train community gardeners to share, organize, lead, and continue to
build the movement for expanding and sustaining spaces for community and
school gardens. The Leadership Program is a component of NCO Community Action successfully receiving a
USDA Community Food Projects grant to train community leaders in food production and work to alleviate poverty through re-building our local food system.
The group met every six weeks at the NCO Willits Action Group offices and each meeting focused on a different theme such as
effective leadership,
garden advocacy, market opportunities and
growing community. Meetings were facilitated by Gardens Project coordinator Miles Gordon and other Gardens Project staff.
The group's final venture of the year was a
PhotoVoice
project in which Garden Leaders documented their experiences by taking
photos of their community members at work in the gardens.
These photos, with their interpretations, are being compiled into a traveling exhibit so look for them around town or view them online now!
Now that year two has been brought to a close,
Garden
Leaders from the North County have chosen to continue meeting
as a Garden Leadership Council next year without facilitation by the
Gardens Project. The Gardens Project will be
moving onto year three of
this three year program by starting the same training cycle with
gardeners from the Mendocino County Coast this January. The training will be hosted by the
Noyo Food Forest and facilitate by the Gardens Project of NCO.
To learn more about Year One and Two's journey through the Leadership Training Course, read all of the
Leadership blogs.
