The KAMII Social Justice Committee first broke ground for our gardens in April, 2009. Since then, we have expanded our gardens and, with our harvest and our White Rock Gleaning program, have delivered thousands of pounds of fresh produce to local soup kitchens and shelters.
- Three times a week during the growing season, workers from the congregation and the community tend and harvest KAMII's three gardens--the Star Garden, the South 1080 (along Hyde Park Boulevard), and the Apple Tree Garden. Before the growing season, workers prepare the earth, plants seeds, tend seedlings indoors, and prepare for harvest. After harvest, workers put the garden to bed and prepare for the next year.
- With our White Rock Gleaning Program, the garden workers collect and distribute otherwise unharvested food from three community gardens.
- Our Crop Mob Constructions transform congregational lawns into food producing gardens. With grant money from One Nation Chicago Fund at The Chicago Community Trust, we have constructed a 1,000 sq. ft. food-producing garden at Kenwood United Church of Christ, just outside the soup kitchen where we delivered much of our 2010 harvest. A second offsite food producing garden at a nearby church is planned for the spring of 2012.
- In the summer of 2011, we began our Food Justice and Sustainability Young Leadership Summer Program, in which high school students from around the city gathered on Sundays to attend seminars about food justice and sustainable land use and urban farming, and to help tend our three gardens.
The bimah decorations for the High Holidays are harvested and arranged by members of the Social Justice Committee. The flowers and produce come from our KAMII gardens that the committee tends. All of the produce was donated to local soup kitchens after each service.
If you are interested in helping with the KAMII Gardens, email our Social Justice Committee chair, Robert Nevel.
