Hayes Valley garden to feed homeless; volunteer opportunity!

[Guest guest]

S.F. garden to help feed the homeless

Rachel Gordon, Chronicle Staff Writer

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Jeff Greene, an out-of-work engineer who would be homeless if not for a room in

a residential hotel paid for by the city, grabbed a shovel Friday afternoon and

began digging holes in a patch of dirt in Hayes Valley.

Greene, 45, was helping plant an urban fruit orchard along Octavia Boulevard on

land once under the shadow of a freeway ramp.

His volunteer labor was used to help launch a nationwide project dubbed

" Communities Take Root " in which fruit trees will be planted in 25 more

communities across the United States to bring fresh and nutritious foods to the

poor and others in need.

San Francisco's fruit orchard is being incorporated into a budding community

food garden run by Project Homeless Connect, a 6-year-old program started by

Mayor Gavin Newsom to help the homeless get housing, health care, clothing and

other essential goods and services.

The garden, which runs along the east side of Octavia between Oak and Page

streets, opened in February. The produce is intended to feed the homeless.

On Friday afternoon dozens of volunteers gathered in the sun-warmed garden to

plant 17 fruit trees, among them grapefruit, apple, pear, guava, persimmon and

apricot, and about two dozen plants and shrubs that will produce huckleberries,

raspberries, grapes and the like.

The project is a joint effort of the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation of Mill

Valley and Dreyer's, the Oakland food company.

The first substantial harvest should emerge in two or three years, said Cem

Akin, executive director of the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation.

Ed DeMasi, deputy director of Project Homeless Connect, surveyed the garden -

now sprouting greens and planted with fruit trees - that not long ago had been a

neglected patch of asphalt beneath the Central Freeway ramp. The freeway,

damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, is gone and a renewed neighborhood

has taken root.

The garden is a symbol of the rebirth.

" Now people who are homeless and who have homes are coming together as one to

work on a common goal, and that's learning about and growing sustainable food

and building community, " DeMasi said.

Greene, who is working to put his life back on track, said the garden has given

him that and more.

" All these trees we're planting, " he said, " remind me of hope. "

E-mail Rachel Gordon at rgordon.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/05/01/BADK1D7QDB.DTL

This article appeared on page C - 2 of the San Francisco Chronicle

 

Sign up to volunteer or donate garden supplies online at

http://www.projecthomelessconnect.com/home/community-home-garden/