How might we address food insecurity by providing fresh food to those in need in our community?
Operation Salsa started as a project with the intention of tackling local food insecurity issues by planting a new garden for our community, participating in small-scale agriculture, and making meals from their harvest for those in need. The team started meetings by participating in four different empathy experiences: visiting and working at New Roots Garden, Ohana Farm visit, Seeds of Change farm visit, and Fiddler’s Green Farm visit.
In the beginning, Operation Salsa placed their focus on restoring soil health to the New Roots garden plot on Cole Rd. This included cutting down weeds, removing a weed barrier, sourcing horse manure (for free delivered via trailer weekly), building a compost container out of reused pallets, and spreading fall cover crop seed on the garden. The team also coordinated gleaning excess apples from a One Stone family to share with the Rolling Tomato, an organization fighting food waste by getting extra produce to shelters and people in need. Apples went to the staff and Club members at the Boys and Girls Club and the Womens and Children’s Alliance.
In the spring, Operation Salsa’s main focus was planning for spring planting. This included training and learning about issues farmworkers face. They had a panel interview and discussion with Christina Stucker-Gassi and Samantha Guerreo, two advocates for farmworkers and migrant laborers in Idaho. They also had a seed prepping and a seed education workshop run by Ben Trieu, who is a volunteer coach for this team, in order to start preparing seeds for the garden. By the end of the school year, Operation Salsa had built garden rows and planted starter plants in the area.
Fast Facts
Year(s): Fall 2020 - Summer 2021
Focus: Food accessibility and sustainable gardening practices
Community partner: Treasure Valley Community Garden Cooperative; St Stephens Episcopal Church; Boise Urban Garden School; Boise Kitchen Collective
Number of recipients: 50
Number of One Stone members involved in planning: 20
Number of weeks of planning: 30
How many hours it took to prepare for implementation: ongoing project
How many hours it took to implement: ongoing project
