Wandering around my Mind

You never know what you might find here.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Starting the Garden

Today I started a few seeds out in the greenhouse. My plan this season is to have a much larger garden than usual. I started out just wanting to have something I could do with the kids that reminded me of growing up. We used to have a big garden every year. My Dad would take us out to the garden every evening after work and we would pull weeds or harvest when the time came.

After hearing about the growing hunger problem in America and the shortages at food banks around the country I decided to expand my garden goals for the year. I started a non-profit called Share My Harvest (www.sharemyharvest.org) to recruit local home gardeners to grow food for the food banks or other organizations working to help fight hunger. It is a grassroots effort but those have the power to take off and really have an impact.

Having run a large company I know the power of small numbers and how they can add up. Just one gardener can produce enough food to donate with a small plot. Imagine what 50 or more backyard gardens could do.

I am working on recruiting volunteers in the Denver area and pairing up with the food banks and churches. I am also looking for people would would be interested in coordinating programs in other areas of the country. Please contact me at mcarlin@sharemyharvest.org if you have any interest in being a local market coordinating volunteer.