Garden to Table Silicon Valley

2015 was Garden to Table's most impactful year yet: we added 1,000 square feet of growing area at Taylor St. Farm, and hosted numerous events and workshops to inspire and educate. Our Neighborhood Harvest Program harvested and distributed over 16,000 lbs. of fruit from local trees, and trained 4 new harvest leaders. We also piloted a new education project with CommUniverCity, helped compete a beautiful community-operated garden, and aided with the passage of two laws. Policy work: AB 551: Urban Agriculture Incentive Zones (UAIZ) in San Jose and Santa Clara County. This exciting new law paves the way for private landowners to receive a tax break in exchange for making their vacant land available for urban agriculture. Key Impacts Co-hosted Urban Agriculture Stakeholder meetings with SPUR and the county of Santa Clara offices in April and June Drafted letters of support urging community members to express their support for expanding urban agriculture in San Jose Hosted "Expanding Urban Ag in San Jose" panel event at our Taylor St. Farm with SPUR in September on 09/17/15 The City of San Jose's December priority-setting process ranked implementing AB 551 as a top priority in 2016 AB 1990 and AB 234: Home grown foods as "Approved Sources" throughout California. In order for a restaurant or market to purchase food, state law requires those foods to come from "Approved Sources". Both AB 1990 and AB 234 are aimed at making it safe and legal for people to sell food grown in home gardens. AB 1990 was an early version of the law, which evolved into AB 234 after the state got feedback from a number of organizations. Key Impacts Hosted a focus group of fruit tree owners to discuss sales of donated fruit. Overwhelming support of our effort to raise funds to help support our program. Revamped the Neighborhood Harvest Program to ensure that gleaning operations are in compliance with all the requirements of the law. Advocated and wrote letters of support for improving the law. Then wrote letters of support for the newly amended law AB 234. Governor Jerry Brown signed the bill into law on 10/09/15. The Neighborhood Harvest Program has grown a great deal since it first started, and while it has undergone some changes, program staff continues to be relentlessly committed to reducing food waste and increasing access to healthy food in San Jose. Every week Harvest Leaders lead teams of volunteers to help keep tasty fruit from falling on the ground and going to waste, making sure it goes out into our community. The majority of donations are distributed to the Olinder Food Program, Sacred Heart Community Services, and Five Wounds Church. Key Impacts Harvested 16,738 lbs. of fruit with the help of 478 volunteers and 74 individual homeowners Harvested 20 different varieties of fruit. The bulk of our harvests were: Oranges (5,145 lbs.), Grapefruits (3,678 lbs.), Lemons (2,148 lbs.), and Persimmons (2,123 lbs.) Harvested over 2,500 lbs. in March and over 3,000 lbs. of citrus in April, our most productive months yet (detailed in Figure 1 on the next page.) Harvested 650 lbs. of apples at Nestledown, in the Santa Cruz Mountains, on 09/14/15 Taylor Street Farm This year Taylor St. Farm grew over 50 varieties of veggies, from beautiful striped Chioggia beets to juicy heirloom tomatoes, and the surprise hit of the summer: okra! Summer 2015 was our best season yet for U-Pick customers, with more produce, more workshops, and more customers. Volunteers came from all over to work on the farm: local high schools and colleges, neighbors of the farm, tech companies, local meetup group Silicon Valley Volunteers, and families who traveled across the South Bay with the express purpose to work on the farm. Key Impacts Hosted 300 volunteers, logging 1,300 hours doing everything from building our new chicken coop to building garden beds and planting summer crops! Hosted 34 U-Picks and generated over $4,500 in revenue for the farm Supplied produce to Veggielution's Winter CSA and local restaurants, Little Wine Counter, The Table, GrandView, and 71 St. Peter, bringing in over $3,000 Partnered with the Urban Farmers Coop Meetup.com group to host 3 Sustainable Wednesday Happy Hours and Cooking Demos, which generated $1,200 in revenue Hosted a happy hour with food trucks, SJ Made vendors, and a delicious spread of fresh veggies termed Taylor St. Turnup Hosted a memorable night celebrating the bounty of Taylor St. Farm at our first fundraiser dinner on the farm in September, raising over $5,000