Stories of Community Support

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Follow Your Heart on a Journey of Kindness

 “Hurricane Katrina was a wake up call for me,” says Curtis Reliford. Since that day, Curtis has dedicated his life to “helping people who are in need and not receiving proper help.” He formed the Follow Your Heart Action Network and has since delivered 37 truck and trailer loads of donated items to people in need in communities devastated by the hurricane. Curtis is motivated by a deep belief that America can do better by its less fortunate members, and invites others to join him on this “Journey of Kindness.” Recently, the grassroots Follow Your Heart Action Network is working closer to home, collecting more materials and delivering them locally to migrant farmworkers in Watsonville, CA who often lack the means for even basic necessities like food and clothing for their children. Members of the Santa Cruz and Watsonville community donate food, clothes, furniture and infant items like diapers and toys, which the Follow Your Heart Action Network picks up, sorts, launders if needed, and delivers to farmworker campsites. Bread for the Journey of Santa Cruz County was happy to give Curtis $1,800 toward repairing a broken axle on his delivery trailer and to help purchase a 40-foot container to store the donated times safely. To learn how you can help, visit: http://www.followyourheartactionnetwork.com/.

Our First Grant: La Mesa Verde Gardens

 
The new Santa Cruz chapter of Bread for the Journey is proud to announce the sponsoring of our first grant to La Mesa Verde Gardens ("The Green Table Gardens"). Ana Rasmussen, the creator of the project, grew up on an Oregon farm and is dedicated to fostering sustainability and social justice. She has been a bi-lingual social worker in Santa Cruz County for 20 years and, prior to this project, had also staffed the construction of 21 such backyard garden projects in the Oakland area. This will be the first program of its kind in Santa Cruz County at the daycare level.
 
La Mesa Verde Gardens is joining with local daycare providers who serve low-income children by building small, organic, edible gardens on-site. Each garden will be built at a one-day, barn-raising style event. Garden build participants will include the Mesa Verde Gardens program coordinator, youth mentors and community volunteers, as well as interested members of each daycare site. Gardens will be created with young children in mind, planted primarily with easily accessible, plant-to-mouth, kid-friendly fruits and vegetables. The program will involve kids in the hands-on, outdoor activities inherent in gardening while providing them with the joyful experience of seeing plants grow and the simple pleasures of harvesting. Each garden will be supported throughout its first year by a trained youth mentor, a local high school student majoring in agricultural studies.

Bread for the Journey of Santa Cruz County granted $1200 to Ms. Rasmussen, which will provide all the resources necessary for creating a pilot project garden at one local daycare center. This first garden will serve as a demonstration site in order to attract further funding, enabling her vision to spread to other daycare centers in Santa Cruz and beyond.

Contact us:

Bread for the Journey of Santa Cruz County
jerilynk@higherstandards.biz
(831) 461-9300

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