American Community Gardening Association

FOR: those who run, or want to start, a community garden. And if you’re a locavore, you can’t get more local that growing your own in a home, school or community garden!

WHAT: The American Community Gardening Association (ACGA) is a bi-national nonprofit membership organization of professionals, volunteers and supporters of community greening in urban and rural communities. The Association recognizes that community gardening improves people’s quality of life by providing a catalyst for neighborhood and community development, stimulating social interaction, encouraging self-reliance, beautifying neighborhoods, producing nutritious food, reducing family food budgets, conserving resources and creating opportunities for recreation, exercise, therapy and education.

The Mission of the American Community Gardening Association is to build community by increasing and enhancing community gardening and greening across the United States and Canada.

Community gardens continue to pop up across the world.  The ACGA is a little known resource to those just starting out.  They can help your community create its first community garden, or support an existing one.

ACGA and its member organizations work to promote and support all aspects of community food and ornamental gardening, urban forestry, preservation and management of open space, and integrated planning and management of developing urban and rural lands.

The Association supports community gardening by facilitating the formation and expansion of state and regional community gardening networks; developing resources in support of community gardening; and, encouraging research and conducting educational programs.

We’ve written about the need for, and the fascinating history of, community gardens. During WWII, the USDA reported that national health, as well as personal well-being were dependent on the consumption of fresh vegetables. The Victory Gardens Program was born, producing approximately 40% of the fresh vegetables consumed in the U.S. from an estimated 20 million gardens. It seems the state of our nation’s health has never been worse, so it makes sense that there is a gardening resurgence.

Recently, we volunteered to help establish a community garden in Aptos, our home town right next to Santa Cruz, California. Can you believe the garden was inspired by a woman who reaped the fruits and vegetables from a Victory Garden? We’ve been blogging about its progress at EcoFare and have also launched a website for the garden at www.aptoscommunitygarden.org if you’re interested in a personal account of how we got ours up and running. It’s a very fulfilling experience; one that builds up something that seems to be lost — a true sense of community.