Social Investment: City Gardens and the Working Poor

good-shepherd-illustrationEach week I post one entry that relates to our ongoing conversation about how to love the world back to life. One of the joys of pastoring a church such as Church in the Cliff is how engaged this community is in social investment of various forms. We give money, we organize, we volunteer, we help each other, we enter into relationship with the poor, locally and globally.

Scott and Lisa both shared with me this link to a Salon.com article on city gardening. We had an energizing conversation at the end of last week’s wed night community dinner about our ongoing relationship to the Good Shepherd in West Dallas. Scott, Lisa and I are interested in opening up a conversation with them about fresh produce. Rather than bringing canned goods or collecting donations for them to buy food through the North Texas Food Bank as we have been doing, we want to bring fresh produce if they think that would work for their families. (The Good Shepherd Community Center provides quality child care to low-income families and has an on site food pantry that we support). I love the thought of us getting a tighter relationship with this organization and see this as a first step. I also know that food banks almost never provide fresh produce and think this season of bounty would be a great time to begin. Could be simple to start out with– bringing a flat of whatever fruit or veg is in season from the farmers market to the center. Then we could maybe even explore the idea of gardening with them, or sharing food from our home gardens with them. If you are interested in going to visit the center and being part of this conversation please see me or Lisa or Scott.

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