Community Garden Conference-Day One

Day one of the conference was great. The key note speaker was the CEO of St. Luke's Health Initiative Rodger A. Hughes. He gave a great presentation on how he has changed the way he gives money in order to to focus on sustainability and community empowerment. He no longer uses traditional grant guidelines. Instead the outcome is outlined and the communities can take any steps they see fit to reach the outcome. St. Luke's Health Initiative has used this method to fund many community gardens and have found that it has built more connective communities and the work sustains far beyond the funding. His approach to building communities is unlike any I have heard of and I have been very impressed with this organizations work.

The rest of the day was spent in several learning sessions on assets based community development, good and bad insects in the garden and a speaker who is using his community garden to rehabilitate his crime ridden neighborhood. The food was prepared by the Chef at Rio Salado College who teaches courses on sustainable culinary techniques. All of the food served at the conference center was locally grown and produced. In addition all silverware, cups and plates were compostable. We ended the evening with a sunset tour and dinner at the botanical gardens. Day one was great fun and I learned allot!