Representatives from Tacoma Community College (TCC) and Harvest Pierce County (HPC) pose next to the bilingual sign at the TCC Community Garden, which is primarily tended by Moldovan, Ukrainian, and Russian gardeners. In 2016, HPC worked in partnership with TCC and the gardeners to come up with an inclusive and sustainable leadership structure. Pictured (from left): TCC Director of Facilities Greg Randall, TCC Director of Marketing and Communication Tamyra Howser, Harvest Pierce County Program Director Kristen McIvor, Harvest Pierce County Program Coordinator Micaela Cooley, and Harvest Pierce County Program Specialist Renee Meschi. (Photo courtesy of Jefferson Mok.)
District staff, and especially our Harvest
Pierce County team, are excited about
a new opportunity to focus on making
our programs more inclusive for constituents
throughout Pierce County who
are non-English speakers. A $50,000
grant from the
National Associationof Conservation Districts, sponsoredby the National Resource ConservationService (NRCS), is going to allow for
the translation of outreach and education
materials into multiple languages,
interpreter services at workshops and
events, and the recruitment of a team
Grant Award to Help Harvest Pierce
County Focus on Diversity
of bi-lingual local community members
to help our HPC team reach out to
historically underserved citizens.
The District had identified the need
to focus on diversity outreach in our
recently finished
2016 – 2020 StrategicPlan, but this grant allows us to get
started on this important work much
earlier than we anticipated. Though a
long term initiative, the grant funds
are for one year and so to start, HPC staff will focus efforts on five targeted
community gardens, and their
associated non-English languages:
- Kandle – (Russian/Ukrainian)
- Swan Creek Park – (Vietnamese,
Khmer, Spanish, Korean,
Russian, Somali, Thai)
- Tacoma Community
College – (Russian/Ukrainian)
- Viet Huong – (Vietnamese)
- Salishan – (Vietnamese, Khmer,
Spanish, Korean, Russian, Somali, Thai)
Each of these gardens are in areas
that the US Department of Agriculture
defines as food deserts, meaning that
these community members suffer from
lack of access to fresh and healthy food
and many of them rely on our community
gardens to help provide that
access. Yet, language barriers prevent
many of the people who need access to
our gardens from participating. This initiative
will break down those barriers.
What’s more, this project will also
help better connect our Harvest team
with local staff for NRCS to leverage
more resources to help our community
gardens throughout Pierce County
gain access to things like cisterns and
hoop houses, which will help extend
the growing season and provide even
greater access to healthy food.
For more information about this
initiative, contact Renee Meschi:
reneeme@piercountycd.org.