SLP SEEDS dba Seeds Feeds

When 4th grader 'Joe' asked "How much do we have to pay for the garden food?" he started to grow crocodile tears in his eyes upon hearing he got to take home the food he helped grow, for free. "We sometimes run out of food and my mom will be so proud I brought home good food!"

"Is my kid eating cabbage!?" is a frequent question parents ask when picking up their children from a Lunch and Learn in the Garden class. "Yes! Better than that... That cabbage taco is filled with veggies and herbs from the garden that we cooked right here after picking it fresh! How about you brave tasting it, too?!"

One mother stopped the "Garden Lady" in the street in a slightly intimidating manner. "You that Garden Lady?!" she said quite loudly. Then she reached her hands out and grabbed the Garden Lady!~ "THANK YOU! Our kid is teaching us about veggies and taught me how to make kale three different ways! Now we do a new veggies every week and it's changed the way our family has meals! We cook together and sit down to talk while we eat. Thank you!"

A grandmother came to the new little community garden at the low-incoming housing complex. She started to speak very excited and fast, but the language barrier was a challenge. Finally, her daughter came over to see what was the fuss. It turns out that Okra was a favorite vegetable from the grandmother's childhood farm in Somalia. She promised to teach her daughter how they used it and came back to the garden often.

These are just a few of the multi-generational impacts our garden programs have on the families and individuals we serve. We do more than distribute food. We teach folks of all ages sustainable practices for them to grow and use their own food. We teach life-skills that can turn into occupations and businesses.

Urban agriculture is a way to not only ensure there is enough nutritious food, but teaches how to deal with challenges of small or no space, what to do if the land is toxic, and how to cook, preserve and correctly compost the waste, turning it into "black gold" or soil.

Since 2013, SLP SEEDS has taught interns, apprentices, children, adults of all demographics how to sustainably grow food and how to prepare or preserve the fresh food. In 2020, due to Covid expanding our operations outside of SLP (St. Louis Park), we evolved our name to Seeds Feeds, still growing, educating, engaging and advocating, but for a broader audience.

Literally 100's of students (of all ages, colors, genders, abilities or otherwise underrepresented) have participated in variations of our current "Cook with Seeds" both online and in person, and taught by volunteer chefs and nutritionists. Anyone who needs a free bag of groceries to create and share the meal and lesson from class are provided for, no questions asked. The same goes with our free weekly CSA's whether the food is grown in our 10 Food Bank Gardens or we've purchased it from farmers through the CARES Act or the ARP Act. Those two grants allowed us to raise the number of free weekly distributions to 90 households, or serving over 300 people weekly!

Advocacy on Food Equity and Justice is another area of focus SLP SEEDS has aggressively worked on since Day 1. A petition with over 900 names of all ages was presented to city council and the district school board after several monthly meeting with stakeholders from around the city of SLP, achieving the addition of Food Security in the city's 10-year Comprehensive Plan, a small step but also the opening of a doorway that had long been shut tight..

Community Meals and Town Visioning have also been held each Earth Day, World Food Day and Harvest Festivals at the end of each growing season. Each week of summer, 2021, free weekly meals and garden tours of the new Urban Schoolyard Farm were fantastically attended!

In 2022, SEEDS aims to further our reach and impact through the building and delivery of our new TINY MOBILE FARM built by a St. Thomas University Capstone Engineering Fall/Spring team. It will include another project built by a Summer/Fall Engineering Capstone team of our HYDROPONICS GROW CART, made scalable and easily replicable for under $500. We aim to supply at least six school classrooms, and another dozen for low-income residents wanting to grow their own food. We plan to hire a consultant to create curriculum for all ages.

We're also working towards opening another Schoolyard Urban Farm (or 2!!) as well as starting to grow indoors with they hydroponic grow carts to expand our Urban Ag workforce, help pay the rent (now that Covid forced us out of the Founder's personal home for safety reasons) and possibly supplement more households with fresh food, too!

We've distributed over 20,000 lbs of food (half of which we GREW!), taught over 7,000 students of all ages in sustainable urban agriculture and garden fresh culinary skills.

Our volunteer hours have topped 10,000 recently, and the more people get to know us, they more they want to be involved! We invite you to "taste" our volunteer options!