Kitchen Garden Project Inc

“Organization's process to review form 990 all members are emailed an electronic copy of the form prior to a board meeting. At the board meeting, the treasurer reviews the form with the members. A formal vote is taken whether to approve filing of the form.”

“Staff and board members are required to sign the "conflict of interest policy" which is part of the organization's policy and procedures.”

“Compensation of the executive director is determined by the board of directors and is within the range of other groups.”

“Governing documents disclosure explanation documents are made available upon request.”

“Raised bounty (grub) grows healthy food, people, and community. With roots in the land, we create opportunities for people to learn, lead, and thrive. We envision an equitable world where we are all nourished by healthy relationships, resilient community, and good food.”

“Garden-raised bounty (grub) is a nonprofit organization with a mission to grow healthy food, people, and community. With roots in the land, we create opportunities for people to lead, learn, and thrive. We envision an equitable world where we are all nourished by healthy relationships, resilient community, and good food. Grub provides direct services to and for the residents of thurston county and provides consultative, collaborative services to other organizations and institutions in communities throughout washington state, and on occasion, nationally, as well as to tribal nations located in the pacific northwest region. Grub maintains various programs including youth programs, a farm, community food solutions, pollination (also known as program replication), and tend, gather & grow (a program focuses on wild foods and medicine).”

“Youth program: grub provides opportunity youth (youth who are experiencing barriers to success) a safe and engaging learning and work environment rooted in sustainable agriculture. Youth find meaning and inspiration to grow themselves, their community, and healthy food! Through job training, academic support, community engagement, leadership opportunities, and team building, youth experience a supportive community where they grow their own skills, resilience, leadership, and more than 15,000 pounds of food. In 2020-2021, we adapted programming to the safety requirements around covid-19, held our first ever winter cohort, increased youth leadership and employment opportunities, and engaged 40+ youth in total in our summer, fall, winter, and spring cohorts, with over 6000 hours of participant-programming. Youth grew more than 15,000 pounds of food for themselves, the food bank and the community, and gained critical skills and the community support needed to launch into success! From the voice of a participant: "working at grub has brought so much love and happiness into my life, i'm so glad for the friends and memories that i'm making every day. I get to have so much fun while working, which makes me even more passionate about what we're doing here. Taking care of the land, plants, community, and ourselves is such intimate and healing work, and i'm so lucky to be a part of it. I hope you all enjoy the food and bouquets we put out to you, because we sure enjoy making it happen." 2020 youth”

“Wild foods, and medicines grub's wild foods and medicines program work provides educational resources, community classes, teacher training, and year-long tribal internships that connect people with the land, the seasons, and the community. Tend, gather and grow (tgg) is a k-12 steam curriculum dedicated to educating people about wild plants, local landscapes, and the rich cultural traditions that surround them. It is intended for k-12 teachers and community educators with a focus on serving northwest native and regional youth, and has been created in partnership with grub and local tribal communities. Through discovering the wonders of plant life embedded in the lessons within the tgg curriculum, youth build skills in food security, health, social/emotional intelligence, and land stewardship. Our tend curriculum now contains six modules including more than 60 engaging lessons and was officially approved this year through ospi as a cte (career technical education) certified curriculum!) we completed our tgg cultural ecosystems field guide, which aims to educate people about these important landscapes, promote restoration and indigenous food sovereignty, and bring some of the cultural teachings to local school gardens. Resources and lessons were shared with 18 tribal community educators in our tribal cohort, plus with educators through the nisqually river foundation, cowlitz tribe, muckleshoot tribal schools, and several thurston county schools. We are excited to continue to share these invaluable resources to connect youth to wild plants! In addition, we launched plant teachings for building social-emotional skills, a toolkit developed in partnership with northwest indian treatment center, which includes a book, plant cards, an activity guide, and a series of movement activities. The toolkit helps to teach how plants can lead us in being healthy and resilient. We offered three teacher trainings to over 90 educators serving tribal communities and native programs. The toolkit is now available through grub! We provided monthly online community workshops with tend and our plant teachings team educators, focusing on individual plants, like bigleaf maple, and nettles. Monthly workshops have 15-20 participants. With the support of community members this past winter and spring, we planted a camas micro-prairie and continued developing our on-site nature trail and stream with food forest and wetlands plants. Our gardens and nature trail have become an outdoor classroom that demonstrates reciprocity and other foundational teachings in the cultural ecosystems field guide. From the voice of a participant: "plant teachings... Has given me a deeper connection to and understanding of the plants and skills, which profoundly benefits my work and personal life. This training has allowed me to maneuver through emotions and create effective approaches to problem-solving while improving my social skills. The plant teachings training teaches all people what it means to be resilient, and how to implement social-emotional skills into our everyday lives." 2020 plant teachings participant”

“Community food solutions our community food solutions program is composed of two main projects: our grub garden project (ggp) and our victory farm (vf) and related programming serving veterans. In this time of great need, grub's garden project (ggp) has been on the ground, bringing joy and resiliency to people with low incomes through the gift of gardens! In response to covid-19 and the increased need for food security and community connection, we doubled our garden building and education efforts! In 2020-2021, we built nearly 150 backyard gardens, as well as creating or refurbishing multiple public gardening spaces, such as the olympia library garden, the tenino depot museum native plant garden, yelm community garden, river ridge high school, casa madrona apartments, and mclane elementary school! At the grub victory farm in lacey, grub has joined together with the haki farmers collective (haki), a new local group that seeks to bolster and reincorporate traditional and inherently sustainable farming knowledge that is present in our migrant and indigenous communities. We collaborated with haki to provide growing space, training, community gatherings, and food access at the victory farm. Our veteran community continues to practice and teach sustainable agriculture methods in person at the victory farm, at partner sites across the region, and through regular online workshops. In addition, veteran talk circles are held weekly to provide a community space for veterans to connect and share stories. Food grown is donated to participants and the thurston county food bank's lacey distribution center. From the voice of a garden recipient: "grub was a lifesaving experience for me. As a senior with health issues and low income, i struggled especially with covid to be away from family, and food sources. I also needed healthier foods. A lot of the food provided by the food bank is processed food. The gardens gave me fresh food and more. I got outside in fresh air spending so much time digging, harvesting, nurturing, and eating my own healthy food. I learned what worked, what to plant next year, available items for a fall / winter garden, how to save seeds and the resources provided by the grub staff were great to refer to. Plus they always answered any questions i had online quickly as well. It was and is an amazing experience for me." 2020 garden recipient”