Vegetable Plant Giveaway!
Saturday
April 27, 2024
10am-2pm
2081 Bronze Star Drive, Woodland, CA
Free Tacos!!! 🌮🌮🌮
The first 150 kids will receive a free taco!
Free Plants Gifted to the Community
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Non-Profit Community Education
Help Us Fight Childhood Obesity
The Problem
Today’s food ecosystem presents myriad challenges to folks attempting to do the most basic and necessary act of parenting: feeding their children.
With so many barriers to healthy eating including the constant barrage of convenient, cheap but unhealthy food options and the complex, confusing, and often overwhelming information as to what comprises good nutrition, it is no wonder many parents struggle to provide healthy food options for their families.
Additionally, the cost of living, especially in California, in which the majority of a family’s income is put towards housing, means that most families require all the caretakers in the home to work, leaving minimal time for shopping and cooking, essential activities in creating a healthy household.
After years of counseling families on healthy eating and encountering barriers to this goal that seemed overwhelming, HomeGrown Health was created out of a determination to try a different approach that focused on education, empowerment, and connecting children and their families to their food source.
My Story
This program is a way to combine my passion for gardening with my passion for improving the health of my patients.Â
How It Began
In early 2022, I solicited donations of vegetable plants, soil, fertilizer and 5 gallon buckets from multiple community partners. The buckets were used for container gardening for those families living in apartments or other situations without access to in-ground gardening.
The First Plant Giveaway
Later that spring, we held our first community event during which we gave away over 1200 vegetable plants and 250 buckets filled with soil and fertilizer to children and their families in and around Woodland, CA.Â
After the one day event, leftover plants were given to children and teenagers when they came to the clinic for a visit.
The Earth Day Giveaway
In the spring of 2023 on Earth Day, we repeated this effort and again handed out roughly 1000 vegetable plants in addition to containers, soil, and fertilizer for those who needed it.
Positive Responses
The feedback has been wonderful. I have rarely seen a child’s eyes light up the way they do when I enter the exam room with their very own tomato or cucumber plant to take home. I love it when at subsequent clinic visits parents and children show me pictures of the beautiful vegetables that they grew at home.
As long as there is a need in our community for healthy food options, HomeGrown Health will be there. Our hope is to grow healthy children, one plant at a time.
-Sam Siegel, M.D.
Thank You to Our Partners & Sponsors
