A couple of weeks ago I met Steven Hebbard at workday for a new community garden in Austin. Steven heads up The Karpophoreo Project.
This Austin based venture works with formerly homeless members of the Austin community and others to grow good food. Karpophoreo means to bear good fruit in every good deed in Greek.
The staff and volunteers garden in thirteen locations throughout Austin in places as varied as community garden sites, church land and individual back and front yard plots.
I met up with Steven again today at the Onion Creek Baptist Church garden site to drop off some CobraHead tools that we were donating to the project. Steven explained to me that Austin has over 4,000 homeless people including 1,000 chronically homeless, but also only has 800 emergency shelter beds. The Karpophoreo Project employs people who have recently moved into a mobile home community of formerly homeless.
Steven Hebbard at Onion Creek Baptist Church Garden
One really cool aspect of the project is the CSA/Home Vegetable garden installation hybrid. Karpophoreo staff and volunteers install home vegetable gardens for a fee for homeowners who want their own garden, but don’t have the time to do it themselves. Half of the produce harvested goes to the homeowner and half goes to the Karpophoreo CSA.
Steven also explained that besides producing good, healthy food, the gardens help to establish a sense of place for people who have been in extended transition. Volunteers are an essential part of the project as well and the hope is that future expansions of the project will not only get good food to those who have not previously had access to it, but also create people to people connections throughout Austin.