Growing Herbs for Better Nutrition?
The Boston not-for-profit Community Servings asked TGC to build a container garden. Community Servings is a meals program that prepares and delivers 7,500 meals each week to almost 800 individuals and families who are homebound with acute, life-threatening illnesses.
THE PROJECT
Community Servings’ CEO, David Waters faced a significant challenge. Their space was extremely limited, and lacked direct sunlight. How to overcome this?
The first step was to understand what CS’ expectations. TGC asked what they wanted to grow.
David Waters didn’t hesitate, “We want to grow a variety of herbs for our chefs to use in our daily meals.” OK – Herbs can certainly grow without much direct sun and little space, but TGC was initially skeptical.
Herbs? What significant nutritional impact could herbs have for a high volume of meals and for extremely “at risk” clients?
IMPACT
David’s answer was this… “The people that we serve are very sick – often almost too weak to eat the meals that we send. But the scents and tastes of fresh herbs work some kind of magic. They motivate our clients to eat the meals, which in turn helps them to stay strong.”
And, while it’s hard to measure exactly how many clients are influenced by those herbs, we can measure the ongoing success of Community Servings. The TGC garden has been expanded, and now grows arugula in an additional 30 feet of containers. CS also received a prestigious Food Innovators award (2013) from the Mayor’s office in Boston.
At TGC, we draw on a wide range of skills and experiences to support our clients. Still, as we found in Boston, often the best approach is simply to use our ears, to listen carefully.
We will consider each challenge from a client’s perspective.
