The Boston not-for-profit Community Servings is a meal delivery program that prepares and delivers fresh cooked meals, from scratch, to over 800 individuals and families who are homebound with acute, life-threatening illnesses. Serving over 9,600 meals each week, CEO David Waters wanted to grow and incorporate a variety of fresh herbs for their chefs to use in their daily meal programs.
With limited space and limited sun for the garden, The Growing Connection was initially skeptical, especially around the nutritional impact herbs would have for a high volume of meals for extremely at-risk clients. David’s immediate response 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 turn helps them to stay strong.”
While it’s hard to measure exactly how many of Community Serving’s clients are impacted by those fresh herbs, we can measure the ongoing success of Community Servings. The initial garden TGC installed has been expanded to 90 linear feet of growing space, growing arugula in addition to a variety of herbs. The garden is tended to by local gardeners and their kids seeking their master gardener certification, and Community Serving 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. As we found in Boston, often the best approach is simply to use our ears, to listen carefully, and to consider each challenge from our client’s perspective.
Read more about our other case studies featuring unique and inspiring gardens.