Recently, I received a notice from a local community garden organizer about a grant opportunity sponsored by a fertilizer company. I shared it with my e-mail group and found one response, in particular, intriguing. Within this email, a local community leader expressed the importance of gardens, eating healthy, and making healthy local food accessible to the community, while being environmentally responsible. She continued to express the importance of our actions lining up with our values. She concluded that corporate sponsorship of funding for community gardens brought up questions of justice and equality, and that we as people of faith should think carefully about making a healthy choice based on the bigger picture: environment, people, and justice for all.
I thought this was an interesting spin to being healthy, and coincidentally highlights one of our most active programs at the Council, Interfaith Power and Light. I’m wondering what you may think of the fusion of eating healthy, gardening, but in such a way that brings attention to environmental concerns and justice. I say justice, because it seems that this position is not only speaking from personal experience but is looking at the needs of others. This is exactly the type of consideration that our strong programs involving farmworkers and immigrant rights seek to bring attention to, as well.
I’m fascinated by the convergence of needing solutions for “now” while making choices that provide for a better future, such as gardening and using garden techniques that do not involve chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, or other additives that can create an unhealthy environment. This is the point of contention, on which my dear community leader was remarking.
Do you have thoughts regarding this? Please leave a comment under this post. Thank you, and I look forward to reading what you have to say.
