Our fall 2018 grant recipient was Moab Community Gardens, an organization whose mission is to “develop sustainable, organic community gardens for the benefit of Moab and Spanish Valley residents, creating welcoming spaces for people of all abilities and backgrounds.” Read highlights from their 2019 grant report here.

Our spring 2019 grant recipient was the Clay Artisans of Moab, “a Moab-based, loosely organized group of mostly introverted ceramists who come together to bring their craft to the community.” Their grant funding went towards purchasing equipment for their annual Soup Bowl Fundraiser. The 2019 event was held on November 2nd and was a huge success, allowing CLAM to donate over $9,100 to the Moab Free Health Clinic’s diabetes education and food voucher program. From CLAM’s report:

“The award of the Seeds to Start Grant was a huge help… The funds allowed us to purchase proper equipment for food service, with the assurance that we don’t need to scour the town in search of equipment each year. These acquisitions helped us by reducing our work load and our food presentation was elevated.”

Our spring 2020 Seeds to Start Grant recipient, the Moab Manna COVID-19 Relief Farm executed by volunteers with the Moab Seventh-Day Adventist Church, sent us a great report of their accomplishments. The goal of the project was to bolster food security in Grand County and aid those in need of food assistance due to the coronavirus pandemic. With the help of our $1000 grant, they were able to purchase machinery that helped them sow, grow, harvest, and distribute tens of thousands of potatoes to the Utah State Food Bank, the Navajo Nation, Daystar Academy, the Moab Episcopal Food Pantry, the Grand County Food Bank, and local community volunteers and needs. Another pleasant outcome of the “Grand Potato Hunt” was the beneficial reprieve for volunteers who had otherwise had limited outdoor and human interaction due to COVID restrictions.

Our fall 2020 Seeds to Start Grant recipient was Our Village Community Center, a non-profit organization dedicated to youth education, health promotion, and environmental sustainability. The goal of their project was to improve the quality of their chickens’ living conditions and increase their egg production. They were able to purchase new fencing, higher protein feed, and new chicks to replace some hens that had been preyed upon. Their weekly Chicken Club, a hands-on educational program for local Moab youth, assisted with the project, including researching egg layer scratch recipes, installing new fencing, researching and selecting hen breeds, and raising and integrating the new chicks into the flock.

Thanks to this funding, these chickens are safe, happy, and healthy, and participants of the Chicken Club were able to gain some valuable experience in animal husbandry. Our Village’s youth programs, elderly neighbors, and volunteers gather their eggs to share with the Moab community. Check out more highlights from their grant report here.

Our spring 2021 Seeds to Start Grant recipient was the Resiliency Hub. This local non-profit’s mission is “to steward dynamic public learning hubs to inspire community resilience initiatives in Moab.” They do this through holistic waste management initiatives, offering and managing community garden spaces for residents, and managing their public permaculture pocket park on 100 West, the CommuniTea Garden.

Our fall 2021 Seeds to Start Grant recipient was Grand Area Mentoring. Grand Area Mentoring is a school–based mentoring program that serves youth from kindergarten through 12th grade. The program matches carefully screened adult volunteers with children seeking friendship and guidance. Mentors and mentees meet weekly for one hour and in these sessions build positive relationships, strengthen the mentee’s self-esteem, and help the student form a better attachment to school.

Grand Area Mentoring used these funds to implement a “Seeds for Mentees” project. The funds provided gift cards for 25 mentors to bring their mentees into Moonflower to create a unique bonding experience and purchase food to eat during other mentoring activities, such as snacks for a hike or ingredients to cook a healthy meal together. They were able to explore the cooperative while discussing and learning about natural foods, healthy cooking, local food systems and farms, careers in the food industry, and more. Read the report and view photos from these experiences here.

Moab Community Gardens is an organization under the umbrella of local non-profit the Resiliency Hub, with the mission “to support local food security by providing growing spaces to the community, so that individuals with limited or no access to land or gardening resources may have an affordable opportunity to grow food for themselves and their families.” They currently manage community gardens at East Bench Road and Our Village Community Center with plots for 30+ gardeners/families.

MoCom Gardens will be using this grant funding to purchase materials for their newest project, a community garden in downtown Moab at the WabiSabi Thrift Store! This new site (which will also include a public herb garden) will directly increase food security in our community by providing more folks with an opportunity to grown their own food. Those without arable land or water access, short-term renters, and those with fewer transportation options may find the convenient downtown location especially helpful.