Toppenish Safe Haven kids grow produce for food bank

TOPPENISH -- Angel Delgado dumped shovel after shovel of gravel into a wheelbarrow Tuesday to landscape a garden that aims to put fresh produce into the Toppenish Food Bank sometime this summer.

He spends his summers at Safe Haven, an after-school and summer program for youth, where they can use computers, enjoy crafts or brush up on their schoolwork.

But Tuesday, he was among a dozen kids from the program who raked and leveled soil, installed a brick pathway and laid gravel at the garden next to El Charrito restaurant on East Toppenish Avenue.

"It's pretty fun because we get to get out and stuff instead of staying at Safe Haven and be on the computers all day," the 16-year-old said. "It's also good to give back to the community, too, for families that don't have a lot of money and food and stuff."

Last year, El Charrito owner Horcio Aleman said the Safe Haven kids asked if they could use the empty lot next to the restaurant for the garden.

He couldn't say no.

"Anything I can do to help them -- that's for the kids," Aleman said. "They can learn to do something better instead of being out in the streets."

Last summer the lot was covered with thorny weeds often called goatheads, but this year it's been cleared. Raised planters with tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, peppers, peas and other vegetables dot the area.

Although the garden got off to a late start, the kids still expect to harvest their first vegetables later this summer.

"We put a lot of black tarp down over the weeds and killed them," 10-year-old Eric Garza said Tuesday while standing over a pile of gravel.

He helped Vanessa Benavidos, 11, and 12-year-old Daniel Cerda fill a wheelbarrow with gravel for Delgado to dump.

"We made it a lot better," Benavidos quipped.

Meanwhile, about another dozen kids from a church youth group cleared weeds and used rakes to level the ground on the west edge of the garden.

The idea of a garden supplying the food bank just across the street was the brainchild of Melanie Willis, who oversees 21st Century, an after-school program under the Yakima Valley Farm Workers Clinic that funds and operates within Safe Haven.

She was able to secure a $4,000 grant for youth projects from a private organization. That money also helped get youth gardens started Outlook and at a Terrace Heights church. Of them, the Toppenish garden is the only one supplying a food bank, she said.

"It's meant to be like an outdoor classroom for them," she said. "The idea in the future is to have the clients we serve participating, working alongside the kids."

Health promotion specialist Brandie Valadez, who runs a nutrition program at Safe Haven, said the garden will also provide nutritional snacks for the kids in the program.

But the garden's main priority will be to provide for the needy, she said.

"In the future, we want to produce a lot so we can just let people from the food bank just come over and take what they need," she said.

Toppenish Food Bank Director Cecilia Chavez said the effort comes at a time when the need is at an all-time high.

Last month alone, the food bank served roughly 490 families, more than 2,000 people -- numbers that are more common during winter months when field and warehouse work slows, she said.

This past winter, the food bank saw an average of 600 families a month, she added.

"We're excited we're going to have vegetable plants," she said. "Fresh fruit and vegetables are something we can't get all the time and they're hard to keep."

Gardens supplying food banks are becoming popular, said Rob Wieber, spokesman for Second Harvest Inland Northwest in Spokane.

The regional nonprofit organization puts more than 20 million pounds of food in food banks throughout Eastern Washington, including the Yakima Valley, and in five counties in Oregon.

"It's a tremendous idea," he said, noting that such gardens have popped up in the Spokane area as well. "I think just across the country more and more people are starting to say, 'Hey we've got this little plot of land, let's grow some food for hunger relief.' "

How to help

* Anyone interested in making donations to the Toppenish Food Bank's garden may call 509-865-5311 or write P.O. Box 408, Toppenish, WA 98948.

* Phil Ferolito can be reached at 509-577-7749 or pferolito@yakimaherald.com.