Imperial Community Gardens Cultivates Healthy Senior Resident Communities
Pacific Southwest Community Development Corporation offers many residents services to all of our communities across California. The health and wellness of our residents is key to their future. A popular service amongst residents, especially with senior residents, is a community garden. Residents enjoy the benefits of reaping their hard work and having a hobby that gets them outside, interacting with neighbors, and active.
PSCDC has been working in collaboration with the University of California Cooperative Extension to provide nutrition education to our adult and young residents of the Imperial Valley to make a change in our community. To combat obesity over the last three years, the University implemented community gardens at Imperial Gardens Apartments in Imperial, Holtville Gardens Apartments in Holtville, and Brawley Elks Senior Apartments in Brawley. In Calexico, De Anza Senior Apartments, El Quintero Senior Apartments, and Villa de las Flores Senior Apartments also have their community gardens.
Our senior residents have taken great pride in being a part of the community garden projects at their homes. At each property, our senior residents participated in constructing the garden boxes, filling the boxes with dirt and organic compost, planting seeds and starts, and maintaining the garden boxes as the vegetables grow and produce. At some locations such as Imperial Gardens Apartments and Brawley Elks Senior Apartments, each participating resident has adopted a vegetable plant and takes care of his or her unique plant. At Villa de las Flores Apartments, our residents help as a team to take care of the garden boxes as a group. The Villa de las Flores team also harvested and prepared eggplant sandwiches with a pesto sauce made from the basil they grew in their garden as a nutritional vegetarian alternative cooking project.
Along with offering the nutrition and cooking classes, the University of California has generously provided seeds and starts to our residents as a way to start our gardens. So far, we have planted broccoli, cabbage, tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplant, cilantro, spinach, lettuce, and much, much more in all off our community gardens! All of our senior residents enjoy contributing to making our gardens successful and keeping them healthy to produce fresh herbs and vegetables! Once they can harvest their vegetables, residents can use them as natural ingredients instead of going to the store and spending money. De Anza and El Quintero Community Garden Committee:
Villa de las Flores Community Garden Committee:
Imperial Gardens Community Garden Committee:
