The Bourbon County Extension Service was fortunate to receive a 2021 Agriculture Mini Grant through the Kentucky 4-H Foundation.   This grant was a $1000 grant that required matching funds.   The Extension Office decided to use these funds to promote gardening among youth and families.  4-H, FCS, Horticulture/Ag and SNAP/NEP partnered in this interdisciplinary program to teach gardening skills, the value of growing your own food, simple food preparation skills, nutrition, the economic impact of home gardens and the positive mental benefit of gardening. Family and youth gardening projects cultivate healthy children, families and community through educational programs and the profound act of connecting people with food from seed to table. 

The goals for this program were as follows:

1. Increase physical activity
2. Improve self-esteem
3. Reduce stress
4. Teach family and  youth the seed to table process
5. Encourage family gardens
6. Improve nutrition
7. Reduce money spent on family groceries
8. Teach families and youth gardening skills
9. Give youth an opportunity to succeed
10. Encourage academic learning through hands on activities
11. Develop practical and vocational life skills
12. Promote ecological awareness and responsibility

We hosted three (3) gardening workshops.  The first workshop was held at the Extension Office and was a container workshop where each family came during a scheduled time and planted a large pot with tomatoes and peppers for the start of a salsa garden.  The next two gardening workshops were raised beds.  One was done at a child care facility and the other, largest of all, was at a community based out-reach center in an impoverished area of the inner city Paris with low resource youth and also in a food desert area.

All the participants were able to see start to finish gardening.  They planted, cared for (watered, weeded) and harvested fresh vegetables and herbs.   They learned how easy it can be to grow your own garden and prepare healthy, fresh foods.  Overall, there were 25 salsa pots along with four, 4x8 raised beds.  Based on the average raised bed garden yield, these combined plantings (pots and raised beds) yielded approximately 500 pounds of fresh produce.  Based on combined average produce prices from Kentucky Department of Agriculture, the yield resulted in an economic benefit of approximately $2,000.00.  These gardening projects reached 59 families.