ABG’s Impact in the Community

ABG Highlights from 2020

Celebrating our 10th anniversary, Alameda Backyard Growers is continuing to prove that “a small group of committed, thoughtful individuals can change the world” (Margaret Mead)…or at least positively affect our piece of it in a year that truly was unlike any other.

Updates on Programs

  1. Monthly Meetings – We started 2020 with our very popular free monthly, educational meetings at Rhythmix Cultural Works. Our January meeting featured a viewing of the movie ‘Symphony of the Soil’, with a discussion led by Trevor Probert from StopWaste. In February ABG’s Board member Birgitt Evans taught us how to start plants from seeds. Starting in March, due to the pandemic, we shifted to online meetings via Zoom and saw our meeting attendance soar to well over 50 attendees each month. You can find our 2020 meeting topics here, and watch recordings of most of our online Zoom meetings in 2020 here.
  2. Project Pick – Due to the pandemic, we moved away from large group picking activities, and pivoted to using small nimble teams of 2-3 wearing masks to pick fruit. We also encouraged tree owners to harvest their own fruit which we then consolidated and delivered to the Alameda Food Bank. Despite the curtailment of group volunteer events, we still managed to reach a new record of 8,143 pounds of fresh backyard fruit delivered to the Food Bank as they saw a ten-fold increase in their demand. Thank you to our dedicated volunteers who have kept this program going strong!
  3. Project Tree – This program has been instrumental in 83 trees bought from our local nurseries and planted in Alameda, including six planted at the Alameda Boys and Girls Club. Project Tree continues to help care for them, teaching basic pruning to older children and coaching adult volunteers in more advanced pruning techniques. Project Tree ran Tree Care Workshops at Rhythmix Cultural Works where attendees learned to properly plant and care for their trees and Encinal and Ploughshares nurseries gave presentations.
  4. Plant Sale – On April 25, 2020, ABG held a socially distanced plant sale where we sold about 500 plants, mostly tomatoes with about 100 people attending.
  5. Plant Swap – On October 25, 2020, we held a plant swap, again following COVID health and safety precautions. We had approximately 60 attendees and roughly 600 plants found new homes.
  6. Alameda Sun Articles – Alameda Backyard Growers contribute feature articles related to growing food, permaculture, community gardens and other topics on the second Thursday of every month. You can read our articles in the Alameda Sun here.
  7. Social Media – We continue to see an increase in Facebook followers, and started a new popular Instagram account as well as adding to our YouTube channel.

New in 2020

  1. Free Seed Library – The first free seed library opened at 2829 San Jose Ave in July 2020 and ABG gave out more than 2,500 packets of seeds between July and our winter hiatus in December. Thank you to Rotary of Alameda for their grant for $600 in December to help us defray the cost of seeds in 2021.
  2. New ABG eNewsletter – We initiated a monthly eNewsletter providing in-depth gardening information with sections for basic, advanced, and youth gardeners as well as book reviews and recipes. Click here to sign up to receive our Alameda Grows eNewsletter.
  3. Giving Tuesday – ABG organized its first Giving Tuesday campaign which surpassed our expectations with over $3,200 in donations including matching donations from the ABG Board of Directors.

Thank you to our community for your support in 2020!

Your financial gifts as well as of your time (shout out to our volunteers) help ABG offer our programs – monthly educational gardening meetings (now on-line due to COVID-19 distancing requirements), our eNewsletter, started in April to provide victory gardening information for Alameda’s vegetable and fruit growers, our active and popular Project Pick program and our brand-new first Free Seed Library. Through these and other initiatives we help address climate change, food scarcity and build community in Alameda.

You can view ABG’s impact from previous years here: