North County Community Services (NCCS) has been working with the Escondido location of the Tariq Khamisa Foundation (TKF) for almost a year. TKF works to stop youth violence through education, mentorship, and community service programs. Whenever they have some time off of school, TKF mentors and mentees come to NCCS to do community service projects together! Since April of 2011, they have logged over 300 hours at different volunteer projects within NCCS, including several gardening projects and many trips to North County's Food Bank. Most recently, they sent 22 volunteers to the Gardens at River Road on February 21, since they had the day off of school.
During their two hours in the garden, TKF stayed busy with gardening tasks including weeding, watering, and harvesting peas, cilantro, kale, spinach, and parsley. To keep the weeding from being too much of a chore, one of the mentors had a weed-picking competition, and the winner got to pick out the movie they would go see after the project.
While providing valuable community service, the youth who volunteered had an opportunity to learn about healthy food options, and see it growing. They asked questions about the different types of vegetables, and had the opportunity to learn how to pick different foods. They showed awe and excitement at the project, taking pictures and saying how they would post about it on Facebook later! Below, there are some pictures taken at this garden project.
Above: TKF points the way to a healthy, violence-free future!
Above: A TKF mentor and mentee harvesting sugar snap peas
Above: Having fun in the garden
Above: A TKF mentor and mentees pose next to freshly harvested lettuce
More information about TKF can be found at www.tkf.org
~Abby Weglarz~
~Garden Program and Volunteer Coordinator~
~North County Community Services~
