Quarter 4 Reporting for Santa Barbara County - CalFresh Healthy Living, UCCE supported food and nutrition security with families at Hapgood Elementary in Lompoc through a pilot “Adopt-a-bed” summer garden program. Summer months are often a time when youth face hunger due to lack of school meals. Families signed up in June to adopt a garden bed and learn how to grow, tend, and harvest food at their school garden. Six families signed up to participate and as of writing, over 15 pounds of produce had been harvested and taken home to their families with much more on the way as the summer heats up.
At the end of June CalFresh Healthy Living began to wind down all programming and prepare for the closure of the federally funded program by September 30, 2026. This will leave a large gap in nutrition education programming in our low-income communities. UCCE is strategizing how to fill some of these gaps with our 4-H and other volunteer led programs, however, gaps will remain.
Family at Hapgood working their garden bed. Photo A Marrs.