Growing for Good: Greater Lansing Food Bank Garden Project

Inside the Greater Lansing Food Bank Garden Project Resource Center, you will find everything needed to grow a garden, from seed to shovels, and gardening books to transplants. Teaching those in need and providing the resources to grow their own food is part of the Greater Lansing Food Bank’s mission. They use a multi-faceted approach to feed and educate their community. Part of what they do is collect and distribute food that would otherwise be wasted to those in need in rural and urban communities, as well as homebound seniors. In addition to distributing over 7.7 million meals in 2019, the Greater Lansing Food Bank operates an impactful Garden Project program. 

The Greater Lansing Food Bank’s Garden Project supports a network of over 110 community gardens and over 500 home gardens. By providing access to land, gardening lessons, free seeds and plants, tools available to borrow and more, more than 8,000 people across 7 counties in Mid-Michigan are enjoying their harvests. These garden resources are available to all in the area. This spring, they were available to adapt to a drive-thru pick method for gardening materials and safely distributed around 5,000 plant starts. Community gardens participating in the Garden projects range from serving large refugee populations, to integrating into school curricula, to growing for donation, and others are simply neighborhood gathering spaces to grow a stronger community. This year, the Garden Project is even hosting tours of these community gardens virtually to celebrate their successful growing season, in place of their typical annual tours.

During this time of year, many home gardens are in peak production growing an excess of tomatoes, zucchini, and other produce. Past providing the necessary resources for those in need to grow their own food, the GLFB garden project also accepts donated produce from home gardeners. Their Grow-a-Row donation program invites area gardeners to donate their excess fresh, local produce directly to the many area food pantries as part of the program. Through this program, thousands of pounds of fresh produce have been donated to those in need.

Get Involved

If you’re interested in receiving assistance or donating to the Greater Lansing Food Bank and Garden Project, please find more information here.

Contact GLFB anytime at (517) 853-7809 or [email protected].

Follow the Garden Project on Instagram: @glfbgardenproject

Like the Garden Project on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheGardenProject/ 

Emma Beauchamp is the Communications Manager for Taste the Local Difference. Contact her at [email protected]