Boston College
IN-7: Community Garden

The Boston College on-campus garden is run by the student organization BC Real Food, a group devoted to food justice and sustainable agriculture. The garden includes six raised beds, ground space, and a sprinkler system. The garden is overseen by a student garden manager, assisted by a paid garden steward and over twenty student volunteers. The garden is used as an educational space where students come together to experiment with sustainable agriculture practices such as diversified planting and crop rotations. Garden space is available to some community members and professors who wish to use space for experimental planting.

Real Food frequently hosts group work days where students meet to weed, plant and harvest together. The garden is visited by student volunteer groups, classes, and preschool students from the school next door. Produce from the garden is harvested and eaten by our student volunteers. Real Food also hosts cooking classes and an annual Thanksgiving community meal featuring some produce from the garden.

Starting in Summer 2021, Real Food also began donating produce grown in the garden to the Centre Street Food Pantry in Newton, MA. The garden steward harvests all available produce, packages it, and delivers it to the pantry on a weekly or bi-weekly basis depending on availability.

It's hard to say how many people regularly use the produce we grow. At least twenty student volunteers and Real Food members regularly harvest and eat veggies from the garden. In addition, we dropped off donations 8 times from June to September at the community food pantry and served an unknown number of families. However, in 2020 the pantry had 8,000 unique household visits, representing 22,000 individuals.
https://www.centrestfoodpantry.org/2020

As an educational tool, the garden is visited by 100 students or more each semester through garden workdays, volunteer opportunities or tours given to classes.