 | Tucson Youth Mapping and Gleaning Project |  |
 | ||
 | ||
The Jefferson Park Project:
In early January of 2003, a group of teens came together with a common goal: to work on a gleaning-focused community project. The purpose of this project was to redistribute the excess of locally grown food, much of which was going to waste, to the community and to those who would not otherwise have access to it. In order to accomplish our goal we had to become familiar with various forms of technology and interview skills. The group included high school students from around the Jefferson Park Neighborhood and was supervised by Barbara Eiswerth and Rainy Warf.
The first step was becoming oriented with the technology essential to the program. We learned about latitude and longitude, Global Positioning Systems and Geographic Information Systems, ArcView and different kinds of maps. Other necessary skills were conducting surveys, interviewing people and identifying fruit trees. Invited speakers helped us to master these important skills. With this information in mind, we created our own survey that best suited the program's needs. It consisted of questions on fruit trees, gardens and household information.
We walked through the entire neighborhood, taking GPS coordinates and recording addresses with citrus trees, gardens and various food producing plants. The information from the interviews and neighborhood walk was organized in a database, developed by Kelly Hutton and maintained by us. By the end of the project it contained 162 houses with 296 food producing trees and or gardens. Using the database, we set out to find individuals who had an excess of food and would be willing to donate to our free food exchange. We received welcoming responses from the residents and had generous donations of grapefruits, oranges, dates and various herbs including rosemary, thyme and mint.
The gleaning was done a week before the food exchange that took place on March 29th. We collected around 1000 lbs in addition to a variety of fresh herbs and even fresh eggs. Despite the wind, the market was a great success. Throughout the day there were visitors from both the Jefferson Park Neighborhood and other parts of the city. Many were amazed at our accomplishments. Some people wondered, "Is it really free?" At the same time, many donators of extra fruits were so happy to get rid of them.By the end of the market, most of the food was taken. Over a hundred people visited our free food exchange. The leftover food was donated to the Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation, St. Vincent de Paul, K.A.R.E. Family Center and Casa Maria. The database has been given to the Ward III Office in hope that the community will continue our undertaking
|
 | ||||||||||
