Local Students Feed the Homeless

Eliminating homelessness is not a quick fix. Neither is ending world hunger, but thanks to a unique partnership between Seven Arrows Elementary School and Ocean Park Community Center in Santa Monica, some Palisades children are helping to bring fresh produce and wellness to the Westside’s homeless population.

IN ABUNDANCE

The entrance of the Seven Arrows campus is brimming with plants, herbs and vegetables in gardens and plant beds. Fruit trees arch their branches over the walkways between buildings and students cultivated an edible vegetable garden on the school’s property last spring.

Designed to help students understand their relationship to nature and the cycles of the natural world, the garden encourages students to think about food and how food systems work. The garden is integrated into science, service learning, Spanish, math and global cultures curriculum and most recently the students have seen the garden’s impact extend far beyond their classroom walls and into the hands of their homeless neighbors.

Last spring, the students began sending their budding plants to the OPCC in an effort to provide fresh produce to clients at the local homeless shelter, helping to give them options other than the nonperishable processed food often obtained from food drives.

Students in Sally Haskell’s fifth-grade classroom sprouted kale, Swiss chard, lettuce, broccoli and herbs like dill, chives, parsley and rosemary for the shelter’s garden. To date, the edible plants have been harvested twice and served to clients at SamoShell (Santa Monica Shelter), a branch of OPCC that provides interim shelter and a broad range of programs to 70 clients at a time.

“It’s inspiring to see Seven Arrow’s edible garden come full circle and make an impact,” Palisadian Steven Kiralla said. “OPCC is always adding programs to teach their clients about what it means to get and stay healthy and having an edible garden in a homeless shelter is such an innovative concept.”

Kiralla, one of the school’s founding parents, aided in bringing new life to the gardening program at OPCC when he encouraged the installation of Farmscape planter boxes and personally donated the garden’s first plants.

The ongoing provision of plants from the Seven Arrows students now prevents OPCC from having to dip into their limited budget to provide new seedlings for the garden. (See “Farmscape” story below.)

While the garden is not drastically impacting OPCC’s budget at this early stage, project director at SamoShell Luther Richter explained that it is making a noticeable impact on the well-being of the clients served there.

“The presence and involvement of these young students is really inspiring to those at the shelter,” Richter said. “It’s a direct reflection of our mission of empowering people to rebuild their lives.”

Healing Gardens

After facilitating the initial relationship between Seven Arrows and OPPC, Kiralla handed off the gardening program to Felix, a former resident of OPCC who has now been living independently for three years.

Felix, who holds a stipend position at OPCC, works with clients in the Wellness Program, which includes gardening and nutrition.

“There is a therapeutic quality to gardening, a real positive impact,” Felix said. “The people here [at OPCC] are in need of positive growth and change and this garden is very symbolic of that.”

He explained that the garden gives people a chance to connect with the earth, to grown their own food and be part of a community.

“We are able to give them something and say ‘this is yours.’ They finally have ownership in something,” Felix said. “And knowing the kids are involved, I see that as a great future for America and I appreciate their sense of humanity.”

Felix has a vision for expanding the gardening program beyond the planter boxes, hoping to see hanging plants and greenery covering the concrete walls around the property. He plans to paint a mural depicting the bountiful harvest he hopes will come from the garden – and he is referring to more than just the plants.

“I want to be able to share this garden with my peers, other homeless people, to help bring them into wellness. This is one of the tools we can use,” he said.

Felix speaks of his own transition out of homelessness as his “move into wellness” rather than simply a move into housing.

A native of Livingston, Guatemala, Felix immigrated to New York City where he lived with his family until he made the move west to California at the age of 22.

In Los Angeles, he developed his own cleaning business and made a living cleaning offices and apartments. But when an illness rendered him unable to work, everything collapsed and Felix found himself among the 3,500 homeless individuals living on Skid Row.

“The fear comes at night when you lie down. I knew I had to make a change,” said Felix, who came to OPCC at the suggestion of a police officer who found him sleeping on the beach in Santa Monica. “I still thank him every time I see him.”

Felix became part of the peer-to-peer curriculum at OPCC where one of five employees is a former client. In addition to overseeing the gardening portion of the Wellness Program, he develops relationships with those still living on the streets around Santa Monica and the Westside. Felix can tell you the names of the men holding cardboard signs at the bottom of Chautauqua Blvd.

“When you’re out there on the streets, you lose confidence in yourself and you lose trust in other people,” Felix said. “It’s important they know I’m trying to understand them; to have empathy.”

His intention is ultimately to invite his peers to engage in the services at OPCC, where he explained there is more than just a hot meal and bed.

“First they see the roof, then they see the community,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with being homeless; we all have our struggles in life, but how you handle them, how you rise to the challenges, is what matters.”

If you or someone you know is in need of shelter in the Palisades/Santa Monica area, call 310-450-4050.