MIDLAND, Texas (KOSA) – You may want to grab your gloves and a shovel during Hunger Action Month.
Currently, West Texas Food Bank is raising awareness about fighting food insecurity with gardening.
Their Midland location has a large garden with greenhouses and a climate-controlled bio-dome, but West Texans don’t need these things to grow plants in the dry climate.
Every third Saturday, the food bank shows people how a little water and patience can produce fruits and veggies like okra, sweet potatoes, melon, squash and more.
“I know this is a difficult place to garden in and so they kind of teach about all [the] different things that will grow in West Texas. This Saturday we’ll be talking about what to cook with what you can grow,” said Kayla White, the food bank’s external programs manager.
Even with the extra water cost, growing your own food is often much cheaper than purchasing it. Gardening is an accessible way to eat healthy, no matter your income.
“[It] can be kind of hard going to the grocery store and seeing all these fresh vegetables and the prices,” White said. “So sometimes if we can grow our own, it can help offset that cost a little bit.”
This weekend, West Texas Food Bank will teach people how to use kale and potatoes, which they can grow here.
“We want to be sure that we’re not wasting anything,” White said. “That’s a big part of it. So if we grow it, we want to know how to use it.”
The food bank’s mission is to give people tools to combat food insecurity, said Martha Corrasco, the event manager.
“Visiting our gardens helps us with our mission,” Corrasco said. “As we say we give them a hand up not a hand out.”
CBS7 is covering hunger all month. If you want to take action, you can sign your business up to host a barrel for our peanut butter brigade by emailing peanutbutter@cbs7.com.
To donate peanut butter to the brigade, visit a barrel at any Market Street or United Supermarket, or at the locations below.
Source : CBS 7
