By snoadmin
Every Saturday, Cal State Long Beach students can be found scattered throughout the city getting into deep dirt – for a cause, of course.
Students are getting their hands dirty to help the nonprofit Long Beach Organic Inc. transform barren lots of land into community gardens that provide green spaces for sustainable food production as well as feed the homeless.
“Academically, these students are learning about sustainability and agriculture, and they are applying these principles in a hands-on way,” Corso said. “I hope they also learn how management of a nonprofit and a membership organization works.”
Long Beach Organic Inc. was founded in 1994 and locates urban vacant lots belonging to public and private owners and turns them into community gardens, Garden Director for Long Beach Organic Joseph Corso said.
The nonprofit organization has eight community gardens spread throughout Long Beach, with a CSULB intern assigned to each one, according to Corso. The students’ responsibilities include working with the gardeners as well as composting and managing demonstration gardens, which grow produce that is mostly donated to the Long Beach Rescue Mission.
The majority of students are volunteers and interns from the CSULB geography department and environmental science and policy program who have an interest in agriculture and working for nonprofit organizations, Corso said.
The gardens are open to the public, and plots can be rented in six-month intervals for personal use, Corso said. This semester, interns will help work on a new garden built and grown in Downtown Long Beach.
“We are helping build a stronger community through organic farming and sustainable living,” senior geography student Taylor Bell said. “It’s nice to know where your food comes from and how it’s made.”
Long Beach Organic Inc.’s partnership with CSULB started in spring 2011, and the organization has since doubled its membership and garden space, Corso said. The organization also benefits from the philanthropy work of student organizations, including the President’s Scholars Program and fraternity Delta Chi.
“I help Long Beach Organic because they beautify these lots that would otherwise be unoccupied, full of trash and unproductive,” senior environmental science and policy major Kris Lee said. “And I have since learned a lot about the biology and ecology behind gardening.”
Corso said that many of the students began their internships with little gardening experience.
“Many people like the idea of agriculture but never tried it before, and it’s interesting to see it actually take place,” he said.
Lee said the internship gave him experience in a nonprofit organization, and it provided networking opportunities with gardeners who have extensive experience in the field.
“The fulfillment you feel from seeing a community come together to build a garden is great,” Lee said. “Long Beach Organic provides a place for people to just do something they all have in common – garden.”
