The Spiral Gardens Community Food Security Project promotes healthy communities by encouraging the productive use of city soil and improving access to fresh local produce.

Spiral Gardens was founded in the fall of 1993 as a project of the Agape Foundation for Nonviolent Social Change and then melded with the Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency (BOSS) Urban Gardening Institute from December '97 through April '04. We are now an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

Our current focus is the new Urban Garden Center, which is releasing the life-giving potential of formerly vacant public land spanning two city blocks. The Center consists of the following four elements:

• A Collective Food Production Garden -- 1/2 of harvest goes to the homeless and elderly, remaining 1/2 divided among the volunteers who grow it

• An Organic Urban Nursery specializing in plants for food, medicine, and ecological restoration. All proceeds go to support the project.

• A Low-Cost Organic Produce Stand featuring fresh food from regional farmers, and

• Future Intensive Trainings and a regular schedule of Free Public Classes, in this new outdoor education site. These classes will be a way for people to share knowledge about self-sufficiency through gardening, skills for good eating habits, and tools to build a vibrant community.