Growing Forward
by Beverly Sorrells
A few years after its first seeds began to take root, the People’s Garden in Sanford has grown into something far bigger than its original footprint.
What began in 2022 as a sustainable community garden covering about 600 square feet has expanded to roughly 5,500 square feet of growing space. The flourishing garden is filled with hydroponic systems, fruit trees, and rows of seasonal vegetables.
Situated behind the Rescue Outreach Mission, the People’s Garden is an urban agriculture project of the nonprofit Feed Hunger Now, founded by Pardeep Vedi of Lake Mary. The organization’s mission: growing sustainable, affordable, locally sourced food. Some of the produce grown in the garden helps feed those staying at the Rescue Outreach Mission (Seminole County’s only homeless shelter), located on Historic Goldsboro Boulevard.
Recently, the garden reached an important milestone: being designated as a Master Gardener learning and volunteer hub. This designation allows participants to volunteer on-site and earn credit hours toward their Florida Master Gardener Program certification.
Additionally, Seminole State College and Feed Hunger Now have partnered to create an on-site, sustainable educational garden at the school’s Sanford/Lake Mary campus. The Seminole State garden will empower students through hands-on learning and promoting a connection to the earth.
Deeply Rooted in Community
Pardeep, whose family is from India, grew up in Nairobi, Kenya, and London, England. In his culture, the phrase roti, kapda, and makaan represents the basic survival needs for humans. Translation: food, clothing, and shelter. To Pardeep, food security comes first.
“Food is medicine,” he says. “If we don’t have the proper food, our body reacts.”
Pardeep points to how modern food practices and busy lives affect what ends up on our plates.
“Food starts losing nutrients the minute it is harvested and more during shipping,” he says. “You buy it, and you’re busy, so you stock it in the fridge. Well, that’s two weeks now, and you’ve lost 70 percent of your nutrients.”
The People’s Garden is an example of garden-to-table food. It uses a combination of composting, fish waste, rainwater harvesting, solar energy, aeroponic towers, vertical gardening, and media grow beds fed with recirculating water. The result is fresh, high-quality, low-footprint food for the homeless shelter’s residents, volunteers, and other community members.
“Hydroponics, aquaponics, aeroponics – any system is the best if it gives you the power to take control of your own food, to have food sovereignty,” says Pardeep.
At times, things have been a little thorny in the garden, but Pardeep has taken the occasional setbacks in stride. For example, a record cold snap earlier this year forced volunteers to spend weeks protecting crops, and even then, the garden lost close to a third of its plants. Fortunately, those crops are now recovering.
Thinking Outside the Box
Pardeep’s ambition extends well beyond the garden in Sanford. A Lake Mary Rotary Club member, Pardeep is developing what he calls a People’s Grow House – a modular, self-contained growing structure inspired by Rotary International’s partnership with ShelterBox. That partnership provides disaster relief kits to families and communities after natural disasters and other crises.
The portable People’s Grow House kits will be designed so any community can easily set one up and start cultivating food, whether they have a lot of space or just a little.
“My goal isn’t to grow food,” says Pardeep. “My goal is to teach people sustainable ways of growing food naturally, right where they live. Do you have two square feet? With that, you can grow up to 80 plants.”
The People’s Garden regularly hosts hands-on demonstration tours and has welcomed volunteers from local schools, churches, businesses, and service groups, including Orlando Health, Seminole State, and Rotary Clubs. The garden is ADA-compliant, with space to accommodate wheelchairs.
Volunteer Haley Dorsett says the appeal of working in the garden goes beyond the produce grown there. Haley is a Master Gardener through the University of Florida/Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) Extension Program.
“It’s the sustainability of food, seeing the seasons change,” she says. “But really, it’s the community of people. We’re all here from different walks of life, and this garden brings us together.”
The People’s Garden welcomes volunteers to help care for the crops each Saturday from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m.
To learn more, visit FeedHungerNow.org.