As organizational development consultant turned Executive Director of Petaluma Bounty, Grayson James has managed quite a feat in three years. He is catapulting his small nonprofit into position as a major force in Sonoma County’s affordable and accessible healthy food efforts.
Five years ago, James was hired by the Hub of Petaluma Foundation to look into how to address hunger in the Petaluma community. For a year and a half, he researched, talking to people in Sonoma County involved in food access for needy people, farmers, food advocates and more, gradually shaping a vision where Petaluma citizens could have consistent access to fresh healthy food in their community.
The vision manifested itself in a plan that looked much like Petaluma Bounty does today, with the focus on helping people grow their own food, redistributing surplus and providing fresh and affordable food to low-income families and seniors.
“The challenge,” James stated, “is not to just focus on emergency food, but to go upstream, to become food self reliant. We want people to eat healthy food and learn what a healthy local food system is.”
The organization’s name arose out of a desire to have some lightness around a very serious issue that would engage the broader community through a range of programs.

Gardens begin to grow
Community gardens have proven to be an efficient way to make available fresh nutritious food, as well as an opportunity to educate people on how to grow it themselves through various workshops.
To maximize that impact, the first gardens were combined school and community gardens at McKinley and McDowell Elementary schools, with parents and kids sharing the fruits of their labor. A third community garden then blossomed at La Tercera Park and a fourth at Miwok Valley Elementary. Two more are in the works, according to James.
Staff member Taylor Samuelson, fresh from a Peace Corps stint in Paraguay, oversees these gardens. His goal is to encourage leadership among community garden members, having them manage their own gardens.

Surplus food?
In line with their multi-pronged approach, Petaluma Bounty then created a gleaning program - the Bounty Hunters. In 2007, the organization received a small grant from Bread for the Journey to help promote their program and to purchase gleaning equipment like ladders and buckets.
Wikipedia explains gleaning as: “The act of collecting leftover crops from farmers’ fields after they have been commercially harvested or on fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest. Some ancient cultures promoted gleaning as an early form of a welfare system. For example, ancient Jewish communities required that farmers not reap all the way to the edges of a field so as to leave some for the poor and for strangers.”
Bounty Hunters help find surplus food, gather up excess and bring to one of three collection sites and distribute it to those in need.

And now, some land for growing food
It’s a good thing Petaluma Bounty is good at recruiting volunteers, because they needed them when they signed a lease for over two acres in 2008. This land was another piece of the puzzle, and provided the chance to raise crops close to downtown Petaluma. The property had lain fallow for many years, becoming a storage place for old wood, metal and other materials, as well as a large barn on the verge of collapse. After many clean up weekends, the land was transformed and ready for farming.
James had recruited an amazing young farmer to run the farm, Amy Rice-Jones from the University of California at Santa Cruz’s renowned farm and garden program. She tackled the job with gusto, working mostly alone, with volunteers pitching in on weekends, preparing the soil, installing irrigation, crop planning, planting, weeding, etc. The first harvest came in that summer of 2008.

Getting the bounty to the people
Another link in the food chain was providing inexpensive weekly produce boxes (Bounty Boxes) for low-income families. Volunteers dropped them off at convenient pick up locations. The reduced cost for low-income families ($10 per week) is subsidized in part by those who purchase weekly boxes at retail ($18 per week).
In winter, as farm production slows down, they supplement with product from regional organic farms.

Taking access to the next level
This summer Rice-Jones sold produce at their new farm stand. They’ve also added a “Mobile Market.” Rocio Velasco, their delightful market person, drives a donated truck loaded with boxes of fresh produce to six underserved neighborhoods each week. The Market lets customers select what they want/need and get same value ($10 at the mobile market is equal to what comes in a Bounty Box). “This is a new program,” says Rocio, “and we need to keep going back so people see that we will be there each week.”
It’s also an expensive program, according to James, so they rely on sponsorships.
The newest stop for the Mobile Market is Old Elm village, a block from the farm. Samuelson, who oversees aspects of this program, plans to help residents grow food in containers. He says, “One person can grow a tomato plant and someone else can grow another vegetable. Sharing and creating community is the really important component.”
Recently, Petaluma Hospital’s cafeteria asked for and got a farm stand set up in their cafeteria for their customers. Delivered weekly by a volunteer, cafeteria customers can buy farm fresh vegetables, with excess produce used in meal preparation.

Jumpstart your backyard gardens
Petaluma Bounty’s latest enterprise is called Backyard Bounty, a program for those who may not have time to create their own garden, or want to replace a lawn with food crops, or just need help designing the space. They offer a free consultation and profits from this project go toward Petaluma Bounty’s other programs. Samuelson, wearing yet another hat, installed seven gardens this first season for folks who had not been growing food previously.

Save money by “growing your own”
On its Web site, Petaluma Bounty references an article on backyard gardens, quoting savings by home gardeners. “Growing more than 35 crops in their 1,600 square foot garden, they calculated that their garden netted over $2,000 in savings (after deducting the costs of seeds, soil test, compost and water) in just one year of growing.” Sounds like a plan in these tough economic times.

What’s next?
According to James, they came close to hitting their target of harvesting and distributing 100,000 pounds of food this year. He feels confident they can increase that by 50 percent next year. They want to keep the momentum going at the farm, which includes increasing planted acreage; setting up an outdoor learning center; and offering internships. An expensive program to run, they need to figure out how to make the Mobile Market sustain itself. Finding more locations and times, doing lots of marketing James says, “We want to reach thousands of people.”
Petaluma Bounty is willing to help other local communities establish community gardens with the condition that those asking can find funding to pay for staff time (www.petalumabounty.org/programs/community-gardens).