Best Urban Gardening Training Program

Urban Tilth

Urban Tilth is getting Richmond's youth excited about sustainability and healthy eating. The West Contra Costa Country organization works with schools, businesses, and local governments toward a goal of producing 5 percent of the community's food supply from school and community gardens. And with a new, sliding-scale Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program that's set to launch soon, it's well on its way to doing just that. It also runs programs in K-12 schools and during the summer, and measures its success by the fact that 70 percent of its paid summer staff — who lead workdays and install gardens around the Bay Area — started out as youth apprentices. Soon to open a new farm stand in North Richmond, Urban Tilth is sowing seeds in the parts of the county that need it most.