University of San Diego
IN-7: Community Garden

As part of the Impact Linda Vista program, part of our Anchor and Changemaker initiatives to work with local communities, USD has worked with the Access Community Center in the Linda Vista community to develop a community garden project based on the gardens of indigenous peoples of the Mixtec region of Mexico. This project focuses on both planting and story-telling regarding the Mixtec community garden, or milpa. Students from Prof. Mercado's COMM 380 International Media course had opportunities to help gather, record, and transcribe stories from elders about the uses of different plants grown in a milpa, which is a Mesoamerican system of growing complementary plants. Students also participate in planting and caring for the milpa along with community members. This exposes them to communal and decolonial forms of communication through both planting with and interacting with Mexican indigenous migrants in the Mixtec community in Linda Vista.

USD also has a community garden tucked away behind Mata'yuum Crossroads. This is a space for any campus community member to enjoy the outdoors and partake in some therapeutic gardening. One of the reasons this garden was created is to help combat food insecurity. Food insecurity is a realistic and unfortunate circumstance that happens in colleges and universities across the nation, including at USD. The National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness advocate for institutions to create campus food pantries, community gardens, food recovery programs, and coordinated benefits access programs; two of which USD has already established. The garden not only contributes items to the food pantries but it provides equal access to food that is cultivated by our community.

https://www.sandiego.edu/sustainability/initiatives/social-justice.php
https://www.impactlindavista.com/blog/access-community-center-9eaf3224-08f9-4f8e-ae37-dfaab54c22b0?categoryId=152504