Greening Sacramento: Shriver Announces Plans to Get Planting

Photo by Grumpy Chris via Flickr

Add Maria Shriver to the list of politicians getting their hands dirty and cultivating a truly green movement. Right on the heels of the first family, California's first lady "announced Monday that a garden will be planted in May in a flower bed on the east end of Capitol Park in Sacramento," according to LA Now.

With the aim of raising awareness about the "role of food, where it comes from, nutritional value, how it is grown and harvested and ultimately how it reaches the tables of those who need it most," Shriver plans to create a full demonstration garden, with the valued input from "state Food and Agriculture Secretary A.G. Kawamura, the California School Garden Network and the chef Alice Waters, who has been a vocal advocate for school and public edible gardens." The crops, which haven't been selected for planting yet, are most likely destined to area food banks.

In her five years as honorary chairwoman of the School Garden Network the "number [of] gardens in the program has doubled, reaching 6,000 last year." Our own LAUSD has a thriving School Garden program, as do many other smaller districts and private schools in the area. Gardening has become so popular as a means to create local produce, repurpose unused city spaces, and save money on groceries that many community gardens have lengthy waiting lists for plots.