Teaching the Less Fortunate a Path to Healthy, Sustainable Eating
“We want to teach them how to plant, cultivate, to harvest, and to cook the products that they have grown,” Earstin Whitten, the founder and president of Soulful Seeds, explains of his goals to help people without many resources cultivate and consume their own healthy food.
Located downtown on a tiny plot once destined to become a parking lot, right behind Planned Parenthood, Soulful Seeds is a non-profit gardening organization focused on growing healthy and organic food for those in need, distributing to shelters, as well as teaching gardening skills through partnerships with recovery programs.
“When they get out of that homeless situation they should be able to to have some basic understanding of how things grow,” Whitten said of his goal of empowering the less fortunate with the skills to grow their own food.
Beginning in 2017, Whitten acquired the 1000 square foot plot from the Saint Mary’s Regional Medical Center and began growing vegetables there. He has since expanded to nearly twenty gardening boxes which now overflow with vegetables. Nearing the end of the growing season, on a recent fall day, Whitten was planting his favorite plant, garlic.
A volunteer was working on a nearby garden bed. "When we grow food for other people, we have to grow what they like,” Whitten said as he proudly showed tomatoes, Swiss chard, eggplants, tomatillos, and kale.
A pink Brandywine heirloom tomato grown by Whitten. He is now growing over 1000 heads of garlic with his own seed stock which he will harvest next July.
Expanding Operations
Next spring, Whitten plans to expand his operations onto a two acre lot located on Glendale Avenue. This will increase the amount of food he can grow, he says, and get into the mouths of those who need it most.
Whitten also works with the Reno Food Systems, bringing produce to them several times a week, so they can then donate food to the Record St. and Our Place shelters.
Whitten says he has kept expenses to a minimum. His initial investments were out of his own pocket and he relies heavily on donations, “and most of it is in kind donations,” he said. His garden boxes are filled with organic soil created locally in Carson Valley by Full Circle Compost, which he receives at a discounted rate. He got his original seed garlic from a farmer in nearby Washoe Valley.
While he has had to reduce the number of volunteers this year due to the pandemic, they have also been pivotal to Soulful Seeds. Whitten has been working with an engineer and developer on the new property who will be “donating their services to do the survey,” he said.
Many of the garden beds have been donated and create a maze like atmosphere within the downtown garden.
Working Through Many Avenues to Expand Access to Healthy Eating
Soulful Seeds recently received a grant from the City of Reno through the CARES Act, which he says will be used to expand purchases he also makes from the Great Basin Community Food Co-op for additional food donations.
He also wants to purchase Instant Pots, which are small pressure cookers, to allow people to cook their own healthy meals.
“These Instant Pots are very versatile and they will allow them to cook a full meal in one pot,” he said. “There are a lot of people and organizations that want to contribute to the less fortunate. We are a conduit for that because people who donate can literally see where their funds go,” Whitten said.
Knowing he needs to be well connected in the community to make his vision become a reality, he is also on the Board of Directors for the Great Basin Community Food Co-op.
“One of my missions, since joining that group, was to make sure that populations that don’t go to the store have an opportunity for organically grown food,” he said.