Episode 109 we had the pleasure of speaking with Shawn Peterson, the founder and director of Green Urban Lunch Box. It is a local project that works to help seniors with their gardens, harvest crops from gardens/orchards that can’t do their owns, and provide spaces in SLC for community gardening. Shawn wanted to sit down with us again to talk about what has been going on the last couple years and where the organization is headed.
Shawn and the board for Green Urban Lunch Box have been actively interviewing candidates to take over for Shawn as the executive director. When he started GULB his plan was 5 years and he is now 9 years into the project. GULB projects include; gardens in low income areas, assisting seniors with gardens they want to have at their homes and deliveries to senior centers. They have gardens to assist in teaching the next generation of farmers. They deliver to the cancer center, and they assist people in picking their fruit trees! An end in mind is to make sure there is as little as possible farm food waste in our community.
What is up next for Shawn? Shawn received funding in the last month to start a national gleaning project! You heard it here! Shawn is going to help educate gleaning organizations in how much farm food waste there actually is and how to reduce that. Did you know that 20% of produce never leaves the farm? Did you know that 80% of cucumbers are never used? Shawn’s goal is to make sure that farmers and communities are utilizing the farm food that is being grown.
We are super excited to see what will become of Green Urban Lunch Box and to see the growth of Shawn’s new venture. Oh! And on a side note, GULB and Mountain West Cider will release their annual collaboration cider on November 23rd!
You can follow and get involved with Green Urban Lunch Box on their website as a volunteer or part of their CSA program and on Facebook.
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Music By: Folk Hogan. Bootleggers Dance.