CARIBOU, Maine – When Laura Bagley started the Caribou Community Garden last summer, she wanted to not only promote gardening but also help provide food to the region’s more vulnerable populations.
Now, Bagley is leading efforts to start Aroostook County’s first local food council, in conjunction with the Maine Network of Community Food Councils.
Food insecurity is a crisis in Maine. According to Maine’s Roadmap to End Hunger by 2030, 11.4 percent of the state’s households and 18.1 percent of children are considered food insecure. Forty-three percent of food insecure households have incomes high enough to disqualify them from anti-hunger programs like Women, Infants and Children, or WIC, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
In Aroostook County, Bagley and others are forming the Aroostook Food Collaborative, which will bring together community organizations and business leaders to create new initiatives for combating food insecurity.
“There are a lot of organizations working hard already, but the idea is to bring people together and collectively address this issue,” Bagley said.
Bagley is the founder and director of Nurture By Nature, a nonprofit dedicated to helping people discover the mental and physical health benefits of gardening.
After last summer’s planting season, Bagley and volunteers donated radishes, tomatoes, cucumbers and other vegetables to Caribou Ecumenical Food Pantry and flowers from the garden to residents of the Caribou Rehab & Nursing Center.
Bagley obtained $1,300 total in donated funds and grant monies to provide more raised garden beds for seniors and people who use wheelchairs in her community garden. Along the way, she realized that more collective efforts and statewide representation could help Aroostook expand its anti-hunger efforts.
For example, Bagley wants to explore the possibility of a gleaning program, which would involve citizens collecting leftover crops that local farmers do not intend to harvest commercially and distributing the food to people in need.
“People have picked crops like potatoes for generations but there’s never really been an organized effort to collect and distribute that food,” Bagley said.
Community gardens also provide accessible ways to promote individual gardening and grow locally sourced food, Bagley said. This year, she is partnering with Age Friendly Caribou to double the number of raised garden beds from seven to 14 and with Caribou Parks & Recreation to offer at least 13 garden plots for area residents.
So far, Bagley has been recruiting potential food council members from Aroostook County Action Program and UMaine Cooperative Extension. The Collaborative is aiming to hold its first meeting in April.
The Aroostook Food Collaborative will join nine others in the Maine Network of Community Food Councils, including those who serve Franklin, Knox, Cumberland and Washington counties, the Bangor area, Lewiston and Auburn, Brunswick, Bethel and Norway.
Joining the network allows local food councils to share their stories statewide while combating food insecurity in ways most effective for their communities, said Darci Cooke, statewide coordinator for Maine Network of Community Food Councils.
“Each council can focus on the primary issues in their communities and what they have the capacity to do,” Cooke said. “There are so many councils doing great things in Maine, and we’re excited to welcome Aroostook County.”
