Puente will build an educational vegetable garden in the front yard and a Native Garden on the

parkways and courtyards of an office Building. The plan for these two gardens is to create a food and native plant educational garden for the Long Beach community. A place where neighbors, preschool children, and students can come to learn about gardening, native plants (their use and history), witness how food and plants grow and learn how to grow their own food.

The site is surrounded by apartment buildings with no open space for the neighbors to socialize. This neighborhood represents the diverse population that Long Beach is known for.

Puente had partnered with local Master Gardeners and artists to provide monthly gardening and craft classes.

The gardening classes will focus on building community cohesion and resilience.

The arts and crafts workshops will focus on tolerance.

We will have native garden signs and tours to emphasize the use and importance of having more native gardens in the city.

Additionally, we will have craft events to highlight the native people who once dwelled here, and

the different cultures in the city.

The crafting classes will be used to teach understanding and tolerance in our diverse community.

The Garden will use healing techniques to grow a gardening community where everyone will feel

welcome.

The garden will be presented and promoted to show how commercial buildings can

turn grass areas into vegetable and native gardens. The goal is to make these areas

sustainable, resilient, and ultimately promote equitable and healthy communities and

environments.

Master gardeners Hilda and Melissa after planting the back courtyard of the garden