January 17, 2009 San Francisco, CA USA
On a foggy January San Francisco Saturday, thirty volunteers from Salesforce and Astadia, a Salesforce.com Foundation Power of Us partner, joined eleven clients and five staff from Larkin Street Youth Services to build a vegetable and flower garden from scratch. The group descended upon G-House, a Larkin Street facility that houses an emergency shelter for youth ages 18-24 as well as a twenty-bed cooperative housing site for young people ages 18-24. The project was the result of a Community Action Team grant designed to create a safe place for the residents of G-House while complementing a recent curriculum lesson on nutrition, the slow food movement, cooking and the importance of being aware of your food’s source. In preparation for the garden build, Larkin Streetclients interviewed farmers, volunteered at community gardens, shopped at the farmers markets, prepared weekly meals for sixty homeless youth, and read articles by such local food gurus as Michael Pollan and Alice Waters.
carport with twenty half-wine barrels stacked haphazardly and piles of bricks, sinks, and dirt strewn about. Several tables contained boxes of tumbled glass and tile, and a dozen windows leaned against the wall. Brambles stuck out from under the fence and the existing space was barren and uninspired. After a brief introduction, volunteers, youth, and staff split up and set to work turning the gloomy space into a beautiful work of art. Salesforce employees, Astadia employees, Larkin Street staff and clients joined forces to build a stone retaining wall, create planter boxes and containers out of salvaged materials, and plant the vegetable starts and flowers. Another group set to work sifting soil and defining the garden space with wine barrels. These barrels now serve as the growing space for the first winter garden of kale, lettuce, broccoli, and more. 
On the creative side, volunteers painted salvaged windows and transformed them into mosaics with salvaged glass and tile from the Rebuilding Center . One volunteer put his set design background to work and hung the windows in a row, catching the sun and providing a visual barrier between the garden and parking area. Other volunteers set to work painting the interior of G-House. The transformation inside and out is remarkable, and serves as testament to the skill and creativity of the volunteers and clients. 
says. In future workshops, students cover topics ranging from sustainability, recycling, slow food, the anthropology of food, cultural diversity, food sources, etc. Interpersonal communication is a crucial educational component for a student population that often lacks positive adult role models, struggles with mental health and substance abuse issues, is disengaged from school, lacks stable housing, and/or is developmentally disabled. Working together on hands-on projects such as a garden provides a natural context in which to improve conversation skills and stimulate openness to learning and expression. The youth at Larkin Street have grown up in a fast food, fast school, fast fix, and fast life environment. By creating a safe space that offers a chance to cultivate and create, they will have a refuge that encourages them to be positive, contributing, and healthy individuals. Everyone connected with the agency—youth and staff alike—will contribute to the G-House garden. The garden has enabled a fusion of experiential and academic learning that contributes to the holistic growth of the clients, while helping them to invest in the positive transformation of their living space.
