Fresh fruits and vegetables are essential for a healthy, balanced diet. However, organic produce is not always accessible or affordable for many.
Through a Community Garden Program, Cy-Fair Helping Hands (CFHH) gives underprivileged individuals and families in the Cypress area access to fresh produce and healthy meals.
“This benefits families who are struggling financially, and who have a difficult time going to the grocery store and purchasing fresh foods,” said Janet Ryan, Executive Director of CFHH. “They can come to us twice a month for food. We don’t cook here - it’s as if they were grocery shopping,” she said. “We provide them with bags and boxes of food to take home to prepare and that’s where the produce comes in.”
Produce from the garden also supplements their Homeless Day Center, where they offer services to homeless individuals, such as meals, showers, devotionals, and more.
The garden first opened in 2016 after the organization received a $10,000 grant from the Cy-Fair Women’s Club. Since its opening almost a decade ago, the garden has donated thousands of pounds of food to those in need. Last year alone, Ryan said the organization harvested over 2,000 pounds of produce from the garden. Since 2017 Cy-Fair Helping Hands the community garden has been manages and maintained by their very own horticulture expert, Ken Grau. Ken brings a lifetime of knowledge and dedication with a practical mindset to the garden. His goal is to grow vegetables for the pantry for less than 50¢ per pound-otherwise, as he says, "we might as well just buy produce wholesale."
The overall mission of CFHH’s Community Garden is to grow fresh produce for those who do not have access otherwise, Ryan explains.
“We all hear and talk about the value of nutrition and how important it is to eat healthily, but when you are working with a super small grocery budget, or don’t even have a budget because you don’t have a refrigerator or a stove, your options are very, very limited,” she said. “I really love the fact that we can help all of these people have fresh, beautiful nutritious food.”
Apart from the garden, CFHH also offers emergency shelter for families with children, scholarships for underprivileged students, homeless outreach, back-to-school resources, among others.
CFHH relies on volunteers to operate their programs, including the Community Garden. Around 125 volunteers tend to the garden twice a week on Wednesdays and Sundays.
For those interested in volunteering, visit cyfairhelpinghands.org to view a list of volunteer opportunities and fill out an application.
The Community Garden is located at Bayou City Fellowship’s Cypress campus on Telge Road.
Cy-Fair Helping Hands, a local 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, aims to serve the homeless community as well as families and individuals who need a helping hand. The majority of the crops from the Community Garden help stock the organization’s Community Food Pantry. Through the pantry, CFHH provides fresh and non-perishable foods, toiletries, and other essential items to people living in and around Cy-Fair ISD.