Jones Gardens Provides Fresh Food and Much More in Staunton, VA

Jones Gardens was started in 2021 by Staunton natives Naomi and Sarah Jones with the goal of creating a beautiful and functional community space dedicated to improving access to fresh food. Through transforming unused parcels of land into gardens, since 2021 they’ve grown a total of 6500 pounds of organic produce, providing fresh food for over 60 Staunton households each week. 

Example of new educational signs included in gardens

This season, Jones Gardens focused on expanding their educational reach. Through funding from Earth Rising, Jones Garden developed educational programming with the intent to make knowledge of sustainable agriculture more widespread in their community. To start they have included educational garden signage, provided gardening classes and created educational videos document to share as a resource.

Garden Education Event

Specifically, they’ve been able to include over 40 signs in their gardens, including with spanish translation. Examples of the educational classes they hosted were a Seed Starting workshop and an Intro to Gardening workshop. In addition to these workshops, Jones Gardens hosted 14 Garden Labs, family friendly educational events on food and gardening. 

Earth Rising is proud to support the crucial work of Jones Gardens. The advancement of local food systems, such as Jones Gardens, is so crucial to addressing the climate crisis and advancing equitable access to good, healthy food.