<aside> <img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/2f3955ad-619f-459b-bc0e-682f41128a47/JJ_in_circle.png" alt="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/2f3955ad-619f-459b-bc0e-682f41128a47/JJ_in_circle.png" width="40px" /> 👦 **for kids |** 👩🏫 for parents & teachers | 🫑 **valley verde |** 👋 **about us |** ❓FAQ
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**Valley Verde’s** Community Food System (non-profit 501(3)(c) organization), promotes healthy eating 🌽 and provides food access and micro-entrepreneurship training to low-income families of San José/Silicon Valley 🌄.
<aside> 📺 Watch! Watch this video to learn more about the non-profit valley verde and its mission.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeRB1YrnclM&t=5s
The community of South Bay Area in the San Francisco area includes a large population of “working underprivileged,” 92% are immigrants of Latino 🇲🇽 and Asian 🇨🇳 origin. This group often lives in food desert communities, which lack access to fresh, organic vegetables. High rates of food insecurity are exacerbated by the high cost of living in Santa Clara County, often yield disparities in health outcomes. While Santa Clara County’s median income is one of the highest in the nation, there is a tremendous income gap, which continues to grow every year. This means that many working families can’t make ends meet.
<aside> ❗ Approximately 17% of children in our County live in food insecure households, not having access to healthy food on a daily basis.
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Even though Silicon Valley is one of the most culturally diverse regions in the country, with 65% of the population belonging to multiethnic communities, culturally preferred vegetables 🥕 are not readily available in the mainstream stores.
Valley Verde offers the following programs year-round with the goal of making a lasting impact on food security, environmental conservation and access to green space for underserved families in San Jose and Gilroy, CA.
Valley Verde accomplishes this mission through 3 main avenues.
First, by growing high quality, multi ethnic seedlings 🌱 that align with the multicultural roots, relevant to many of the under-resourced communities in the bay area. These seedlings are not just your average tomato plant you’d find at home depot, but seedlings native to indian, vietnamese, mexican, native, and filipino agricultural traditions such as okra, epazote, bitter melon 🍈, and a hundred other varieties.
Secondly, they educate and support families through subsidized programming 📖 that teaches them how to grow their own food at home. Valley verde provides between 60 to 100 families a year with soil, a raised bed, and seedlings each season for qualifying low-income families in the bay area and educates them on how to grow and care for their crops, how to harvest them 🪴, and how to support the mission of food sovereignty beyond valley verde.