Our purpose is to create a vibrant, inclusive interfaith network,
growing food for the hungry and building community through sustainable gardening,
while embracing all people equally, nurturing the Earth,
and attending to how food can promote health and wellbeing.
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Who We Are
Since 2009 when Grace Garden began on a weedy backlot of Davis United Methodist Church, it has been evolving into a vibrant inclusive community network. We encounter many blessings as we enjoy working outdoors together to feed the food insecure. We give thanks to our Creator and acknowledge this ancestral land of the Patwin Wintun people. Like them, we are called to care for the Earth.
We grow fresh organic vegetables and fruit primarily for Davis Community Meals and Housing and Grace in Action. When the harvest is very plentiful, produce is available to affordable housing communities, the Pantry at UC Davis, and the Davis Night Market in the summer.
Our shared belief is to welcome and care for the stranger. We embrace all people equally and with compassion. We have 20 beds and 18 fruit trees on the 5/8 acre community garden. If anyone without land wishes to grow vegetables for their family in order to achieve self-sufficiency, we try to provide them space. For those who come hungry and work, we can send them home with what we grow in bags.
Why are there memorial bricks in Grace Garden?
The Story of Grace in Action
In 2023, Grace in Action began out of the trunk of the founder, Cindy Burger's, car.
She felt called to assist unhoused people who were hungry and in need of clothing. Two churches, including Davis UMC, opened their doors to allow volunteers to offer bagged lunches to the hungry and unsheltered. Guests rested in the youth room at Davis UMC while volunteers served food, distributed water, socks, and donated clothing. Offering the shelter of God's love to the unhoused grew over time with several other churches working together to assist those in need.
While the unhoused guests rested at Davis UMC, many of them helped Cid Barcellos (church member and one of the founders of Grace Garden) plant and weed the garden. In the early days of Grace Garden, several of our unhoused guests helped plant and tend rows of corn, and plant the beautiful irises that still bloom in the garden today.
Our unhoused guests enjoyed the peaceful setting of the garden and found rest among the tall corn, bees, and butterflies. As Davis UMC continued to offer rest and respite to our guests, they came to love the peace in the garden.
Many of our guests, who passed away, are remembered with memorial bricks under the same tree that sheltered them from the hot sun in the early days of Grace in Action and Grace Garden. Today, Grace in Action continues to offer the shelter of God's love to unhoused and low-income members of the Davis community.
2024 Annual Report for Grace Garden.docx