Spring harvest has gone silent for the San Jose State community garden.
In order to reduce the spread of the coronavirus, the César E. Chávez Community Action Center, which runs the community garden, has closed the garden and suspended programs until May 3 at earliest, according to an email sent by the center’s department manager, Diana Victa.
This has stalled plans for Spartan Veg Club, a club advocating for animal rights and plant-based living.
Spartan Veg Club President Maya Paulo aims to resume bringing environmentally-ethical and sustainable practices into SJSU culture through social and community service meetups in fall.
Paulo, a child development junior, had previously founded a similar animal rights club at her high school and was inspired to apply her skills to the Spartan Veg Club when she was offered the presidential position.
“I saw some areas of improvement for the club that I could work on regarding outreach and involvement,” Paulo said. “I feel that it is very important to feel like you belong at your place of work or education, and oftentimes people who are vegetarian or vegan feel alienated from others on campus.”
In an effort to unify students who value environmental intelligence at SJSU, the Spartan Veg Club was chartered by Associated Students in 2017 as a recognized student organization that advocates for plant-based living and animal rights.
The club brought more students to the community garden.
Before the garden’s closure, volunteers grew organic foods in the SJSU Campus Community Garden to be distributed to the Spartan Food Pantry, a program to supply students who earn a gross annual income of $33,385 or less with food and hygiene products.
In addition, students grew food in the garden for their own consumption.
Paulo said that most food on campus is overly processed and genetically modified, and that as an educated community, SJSU should do better.
Pushing students to improve their nutrition starts with education, said Kaitlyn Meyer, garden operations and community engagement assistant for the César E. Chávez Community Action Center.
“People are spending all their time on campus, so we need healthy options to choose from,” Meyer said. “I think it’s a confusing thing. We’re telling students to eat healthier and take care of themselves, but then we’re [SJSU] providing them with not-very-healthy options.”
The Spartan Veg Club works with the César E. Chávez Community Action Center through the Campus Community Garden to hold solo and collaborative events.
Meyer said that together, the organizations hope to double down on their efforts to educate students about the process of growing food, cooking vegetarian meals and distributing community garden harvests to the Spartan Food Pantry.
“One of the best things about gardening is that you’re able to see where your food is coming from, but also, you’re getting something that’s going to be a higher-quality product and we want people to eat more vegetables than they need to go to the garden,” Meyer said.
She also emphasized that the center will start recording the cumulative weight of the harvests from the garden to measure its contribution to the SJSU community and hopefully apply for grants in the future.
Meyer said even though she has only been an SJSU student since December 2019, she is passionate about integrating regenerative horticulture into SJSU’s community.
“I mean, this place is the valley of heart’s delight,” Meyer said. “It was full of orchards. I wasn’t around when it was like that, but just to imagine how much it’s changed. It’s kind of crazy but also sad.”
Paulo said the Spartan Veg Club is also building connections to other nearby universities’ animal rights, food justice and environmental sustainability clubs to create an extensive Bay Area-collegiate community that is committed to being environmentally conscious.
