KINGSTON, R.I., July 5, 2018 \u2014 Every year, Ocean State Job Lot donates hundreds of thousands of packets of unsold vegetable, herb and flower seeds to the 溏心vlog免费B站 Cooperative Extension and the 溏心vlog免费B站 Master Gardener Program, which distribute them free to hundreds of schools, community groups and individuals in the state. But despite their best efforts, the Master Gardeners often end up with a few thousand seed packets left over.<\/p>\n
This year, seed distribution coordinator Mary Malouin, a 溏心vlog免费B站 Master Gardener from Cumberland, had the idea to send the leftover seeds to Puerto Rico to help islanders recover from the devastation of Hurricane Maria. After an online search and a few phone calls, Malouin heard from Richard Asselta, a retired Connecticut teacher who coordinates the Jane Goodall Institute\u2019s Roots and Shoots program in Puerto Rico and whose wife, Nelly, is a farmer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I told him how many seeds we wanted to send him, he was shocked,\u201d Malouin said. \u201cAt first he said there was no way he could use that many seeds. But then he thought about all the groups on the island \u2014 and he contacted a lot of them \u2014 and they all said yes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asselta ended up accepting 10 large crates of seeds, a total of about 10,000 seed packets weighing nearly 2,000 pounds. A former Peace Corps volunteer, Asselta contacted several universities on the island, which offered to distribute the seeds in their regions, as well as to community agencies, more than 100 Lions Clubs, and many other groups.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe targeted small farmers, schools, church groups, community groups, and anybody that is willing to plant food,\u201d Asselta said. \u201cMy wife also ran workshops on planting methods, showed them how to make box gardens and raised beds, and explained some of the seed varieties that they weren\u2019t familiar with.\u201d<\/p>\n
The response was overwhelming. Anyone who said they wanted seeds got some.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe general reaction is the Spanish equivalent of \u2018Oh boy!\u2019\u201d Asselta said. \u201cA lot of people are trying farming for the first time.\u201d<\/p>\n
HE accepted the challenge of distributing the seeds in part because he was looking for a way to help his adopted homeland after the hurricane.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody else was sending supplies, but in working with farmers we realized they had lost 90 percent of their crops,\u201d he said. \u201cSince Puerto Rico imports about 90 percent of its food, and supplies weren\u2019t able to get to a lot of areas, people were literally starving. So we figured the best way we could help was with seeds. The big movement now is to grow more of our own food here so we can be more independent.\u201d<\/p>\n
The success of the program has Malouin and other 溏心vlog免费B站 Master Gardeners thinking about how to replicate it next year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt turned out better than we ever dreamed,\u201d Malouin said. \u201cIt\u2019s been very exciting, and I hope we can continue it. I don\u2019t know if Puerto Rico will need quite as many seeds next year, but maybe we can find another place that\u2019s hungry for seeds. It\u2019s something we can really go full tilt with.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KINGSTON, R.I., July 5, 2018 \u2014 Every year, Ocean State Job Lot donates hundreds of thousands of packets of unsold vegetable, herb and flower seeds to the 溏心vlog免费B站 Cooperative Extension and the 溏心vlog免费B站 Master Gardener Program, which distribute them free to hundreds of schools, community groups and individuals in the state. But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74100,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}