Dinneko’ Guåhan: Fruitful Roots, Growing Communities

With support from Guam Department of Agriculture’s Fina’maolek grand program, GSC is engaged in efforts to increase local access to fresh produce by sharing the means to grow fruit-bearing trees with the community. In March, GSC invited volunteers to join us at our G3 Community Garden in Dededo to help plant over 10 new fruiting plants, including calamansi, star fruit, and serrano cherries.

Folks who sign up to volunteer help keep our gardens thriving, and we were so grateful that over 20 high school students, parents, educators and community members came together to plant new trees with GSC. Treating our gardens as living classrooms, our collective efforts that day represented a step towards increasing food security on island, and also gave GSC the opportunity to share agricultural skills and knowledge with volunteers that they could apply at home in their own gardens. We got to educate folks not only about how to plant saplings, but also how to give them the best chance to grow into mature, fruit-bearing trees.

We’re so thankful to the students, parents, and educators from JFK High School and Guam Adventist Academy, as well as to the community members who joined us to make light work of this ongoing community effort.

GSC team members Jeremy Bevacqua and Emma Sanchez share the fundamentals of tree planting with volunteers.

Volunteers transferring nutrient-rich soil to plant pots over a layer of brown waste.