I.

Activity 1: HEALTH AND NUTRITION

Community Gardening

II. Rationale
Living in supportive social and built environments and engaging in health-
promoting behaviors (e.g., a healthy fruit- and vegetable-rich diet, physical activity)
are consistently and significantly associated with lower rates of cancer, heart
disease, diabetes, and other chronic diseases. Diet and physical activity interventions
should aim to educate individuals, change the environments in which people live,
work, and play, improve access, availability, and affordability of healthy foods, and
create safe places that encourage active lifestyles. This study will see whether
community gardening boosts fruit and vegetable intake, enhances social support and
mental health, and cuts down on age-related weight gain and sedentary time in a
multi-ethnic, mixed-income population.

III. Learning Objective

General Learning Objective
This activity aims to encourage home farming, provide new, organic produce
to local food banks and meals programs, and provide educational programs on topics
like nutrition and cooking to increase nutritional awareness and foster healthier eating
habits.

Specific Learning Objective

At the end of the Activity, the student should be able to:
1. To increase the number of home gardeners by providing community-wide
educational programs.
2. By offering usable gardening space, ergonomic equipment, and programs that foster
physical strength and mental balance, we hope to improve the health and well-being
of participants with special needs.
3. To provide opportunities for meaningful social interaction and leisure in a beautiful,
non-threatening environment where people of all ages and backgrounds can come
together to pursue a healthy goal.
4. By offering gardening space for use by youth groups and schools, we hope to foster
interest and provide hands-on learning opportunities for children.
5. Evaluate their participation in the activity.

IV. Proponents
Leader:
Asst. Leader:
Members:

V. Respondent
Name of the Community
Address:
Barangay Chairman:
Location Map:
VI. Sponsoring
College or Department:
Dean/Program Chair:
NSTP Director:
NSTP Facilitator:

VII. Strategy / Methodology

1. Grouping the volunteers to do each task per group. One group would be in
charge of finding space in the community for gardening, another would be responsible
for finding the resources (pots, seeds, soil, fertilizer), and another would be tasked to
making advertisement through social media and making of public website to promote the
community garden.
2. The area for the garden in the community will be prepared and secured.
Preparation of pots, soils and spaces will be thoroughly checked to make sure it’s safe
from any hazardous things and making spaces for everyone in the community.
3. The group will coordinate with the barangay and its volunteers, particularly to
young adult to elders, to ensure full cooperation of the community.
4. The group would establish a Facebook page for the community gardening so
the community members would have more knowledge about it. And to advertise it also
without any cost.

VIII. Let’s Reflect

1. The community garden would be a great help in promoting nutritious lifestyle to the people
in the community. It would help them have knowledge about healthy fruits and vegetables as
they would be exposed to them. It would also encourage them to stick to healthy lifestyle as
it is very accessible through the community garden
2. One of the best practices in the implementation of the community garden is the fact that it
is a valuable resource for the community that can be used to foster engagement and sharing
of knowledge between community members and having access to nutritious foods.
3. It is a great experience to be able to help and be a part of something that is valuable and
helpful to my community. As a person who loves plants and green things, it is such a huge
opportunity for me to have knowledge about gardening, fruits and plants.
4. As a development plan, I propose that after growing flowers and beautiful plants, the
community can cooperate with each other in selling it and use the profit to sustain the
garden’s needs. And I recommend that the website about the community garden would be
sustained also to gather and encourage others to join in the community gardening.
5. The implementation of the program taught me the following values and concepts:
a. it can reduce food insecurity inside the community
b. it helps in improving dietary intake of the people in the community
c. it promotes healthy lifestyle to the people
d. establishing a community garden is a good practice in helping the environment
 e. it strengthens family and community relationships

FINAL NARRATIVE
The community gardening is a project for the community in order to help them
maintain a healthy lifestyle and environment. Here are the before, monitoring and evaluation,
after, and the progress report for 3 weeks of the implementation.
In order to make the implementation of community gardening come true, the first step
that was undertaken was finalizing the proposal and gathering volunteers. After that the
group looked for sponsors and coordinated with the community officials and barangay
leaders. The next step is the volunteers and members are grouped and assigned in each
task, like looking for resources, assessing the potential site and community members that
are interested in joining. Next step that was taken was a group created informative Facebook
page for the community garden which will help community members know more about the
project. The website also served as a question-and-answer site for those who wants to know
more about the website. After that rules were made for the community gardening
participants. Next step was informing and sharing the knowledge about approved fertilizers,
pesticides and herbicides that can be helpful and will be used for gardening. After all those
steps are done, before finally starting the project the group encouraged community members
to become participants and discussed the benefits of the garden for them and the whole
community.
After finally doing all the tasks and steps and the implementation is on going already,
these measures were undertaken to monitor and evaluate the happenings on the garden.
One thing is the participants are required to post a picture and review on the website to
monitor the engagement in the community garden. Second, supplies like pots, seeds, and
fertilizers are always reviewed and managed by the heads and assigned group. Active
interaction on the website between participants and community members are also monitored
to evaluate their thoughts and recommendations for the community garden. Lastly,
volunteers and barangay leaders are responsible for evaluating the situation of the
community garden, and in reporting the happenings and financial statements to the sponsors
and city officials.
Finally, after the preparations and implementation of the community gardening here
are the results seen, improvement of healthy lifestyle was visible because of the influence of
the garden. The environment as well improved as a garden is pleasing to the eyes of the
people and it encouraged everyone to put up their own garden. Engagement between
members of the community is enhanced, socialization and relationship are strengthened.
Increased productivity in the community was also noticeable. Lastly the community is having
better quality of food, and sufficient supplies
For the progress report, on week 1 gathering and encouraging community members,
informing and educating participants about the benefits of the community garden for their
community were done. For week 2, starting of planting with the help of members who are
knowledgeable about gardening and growing plants were done and applied. And for week 3,
small plants have grown already and members are encouraged to build their own gardens at
home.
 After seeing the results and overviewing the whole implementation of the community
garden, members thought of recommending that participants can sell the extra goods and
beautiful plants to others or outside the community and the profit would sustain the
community gardening.

FINAL RECOMMENDATION
The community have truly gained something from the community garden and for the
rehabilitation of the environment. After seeing the results and weighing possible
recommendations for the betterment of the community gardening, here are the proposals for
sustaining the project.
1. Adopting a composting practice. Every participant must learn how to compost, it includes
coffee filters, tea, dried brown leaves, and food scraps that can be used as fertilizers to
sustain the needs of the community garden.
2. Adopting the practice of capturing rain waters, so instead of using water from faucet,
community members can save up rain water and use it for future watering supply of the
garden.
3. Members are recommended to recycle things from their houses to turn them into
gardening supplies to lessen the budget and help sustain the garden.
4. Usage of natural pesticides like birds are recommended. Putting up bird feeders,
birdhouses and bird bath will attract birds to come into the garden and it would be helpful as
an insecticide and can help to the composting needs.
5. Plants, fruits and vegetables harvested can be sold to the people to help with the financial
sustainability of the community gardening.
6. Keeping the community garden beautiful and friendly looking to attract tourists in the
community.
Implementation of the following will help the sustainability of the community gardening and
for it to be able to stand up on its own and provide the needs of the community. For the
community to be more long lasting.