Garden at HSHS Wisconsin hospital grows fresh food for those in need

By LAIGHA ANDERSON

HSHS St. Joseph’s Hospital is tackling hunger head on, by growing food in a garden for the community.

For the past 10 years, the hospital in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, has been providing fresh food to local food pantries in its service area through a volunteer-tended garden. The garden produces hundreds of pounds of food per week during the planting and harvesting season, which starts in mid-May.

“God provides the sunshine, we provide the water and security,” said Roger Elliot, who coordinates the hospital’s garden program.

The garden took root after the 2010 census. That census revealed that in Chippewa County and the surrounding area the hospital serves about 14% of people lived at or below the poverty line and as many as one-tenth of the population of about 100,000 were food insecure.

“We looked at the report and said there is like 40 acres of vacant land behind the hospital. If we could do garden space, we could grow food, provide those who are hunger challenged space to grow their own food,” explained Elliot.

The hospital already was undertaking a massive renovation project that included work on the hospital’s healing garden.

The vacant 40 acres became the site of 24 garden plots, each 12 feet wide by 24 feet long. The HSHS St. Joseph’s Hospital Foun-

“We looked at the report and said there is like 40 acres of vacant land behind the hospital. If we could do garden space, we could grow food, provide those who are hunger challenged space to grow their own food.”

— Roger Elliot