At Collective Roots, we build breathtaking school gardens - unique open spaces where both our students' minds and our community's spirit can take root. We are also working to change our food system - creating access to local, sustainable produce for the families that need it the most. By honoring our valley's abundant past while celebrating a healthy, sustainable future, we are building a food system that is robust, just, and proudly local.

But we can't do it without your help.

Garden Based Learning
We work with youth and adults to design and sustain organic gardens on school and community sites that are linked with kindergarten through 12th grade curriculum provided by Collective Roots.

Food System Change
We engage residents and stakeholders in a full-scale initiative to increase access to fresh, local, healthy and affordable fresh produce through community-based projects that build resident capacity.

The streets of East Palo Alto have seen everything from brick factories to poultry farms to gang shootings, but they haven’t before met anything quite like Rev. Bob Hartley, a known and respected longtime EPA resident. He’s a man with a plan to help the youth in the community give up their weapons – in favor of plants.

He and his wife Clara, an industrious wheelchair-bound woman with a lovely smile, grow a wealth of flourishing vegetables in their backyard and bring a selection of fresh pickings to sell at the EPA Farmers' Market each Saturday.

Please join us at the EPACS garden for a morning of summer garden tasks.  Enjoy tending vegetables, pull out spent crops, weed, mulch, seed, turn beds and compost, plant, prepare the chicken coop for new chickens and help keep the garden going strong through the winter. Please dress in layers and closed-toed shoes and apply sunscreen!

RAIN: If it is raining, please stay home, warm, and cozy!

To RSVP or to sign up to be a team leader, call 650.324.2769 or email volunteer@collectiveroots.org.