WATERLOO, Iowa (AP) - Victoria Wah carefully picks the weeds growing around a plot of Thai dragon peppers Friday at a new community garden she has been tending to almost daily.
Carefully planted near the Chinese cabbage and Thai basil, the green vegetables are in the early stages of growth along with more than 30 other varieties native to Thailand and Burma.
The fruits of labor from the EMBARC Garden project will go to families and members of the Ethnic Minorities of Burma Advocacy and Resource Center in Waterloo.
“The thought was to provide some workforce readiness, give the women a chance to come work somewhere, work together as a community, and then have a way to understand they could make some money selling some stuff at markets,” said VISTA Youth Garden Coordinator Karen Everling, who is overseeing the project. “There’s not a lot of culturally relevant foods at the market for these groups.”
In Waterloo, there are currently 2,000 refugees from Burma and over 500 newcomers from the Congo. Within these groups, the refugee youths have become leaders, emerging with literacy skills that can help the rest of their community adapt.
The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier reports that last year more than 20 refugee women from Burma volunteered hours in the garden to grow produce representative of their home.
This year, the garden has moved to a new space that is being leased from the Waterloo Community Schools district at the Summit Complex in Waterloo. The 110x110-foot plot has several acres left for expansion.
Wah, 26, was born in Burma and moved with her family to Thailand when she was 10. It is common in those countries for families to grow nearly all of the food they consume, she said.
“I enjoy doing it and also getting to see the plants are growing, being happy,” she said.
Wah said she is excited for the Thai pumpkin and bitter gourd to produce. Both are made in dishes with chicken, and the leaves are boiled and eaten as well.
Everling said she plans to offer other refugee youths more varieties of vegetables from the Congo, Marshall Islands and other under-represented populations in Black Hawk County.
“Same as here in America, you don’t have to just eat our kind of food, you can eat your food too,” Everling said.
AmeriCorps VISTA members, appointed from UNI’s Center for Energy & Environmental Education under the leadership of Kamyar Enshayan also help at the garden this year, including Leah Doyle, a senior at UNI.
“I got plugged in, and I love it,” said Doyle, who participated in Green Iowa Americorps last year.
Everling said typically the garden, which launched in 2015, is planted each year with 20 to 30 volunteers. This year, very few were able to help because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of the families have someone who works at Tyson Foods in Waterloo and were confined to their home because of a virus outbreak at the plant in May, she said.
Activities and events also were canceled at the garden this year due to the virus.
For more information, go to embarcgarden.com.
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