Hidden in Isla Vista’s Storke Family Student Housing Apartments is a pathway trailed out by a mixture of dried and dense brown dirt that leads to a vibrant community garden — one of many maintained by UC Santa Barbara’s Edible Campus Program. 

The ECP provides volunteering opportunities to the community and brings together students and community members who have either a well-seasoned green thumb or a fresh interest in gardening. Sanjana Lingam / Daily Nexus

The Edible Campus Program (ECP) provides volunteering opportunities to the community, bringing together students and community members who have either a well-seasoned green thumb or a fresh interest in gardening. The ECP’s gardens are home to cacti, herbs, vegetables, fruit trees and bushes planted in redwood boxes. 

ECP hosts Saturday Morning Live every week where volunteers work in gardens around the community on Saturdays from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. ECP does not require any prior gardening experience and is open to the general public.

On May 2, Saturday Morning Live volunteers tended to the community garden where ECP Volunteer Coordinator and third-year psychological & brain sciences major Connor Carpenter found two bunnies resting in the corner of the shed. Carpenter said that preserving the wildlife of the surrounding nature is an essential part of the program’s goal.

Carpenter stated that the opportunity to collaborate with the ECP enabled him to get more involved around I.V. and build a new community by meeting other volunteers.  

ECP Member Coordinator and third-year sociology major Fred Torres and Garden Operations Coordinator and second-year statistics and data science major Siying Zhong work together in making the community garden a place that represents the community within I.V. 

Torres mentioned that the community garden is a significant part of the Storke Family Student Housing Apartments, where children living in the housing complex can take a breath with the butterflies in the purple cutleaf lilac bushes. 

Zhong added that the volunteers of the garden have been nothing but helpful due to the frequent weather changes in Goleta. They agree that when weather challenges happen, the garden must be continuously maintained and looked over. 

While showing a cherry tree freshly planted on one of the plots, Zhong mentioned that the redwood boxes that are placed for each of the vegetables are to repel the insects. 

Torres added that the children’s garden was placed to grab engagement within the UCSB Family Student Housing (FSH) community and to open their minds to learning about the natural habitat. He also mentioned that he wished they had more necessities to maintain the garden. 

Volunteer and FSH Resident Nathan Luo, first year master’s student in environmental science and management, hopes to build a nest for hummingbirds because it was his wife’s wish.  

A version of this article appeared on p. 6 of the May 7 print edition of the Daily Nexus