God’s Garden Grant Award

God’s Garden was awarded the United Way of Central Iowa 2025 Community Garden Mini-Grant in the amount $510. The grant was driven by the garden’s size and the unique needs addressed by the community garden’s mini-garden criteria.

One of our church missions is to address local food insecurity. God’s Garden is one way we are helping feed the hungry in Des Moines. God's Garden began in 2013 with the establishment of its first garden plot in land provided by Calvin Community. It was designed as a faith garden versus a community garden. Comments taken from an All Things Considered document dated March 2013: “A faith garden is designed for giving to others, faith in action – putting Christian teaching of helping those less fortunate in place, faith gardens are grown to be enjoyed by God and the community, a faith garden is a community effort to grow produce for others, bringing people together for a goal of feeding others, it is a way for us to learn, serve and pray, an intergenerational connection opportunity.”

God's Garden partnered with Lutheran Services in Iowa (LSI) in 2018 to repurpose part of our northwest parking lot into a garden for refugee families seeking an opportunity to share their gardening cultural with their children and the community. Today God's Garden continues to partner with LSI providing 20 garden plots for refugee families, and two plots for Westminster. Produce from Westminster’s plots is sold throughout the summer on Sunday mornings, proceeds as well as extra produce are donated to DMARC. All produce grown in God’s Garden is chemical free so we can protect God’s creation.

A huge thank you to Jeff Geerts and his leadership in helping us, as a congregation, provide healthy food to individuals in our neighborhood.