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The popular fundraiser for the Homeless Garden Project features gourmet food by local chefs, including David Morgan of Manresa, and a keynote address by inmate advocate Catherine Sneed of The Garden Project. The dinner is Saturday, Sept. 19, at 4pm (scroll down to read details).
Sneed, who started San Francisco's Garden Project in 1992, has helped hundreds of former prison inmates learn organic farming skills with an eye toward developing marketable skills, purpose, and a healthy relationship with the broader community. She's the ideal keynote speaker for the Homeless Garden Project, which for the last 25 years has supplied the same kind of training for scores of homeless people on its three-acre farm on the Westside. Says Sneed, "As program participants learn about the natural world around them, they confront their own fears, and learn their strengths.”
Preparing produce from the farm are chefs Andrea Mollenauer of The Food Lounge; Mark Denham of Soif; Ron Mendoza of Aubergine; and Morgan, who is currently at the two-Michelin-star Manresa and preparing to take the helm of David Kinch's next project, The Bywater, when it opens in Los Gatos later this fall. Morgan, who left culinary school in 2004 to pursue his education on his own terms, has worked with noted chefs at Cyrus in Healdsburg, Melisse in Santa Monica and August Restaurant in New Orleans. Morgan will bring some of the Cajun flavors bound for the Bywater kitchen to tonight's Sustain Supper.
Homeless Garden Project, Delaware and Shaffer streets, Santa Cruz. 4-7:30pm. Tickets $125 each, available at the Homeless Garden Project store, 110 Cooper St., Ste. 100G, in Santa Cruz, or online at www.homelessgardenproject.org/events.
Photo by Crystal Birns
