As you drive onto Azusa Pacific University’s East Campus on a Monday morning, if you look to the right, you’ll notice a handful of students bent over, tending to plants, plucking weeds, and picking fresh fruit. These students are caring for the Community Garden while earning service credits under the direction of Bradley “Peanut” McCoy, PhD, chair and professor, Department of Computer Science; Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, and Statistics (CEMPS), and his wife, Beth, PhD, SE, PE, adjunct professor in CEMPS.

“APU is a community of disciples and scholars,” Peanut McCoy said. “We’re building relationships and educational opportunities in a nonclassroom setting, cultivating a love of stewardship of our plants.”

The Community Garden has four primary goals: growing produce for student consumption, creating a space outside the classroom for faculty/staff interaction with students, supporting collaborative learning on campus, and facilitating community outreach.

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Free Food for Students

All produce from the garden is available to students free of charge. The front of the garden has a flyer with instructions on how to pick, as well as a QR code to log how much and what types of produce you pick.

“Students can take as much as they’d like, they’re not limited at all; (the log is) just for record keeping,” Beth McCoy said. “We are also collaborating with APU’s Food Pantry to distribute a rotating menu of meal kits, including produce items from the garden along with a recipe and necessary pantry items from the Food Pantry.” 

Last year, students logged more than 400 pounds of food picked from the garden. This year, the goal is 700 pounds, or more than $10,000 worth of produce. Throughout the year, the garden is full of many varieties of vegetables, fruits, and herbs. In the winter, this includes American broccoli, Chinese broccoli, kale, mustard greens, lettuce, carrots, beets, shelling peas, sugar snap peas, and snow peas. Dining Services will lead a workshop in the next month to show students how to cook peas in healthy recipes. During the summer, the garden is full of tomatoes, green beans, okra, zucchini, peppers, pomegranates, plums, apples, and berries.