CalFresh Healthy Living, UCCE promotes healthy habits for older people in Oakland
“I not only live here, I garden here,” said Karen Smulevitz, a resident of Palo Vista Gardens, a public housing complex for older adults in East Oakland. She was wearing sunglasses and sporting a white bucket hat, a red leather jacket over a red t-shirt and white pants as she roamed the community garden.
“This is my plot behind the mesh,” Smulevitz said, gesturing to the tall plants growing behind a chicken-wire screen in a raised bed. “I grow tomatoes, Italian parsley, rosemary. My doctor told me to eat more leafy greens.”
She’s growing vegetables and herbs with help from a “garden club” organized by CalFresh Healthy Living, University of California Cooperative Extension in Alameda County. Growing her own leafy greens makes it easy for Smulevitz to add them to her daily meals.
“I can come out here every other day and pick some chard and some kale, throw it in some soup or stir-fry or whatever it is I’m cooking,” Smulevitz said. “I add kale to almost everything. I’m trying to get my leafy greens in.”
CalFresh Healthy Living, UCCE provides free nutrition and wellness information to help people eligible for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) develop healthier habits.
Palo Vista Gardens is one of a few Alameda County partners enlisted by Mary Blackburn, UC Cooperative Extension nutrition, family and consumer sciences advisor emeritus, to reach older Californians. “It was really her pioneering efforts that inspired UCCE to work with seniors,” Tuline Baykal, CalFresh Healthy Living, UCCE supervisor for Alameda County, said of Blackburn, who recently retired from her 35-year UCCE career.
Growing greens and a sense of community
For the past 20 years, the CalFresh Healthy Living, UCCE team has provided nutrition classes and gardening classes for Palo Vista Gardens residents, according to Araceli Tellez, resident services portfolio manager at Oakland Housing Authority.
“In my role for the past eight years, I’ve seen how the partnership we’ve had has provided our residents the knowledge to eat healthier, to save money, to socialize with their community while gardening, and it has allowed them to grow as individuals so they can be healthier and live a longer, healthy life,” said Tellez.
Max Fairbee, a CalFresh Healthy Living, UCCE community nutrition educator for Alameda County, launched the garden club with Palo Vista Gardens residents. He specializes in serving older adults who live in public housing and adults living in transitional housing. In addition to providing them with nutrition advice, Fairbee shares tips to stretch their food dollars and meet goals for physical activity.
“I love working with these residents,” said Fairbee. “Over the past 8-9 years, I’ve connected with each of them through this garden.”
“When I first came to Palo Vista, it was as a nutrition educator and a few of the residents who garden came to my classes but not all,” he said. “You see, the residents speak at least six languages in the garden – English, Chinese, Spanish, Khmer, Vietnamese and Lao – and gardening is a way to communicate without words. Whenever I stop to see the garden, the residents take me to their plot to show me the produce they’ve grown or if there is a pest. Gardening is a common thread. They feel connected to each other even though they are from different cultures. I see how they light up and smile.”
SNAP-Ed funding to end Sept. 30
The federal reconciliation spending bill, signed into law on July 4, eliminates funding for SNAP-Ed beyond Sept. 30, 2025. CalFresh Healthy Living, University of California is one of the organizations implementing SNAP-Ed in California.
Over his eight years of connecting with Palo Vista Gardens residents, CalFresh Healthy Living UCCE community educator Fairbee has left a positive impression.
“Max is a part of our community,” said Olympia Vizcaino, assistant property manager at Palo Vista Gardens. “He has a wealth of information not only for our residents, but our staff as well. He always conducts nutrition classes, gardening classes, cooking classes. He’s constantly bringing supplies to our site, like Sluggo to keep the bugs away so that our plants can thrive. He brings us soil, he brings us calendars and he brings us baby plants, too, to plant in there.”
The Harvest of the Month calendar contains images of colorful, seasonal fruits and vegetables highlighted each month with suggested recipes.
According to Vizcaino, older people may forget to spend time outdoors, but gardening with Fairbee can be a powerful motivator.
“He brings people out into the sun,” Vizcaino said. “Some people forget and don’t go outside. They’re elderly so when they have something to do, to come out into the garden to be with other people, to be in the sun, it makes them happy.”
‘I depend on Max’
Recently participants who have worked with Fairbee reflected on how they have benefited from the CalFresh Healthy Living, UCCE program.
“I depend on Max and his knowledge of gardening and food,” said Geneva Moore, who has lived at Palo Vista Gardens for eight years. She said Fairbee is a tremendous resource for the community.
When she goes to the grocery story, Moore takes time to carefully read ingredient labels on food packages before buying a product – a skill she learned from Fairbee. Her awareness of nutritious fruits and vegetables has also expanded over the years.
“I got mustard greens, tomatoes and all kinds of things going on right now,” said Moore, pointing to the raised garden plot behind her while steadying herself with a walking stick.
Nutrition lessons learned in the garden follow participants into the kitchen. To encourage Moore to make use of her abundant, home-grown vegetables, Fairbee suggested a vegetable soup, a simple recipe that’s easy to digest. “One good way for seniors to eat their vegetables is to make a soup,” Moore said. “You’re always going to drink that soup. And, whoo, you got vegetables!”
Besides rewarding seniors with delicious meals, gardening pays off in terms of their physical health and mental health.
“I always loved to garden. I used to garden when I owned my own house. I missed it, then I come to Palo Vista and Max,” Moore said. “He brings all these good things for me. He helps me. He helps us all the time.”
Smulevitz listed many ways that the garden club enhances the quality of life for residents.
“I just love gardening; we get so much aid from UC and from Max,” she explained. “He supplies us with soil and compost and all kinds of things. Gardening lifts one’s spirits a lot. Our particular garden helps to enhance our sense of community because we often work together. We share our crops with each other, like I’ll give some kale away or somebody will give me something else that they grew and it just strengthens those bonds we have as neighbors here.”
“Max is the face of CalFresh Healthy Living, UCCE to them,” said Baykal, CalFresh Healthy Living, UCCE supervisor.
Fairbee said, “It’s obvious to me, by the way they light up, that being here in the garden is good for their well-being. And it’s good for me too! It feels really rewarding to help them grow their own food.”
Leaders at University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, which oversees CalFresh Healthy Living, UCCE in 34 counties in the state, are reimagining the future of nutrition education and how the work of Fairbee and his colleagues can continue helping older Californians.
“I can’t even put a price on what Max does,” Vizcaino said. “It’s so invaluable to our community. To watch our residents thrive in that manner makes us happy as well.”
