| Temple Square is always beautiful in the springtime. Gardeners work to prepare the ground for General Conference. © 2012 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved. | 1 / 2 |
Beginning in 2018 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints developed a partnership with Lelu Farmers Association (LFA) a Kosrae state-chartered corporation to build family greenhouses. In addition, as part of the start-up, the families are provided with lumber to build shelves, grow bags, a garden hose with nozzle, potting soil, compost, manure, and slow-release fertilizer. LFA continues further assistance with the provision of additional grow bags, trellises and seedlings.
In some locations there is not enough topsoil, so this partnership is able to provide topsoil to those who need it. To collect the soil an excavator provided by the Church in 2020 is used to load the soil into an LFA dump truck for delivery.
This collaborative effort between the Church, LFA and some Kosraean state funding has worked well to provide the means to bring healthy food to 55 Kosraean families, Kosrae High School and the Seventh Day Adventist school/church. The last 5 family greenhouses were just completed in recent weeks.
In addition to the Kosrae family greenhouses, since 2019 the Church has also provided soil ammendments to existing greenhouses. LFA provides these materials upon request to active greenhouses to assist with their vegetable production.