After years of working separately to educate and advocate for a healthy community, EATS and Summit Community Gardens have decided to combine their efforts into one nonprofit.
As of last week, the two organizations officially became Summit Community Gardens EATS, and the merger, like everything they do, came organically, said Executive Director Sloane Johnson. “Over the years, there were times when we were doing similar things and not trying to step on each others’ toes,” she said. “It came to a point where we thought, why not just do this together. So now, we’ll get to streamline that work.”
Melissa Stock, who has been the acting director of EATS, will become the president of the board.
“We’re holding on to both of the names for now, but we will reevaluate the name in October,” she said. “We want to work together first before we come up with a new name.”
EATS, an acronym for Eat Awesome Things, formed in 2014 with the mission and vision to grow a healthy community and empower a healthier generation through fun, food, and nutrition advocacy.
Summit Community Gardens opened in 2012, and officially became a nonprofit in 2015 to build and strengthen the community through education and opportunities for people to sustainably grow their own food in a community-based program.
While EATS worked to bring healthy food to school lunches with student-grown food and implementing after-school cooking classes and food-waste reduction programming, Summit Community Gardens began renting garden plots to community growers, and added a plot of demonstration beds that would grow produce for local families in need.
“Summit Community Gardens had been working on getting more gardening classes and other gardening education into schools,” Johnson said. “And while EATS was already doing an excellent job of getting nutrition education in schools, they were looking for a bigger space for more gardening space in the community, and that’s what Summit Community Gardens has. So it seemed like a perfect fit.”
EATS currently partners with Fresh Market and Holy Cross Ministries to bring fresh fruit into elementary and middle schools, and Summit Community Gardens works with the Christian Center of Park City and the People’s Health Clinic to bring locally grown food to families in need, according Johnson and Stock.
Throughout the years, the two organizations have collaborated on projects and events, which began to set the table for a merger, Stock said.
“This isn’t the first time that board and executive directors have spoken about the (idea),” she said. “I think it has been contemplated as far back as when our organizations originated, because a lot of people who work closely within the organizations and identify with the purposes recognize they share the same values and try to fulfill similar needs.”
The administration and staff of the two nonprofits had been working on a full merger since November, according to Stock.
“That’s when we began thinking about logistics and the purpose,” she said.
The present game plan is to move forward with the spring season and assemble a foundation for the new organization, Johnson said.
“We will continue our efforts within the garden and the education classes and sustainability efforts with composting, cooking, and gardening in the schools,” she said. “We currently have nine elementary school summer camps in the garden and four pre-school summer camps. They will also receive some sort of EATS education, and we’re really bringing from soil to table back to soil so the kids get a well-rounded education with our programs.”
Stock said it’s important to ensure a level of continuity with the current programming, before adding more. And that continuity includes as little change as possible during the next few months.
“We are keeping all of our staff, and that’s very important to us as managers and employers,” she said. “After the season winds down in October, after the harvest, we will evaluate where there is program overlap. And then we’ll look to see what we’re doing in order to make alterations, create a new website and rebrand how we deliver our services.”
Johnson and Stock are looking forward to working together throughout the merger.
“So far, it already feels like we’re acting like a merged organization,” she said. “We’ve been speaking every day and meeting a couple of times a week. And I think we’ve proven in the past few weeks that we really gel as a team.”
Stock, Johnson and the rest of the administrative team have documented the merger process in case other nonprofits would like to follow suit.
“It takes a lot of vulnerability and trust to merge, and we can provide a template and be a resource of knowledge and experience,” Stock said.