UNC Asheville is home to several campus gardens and is surrounded by local community gardens, yet seemingly few students know about these gardens, where they are or how to become involved. For this project, over 500 anonymous surveys were distributed to students in UNCA classrooms as a means of gauging UNCA student awareness of on and off campus gardens and to determine the most common barriers for student involvement in local gardens. The focus classes were humanities courses of all levels and general introductory classes across several departments. Students were asked to list the local gardens that they were aware of. While about half of surveyed students were aware of gardens near their school or home, and a majority stated that they were interested or able to participate in a garden, only a third of them knew how to get involved with a local garden. Nearly half of the surveyed students said that they could contribute 1-2 hours per week to a community garden, but not knowing how to get involved and personal time constraints were the top two barriers for student participation. A schedule of garden workdays, contact information for a garden coordinator and access to tools were the top three needs that students identified in order to participate in a local garden. Students were also asked how close a garden would need to be in order for them to participate noting an average of ten miles as an acceptable distance. The results of this survey will inform future outreach strategies of UNCA’s campus gardens and be used to plan a garden and food skill-building workshop series for students.
