Happy First Birthday, Dig Deep Farms!

In most ways, it was just another Tuesday at Dig Deep Farms.

Ten full-time employees and a score of volunteers and tilled soil, tended goats and planted several acres scattered across the unincorporated community, cultivating the fresh, local produce that will be delivered today to some 150 customers.

More toss-away parcels were promised, and new partnerships forged. Everywhere you looked, stuff was growing—stuff like compost heaps and mustard greens and expectations.

But naturally, this Tuesday was special. This Tuesday, the Alameda County Sheriff's urban farming experiment celebrated its first anniversary, a milestone it hopes it can eclipse in a month or two or five with an even greater achievement. 

"This first year has been a mighty, mighty struggle to put us to a place of sustainability," said Sgt. Martin Neideffer of the Deputy Sheriff's Activities League, which runs the program.

Neideffer joined Loretta Baptista of the Tiburcio Vasquez Health Center to share progress from a partnership between the two organizations that would provide produce prescriptions to pregnant women and new mothers. 

So far, the health care provider has selected 100 women from Cherryland to participate in the program. 

"One of the great things about Dig Deep is that they will deliver food to their homes," —a boon for those who lack access to a car or are stuck home with young children, Baptista said.

But the grant will fund more than just cooking classes and kale. 

The , funded by the Kresge Foundation, aims to change the dietary landscape in a community where the majority of businesses that carry food are conveniences selling Budweiser and CornNuts. 

The grant would eventually bring Dig Deep Farms' produce into those corner stores, in an attempt to stem skyrocketing rates of obesity and diabetes mortality that are higher here than almost anywhere else in the county. 

"If produce access could be on level with methamphetamine access, we wouldn’t have to go looking for it," said Cherryland resident Susan Beck. "We need produce everywhere."