Everett N.

"Eddie" Souza Park &

Community Garden Virtual Recipe Book
Chrissy Diec, Dan Efroni Rotman, Jonathan Ho, Renae Romandia McCoy
ENGR 110
Fall 2020
Dr. Jessica Kuczenski
16 November 2020
 Abstract
Throughout the course of the project, our group has been working hard to ensure that our
cookbook plays a large role in civil engagement. As a nonprofit organization, our group is based
around community service towards the patrons of the community garden. Through the
implementation of our cookbook into the garden, our group will be able to aid people by giving
them the opportunity to learn from others and further develop their passion for gardening. Our
cookbook will be able to accomplish these goals towards community service through the use of
tips and recipes from various garden members, as well as the sense of community within the
book itself. Another way in which our cookbook plays a role in civic engagement is through our
focus on environmental impact. When communicating with our partner, we were informed that
there is a lot of food waste within the garden, especially when patrons have grown too much crop
or there are small bruises on their food. As the development of our cookbook progresses, our
hope is that there will be less food waste, as people will become aware of the various ways in
which they can use their grown foods. We also hope that the cookbook will inspire community
members to grow even more food in the garden, thus increasing the amount of vegetation on the
planet.
Acknowledgements
 Table of Contents
Abstract

Acknowledgements

Introduction
Purpose
The Everett N. “Eddie” Souza Community Garden
Community Partner
Critical Customer
Pandemic Response
Discussion
Project Objectives
Civic Engagement
Solutions Development

Results and Analysis

Final Product Specifications
Budget
Implementation and Testing
Conclusion and Recommendations

Bibliography

Appendices
 Introduction

Purpose

As we progress through the development of our project, we want the recipe book to have
a socioeconomic and cultural impact on the Santa Clara community. Due to the fact that many
garden members are unable to connect with each other during the pandemic, our goal for this
recipe book is to allow garden members to feel involved within the garden community, despite
not being able to physically participate with others in person. One way that our group is helping
the garden community foster more connections is by seeking out thoughtful contributions from
garden members to include in the recipe book. In order to do this, our recipe book will feature
personal recipes from various garden members and other individuals in Santa Clara, giving
everyone the opportunity to share their common joy, gardening. The recipe book will also
highlight the history of Santa Clara, as well as stories of garden members and their favorite tips
and tricks for gardening and healthy eating. This contribution will be very beneficial because it
will allow the community members to understand the roots of their own city’s history, as well as
the history of their neighbors.
In addition to socioeconomic and cultural factors, our recipe book will also have an
environmental impact on the community. In purchasing a garden membership and seeds to grow
necessary fruits, vegetables, and herbs, our customers will be able to make cost-effective changes
to their budgets, thus reducing the amount of money spent on groceries. Along with giving
people the opportunity to save money, current and future garden members will be able to learn
more about how the Everett N. "Eddie" Souza Park and Community Garden plans create change
within the community. By creating this recipe book, community members will gain awareness
around the benefits of eating fresh and healthy food. In doing so, we can all contribute to cleaner
air, reduce our carbon footprint, and positively impact the environment around the garden. Our
recipe book aims to be encouraging and informative for the garden members to take a strong
initiative on their gardening journey.

The Everett N. “Eddie” Souza Community Garden

The Everett N. "Eddie" Souza Community Garden provides Santa Clara community
members the opportunity to obtain a garden bed in the community garden for 3 years, which
allows them to learn about gardening and also gain access to their own space to grow fresh fruits
and vegetables. Our cookbook addresses the social issue of food insecurity by giving people the
opportunity to learn about cost-efficient ways to eat, which will help lower the hunger index in
Santa Clara. By creating a collaborative cookbook containing personal recipes and stories from
garden members, we strive to encourage individuals of all ages and backgrounds to become
involved with gardening and growing their own produce. According to ​Feeding America,​ among
food insecure children in Santa Clara County, “38% are likely ineligible for federal nutrition
programs” (Feeding America, 2018). In addition, the current pandemic has impacted many jobs
and sources of income for many individuals. To address this, our cookbook highlights various
ways garden members are cooking with produce directly from the garden, which will give all
garden and community members ideas on ways to bring food to the table.

Community Partner
Our partner, the Everett N. “Eddie” Souza Park and Community Garden, offers Santa
Clara community members a place to learn how to grow numerous types of plants, while also
offering people the opportunity to build relationships and learn from others. With our critical
customers being the diverse garden community, our project caters to those who desire an
efficient way to save money and yearn to partake in a community-based gardening program.
One aspect about the community that the manager, our partner, Derek Bryant, often
mentions is that Santa Clara is an extremely diverse area, filled with people who come from
various backgrounds. Many of the community members who live in Santa Clara grew up in
low-income families, or currently live a lifestyle where they cannot afford many of their
expenses. This is especially prominent in Santa Clara because housing expenses are much higher
than average. Due to these higher expenses, many families tend to have difficulty saving money
for groceries. Because of these financial issues, Derek made it his mission to open this
community garden, to give people the opportunity to save money and grow their own food. One
challenge that our partner was faced with was that many of the people in the Santa Clara
community grew up in places where they were unable to learn how to garden. This issue
encouraged him to make the garden a place where people can learn the basics of growing your
own food from other members of the community. Our partner also grows his own fruits,
vegetables, and herbs in the backyard of his home, so that he can improve his skills, to later pass
on to both his neighbors and the community garden members. This program is extremely
beneficial to the community because it allows people to pass on the knowledge they learned to
future generations, which is one of the main goals of the garden.

Critical Customer

The income levels of our customers are positioned in the low-mid range leading them to
have less access to certain resources, such as the internet or smart devices. Not having access to
these resources makes it extremely difficult to stay up to date with virtual garden resources,
which is why we are working to build our cookbook as a PDF. Having a PDF formatted
cookbook will be very beneficial to the garden community because it will allow members to
view the cookbook both offline and printed out. Our hope is that by having a PDF formatted
project, all people, no matter the income level, will be able to access and add value to the
community garden.

Pandemic Response

Due to the current state of our fluctuating economy, the availability of fresh and
affordable fruits, vegetables, and herbs is challenging for individuals to obtain. Except from this
issue not being able to build connections within the community garden is extremely detrimental
because people are unable to learn the basics and tips of gardening like they used to be able to.
As the global pandemic surfaces the world, connections are faltering, income is decreasing, work
hours are soaring, and fear is spreading. These various issues are largely impacting the
well-being of the people and the purpose of having a community garden. In order to stop these
personal connections from faltering and give people the opportunity to surround themselves with
the benefits of gardening, our group is creating a recipe book to come up with a solution for each
of these problems.

Discussion

Project Objectives

The recipe book that our group is creating will be a multi-layered platform in a pdf
format, which will allow us to solve multiple issues at the same time. The first layer of the book
is filled with the recipes of the community members, which will showcase other people’s
favorite recipes, bringing awareness to the options that people have to put on their plate.
Introducing these recipes will also be helpful to the community because it will encourage people
to check out different user’s beds within the garden. The second layer, which will be in the style
of a yearbook, will incorporate personal information and stories about each individual located
within the garden community. By incorporating this information, we will open the opportunity
for other community garden members to get to know each other. The third layer is the external
platforms page that will be provided in a hyperlink format. This page allows the members to
continue further with their desire to learn with the help of outside platforms. This information
will allow the general knowledge of the garden to grow as the members continue to share what
they have learned.

Civic Engagement

Throughout the course of the project, our group has been working hard to ensure that our
cookbook plays a large role in civil engagement. As a nonprofit organization, our group is based
around community service towards the patrons of the community garden. Through the
implementation of our cookbook into the garden, our group will be able to aid people by giving
them the opportunity to learn from others and further develop their passion for gardening. Our
cookbook will be able to accomplish these goals towards community service through the use of
tips and recipes from various garden members, as well as the sense of community within the
book itself. Another way in which our cookbook plays a role in civic engagement is through our
focus on environmental impact. When communicating with our partner, we were informed that
there is a lot of food waste within the garden, especially when patrons have grown too much crop
or there are small bruises on their food. As the development of our cookbook progresses, our
hope is that there will be less food waste, as people will become aware of the various ways in
which they can use their grown foods. We also hope that the cookbook will inspire community
members to grow even more food in the garden, thus increasing the amount of vegetation on the
planet.
Solutions Development

When trying to design the project it was really hard to come to a solution, since it would
be digital. The issue with a digital project is that there are no physical constraints on what we can
do, making it hard to decide on one solution since there are an infinite number of variations.
Speaking of a digital project brought a website to mind right away, since it is something we all
use on a daily basis. We knew that this would be made for a specific community so a blog was
the first idea. Using a blog format in the website would cause a stronger sense of community.
The issue was that if we were to expand this, a blog format would become very messy. Growing
from the issue at hand, our next solution would be creating a whole cookbook format within this
website. Having the whole cookbook within a website would allow for future expansion with
ease, but we found out quickly that this would not agree without time constraints. Finally after
doing more research regarding our customer, partner, and the issue at hand we have concluded in
creating an automated PDF Cookbook procedure. This would allow us to meet our partner
budget request, community accessibility limit, and our time constraint.

Results and Analysis

*Will be included in final draft*

Final Product Specifications

● Final template
○ *Insert image of final templates*
○ Functional analysis: how the templates work
To generate our virtual recipe book, we used a set of Google Workspace tools and
addons. First, we used Google Forms to collect responses from our customers. We created a form
to collect all the information relevant for the recipes and another form to collect information
about the garden members and their stories. Next, we created two spreadsheets using Google
Sheets to store the submitted responses for each of the two surveys. We linked the forms and
spreadsheets together so the corresponding spreadsheet is automatically updated for every
response we receive. We used Google Spellchecker to sanitize and make sure there are no
mistakes in the submissions before we put them into the book. We used the Change Case Addon
to fix any capitalization mistakes. Once the submissions have been polished, they are ready to be
put into the book. To automate this process, we utilized the Document Studio Addon which takes
each row in the spreadsheet and inputs the contents of each cell into a species format or layout
called a template. The best free tool for recipe book formatting was Google Slides and so that
was where we developed our templates. Since each recipe is of different length, we developed
two different recipe templates. The first template was for shorter recipes which could fully fit
onto one page. The second template was for longer recipes where we would then put it onto two
pages. To differentiate between these two types of recipes, we used spreadsheet functions to
calculate the length of the list of ingredients and the length of the directions. Then, we used
filters to only select the short recipes and run the one page template. We flip the filter conditions
and only select the longer recipes and run the two page template. Since all of the stores we
received fit onto one page, we created one template for stories and can run Document Studio on
the whole stories spreadsheet. Once we have converted all the submissions onto the Google
Slides templates, we can merge all of these documents together into one large set of Slides which
is our book. We reorder the pages and add some finishing touches. The book is now complete
and the slides can be downloaded into pdf format and printed as well as displayed online on
websites and social media.

Budget
● $100

Implementation and Testing

Favorite Recipe Survey

The “Favorite Recipe Survey” has been used throughout the course of the project to be
the main way in which community garden member’s recipe information is gathered. This Google
Form survey was originally created during week one of the project, but underwent many drafts
and updates before it was ready to be sent out to the public. Our original survey had
approximately six questions: garden member’s contact information, recipe type, recipe name,
ingredients, directions, and comments. After presenting this survey to our partner and receiving
feedback, we developed it into a sixteen question response page.
Analysis
 The use of this survey was extremely beneficial to the progression of the project because
it gave us an efficient way to collect information without having to ​do too much work​. Through
Google Forms, we were also able to make the transfer of recipe responses into our PDF easier
because of the built-in shortcut within the form, which automatically transfers all of our
responses into an Excel Sheet.
Garden Story Survey
The “Garden Story Survey”, which was sent out to community garden members during
week 8 of our project, has played a large role when it comes to gathering information about the
community member’s personal stories. The stories are being implemented into this project to
show the community aspect of the garden. The hope is that with the implementation of each
person’s individual story, other members of the community will be able to learn about the lives
of the people they interact with while spending time within the garden.
Analysis
Similar to the “Favorite Recipe Survey”, this survey was beneficial because it allowed
our group to collect large amounts of data quickly and efficiently. One important aspect about
this particular survey which makes it very personal is that it gives community members the
opportunity to pick three out of the fifteen questions listed to answer. This aspect is important
because it will allow the story section of the recipe book to have individuality, rather than
uniformity.
Template Development
Here we will be speaking regarding the development of our template and its changes as
we gained more responses.
Analysis

Conclusion and Recommendations

*Will be included in final draft*
● Statement of primary issues covered in the discussion
● Provide judgements about subject based on evidence explained
● Recommendations are proposed actions based on conclusions, ideas for enhancement,
next steps
Bibliography
 Appendices
Bill of materials:
● Google forms
● Google sheets
● Google docs
● Sheets Add-ons
○ Change Case
○ Document Studio
● PDF