Biting into a red cherry tomato, graduate student and Sustainable Agriculture Student Association volunteer Andrea Basche guided tourists through Food At First’s garden to kick off Ames’ Edible Garden Tour on Sunday.

Since April, a group of volunteers has been working to put together the second year of the tour in hopes of showing off a variety of gardens in Ames and creating a focus on the community.

“There is this paradox in Iowa where we grow so many commodity crops and there is concern that we don’t really feed the people here because a lot of the commodity crops are exported,” said event coordinator Amanda Raster.

Members of SASA also volunteered at Food At First, a free meal program and pantry, where they organize a community banquet the first Friday of every month.

Last February, SASA accepted the 2014 Live Green Award from Iowa State’s Live Green organization for their work with Food At First.

Together the organizations found a plot of land behind Trinity Christian Reformed Church that was not being used. Taking the unused land into account, SASA and Food At First worked with the church to start a garden where the produce would be given to Food At First for free meals.

“The greatest benefit for me is seeing the vegetables that we grow be utilized by people who need it,” Basche said. “To see people taking them and being really excited about it is really rewarding. And also at the meals we seem to always see a really warm welcome when we are there.”

Starting with the tour at the Food At First’s garden, guests were welcomed with bruschetta and were encouraged to take some of the vegetables grown in the garden.

Throughout the course of the tour, gardeners provided various treats for visitors, as well some advice for amateur gardeners.

Gardener John “Cookie” Anderson displayed his garden plot where he grows food to provide for Beta Sigma Psi, a Lutheran fraternity for which he cooks. He also grows heirloom tomatoes that he enters in contests at the Iowa State Fair. This year, he won first place.

“Just pick what looks interesting and what you like to eat yourself and then try to grow them,” Anderson said.

SASA is a student-led organization made up of about 50 graduate students striving to create sustainability in agriculture, education, outreach and improving agriculture.

SASA co-president Emily Zimmerman said that, as graduate students, finding a time in everyone’s busy schedules when everybody can meet is one of the most difficult aspects of the student organization.

But to them, the result is well worth the time spent.

“The result is today,” Zimmerman said. “We are really thrilled to have all these awesome gardens and getting to showcase some of Ames’ local food and the people who are doing really creative things just in their backyards.”