SAVANNAH, Ga. (WSAV) — The Live Oak Public Library System is helping you grow food for free.

The Seed Library at the Southwest Chatham location is now open for business.

Anyone can stop by the new collection to pick up seeds for free and you don’t need a library card to participate.

The library partnered with the Coastal Georgia Master Gardeners to help the community take healthy living into their own hands.

“We wanted to center it on plants that grow well in Coastal Georgia, plants that can stand the heat, stand the humidity,” Southwest Chatham Library Senior Branch Manager Maryann Brickey said. “There’s definitely a push across our community towards healthy living, towards making better choices about our health. So this is just our piece to play in that.”

Brickley says you can keep the cycle going by returning new seeds to the library from the flowers or produce you grow for others to use.

“At the beginning of the pandemic, many people realized maybe our food supply isn’t as secure as we thought it was. Maybe it is beneficial to have that little supply in our neighborhoods where we can say, ‘hey, I have some tomatoes, do you want to trade your tomatoes for my squash and keep it going that way,’ Brickley said.

“Gardening is a very local-based knowledge source,” she added. It’s more of human interaction-based knowledge. That’s why we wanted to center it around our community.”

The program is supported in part by a grant to the Georgia Public Library Service from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the Library Services and Technology Act.

The Chatham County Extension and Master Gardener Extension Volunteers helped launch the Seed Library to provide gardening education to the community.

Visit the library’s website to find out more about the Seed Library.