Mayor's Community Garden

We are converting vacant lots behind city hall into a community garden and edible landscape community park. The goal is to involve the Youth Service Bureau, and the Senior Citizen Center, local neighbors, the Alzheimer Day Care Center as well as children and adults from the near by domestic violence shelter. We want to bring individuals from these various groups together to grow organic food, create and enjoy natural beauty, create art, and build community. It will provide an area for inergenerational learning experiences; provide a healing nurturing natural environment. The community garden produce will be used by neighbors in the area, especially those of low income. Also the produce will be used by a facility that provides free community meal for those in need. We also partner with the local hospital and the YMCA in a "Live Healthy" initative. The garden will provide hands-on learning experiences for children of various ages. It will also provide skill training for teen-age at risk youth. The project will involve putting in natural scapes for children to enjoy, berry bushes, edible flowers, etc. We are also working with the University Extension Master Gardeners to provide classes for neighborhood esidents and youth in food raising skills.

We will make contacts with the groups named above. We will set information meetings, set work days for building and provide classes and activities in the garden-park.

We are doing this to help close the food gap, provide healing and educational opportunities for those in ther neighborhood who could benefit from such an experience. We are doing this also to build stronger sense of community in the neighborhood.