The Garden at Sentara Princess Anne - Phase 1

Virginia Beach Community Gardens, Inc. (VBCG) with partner, Whole Foods Market is to develop a one and a half acre food-producing garden on land donated by Sentara Princess Anne Hospital. The garden will be the largest of its kind in Virginia Beach and will be open to the public. It will be located on land bordered by Princess Anne Rd., Medical Parkway and the Princess Anne Commons Gateway Park.

VBCG will assist and advise in the development of the land to produce food and provide education to community volunteers. Included in this is the training of residents of local shelters and food pantries who will take a large part of the harvest back to their organization for the residents to enjoy. Organic produce is the tangible outcome of the project, but the organization's focus is community building and education.

The project will take three years to complete and will be built entirely by volunteers. Phase I will include a 60-bed kitchen garden with education area, a compost bed and portions of the food forest, fruit orchard and berry patch. The garden will eventually include a meditation herb garden, children’s garden, green house and bee sanctuary.

The garden concept is based on modern, urban gardening techniques and is intended to provide a considerable crop yield for distribution to those in need of Virginia Beach. The garden will have a raised bed kitchen garden with various seasonal crops, fruit trees and bushes, and pumpkin patch. There will be enough space between the raised beds to for walking and wheel chair accessibility extending from the current sidewalk.

Seeds are growing for the spring build and planting to take place on separate dates in March 2015 with successive plantings each month. The sod will be removed form the plot and volunteers are needed to build 60 raised beds and fill with garden soil. Following that there will be events to spread the walkway material and plant seedlings and bushes.

The goal of Virginia Beach Community Gardens (VBCG) is to help build community through shared experience and foodways by assisting in the development of community gardens. Food has a distinctly unifying role among all ethnicities, genders, and socio-economic backgrounds; therefore, gardens are an area ripe for community building. This concept makes everyone in the community an active participant and allows the community to learn new skills while providing themselves, their families, and their neighbors with wholesome food. Community gardens empower citizens and enhance democracy by allowing individuals to connect. It makes people believe in themselves and their community members, giving each a sense of “I matter” and “I can” as they are empowered through collaborative relationships.