Haycraft Urban Garden
  The Haycraft Urban Garden (HUG) is a community garden started as an appropriation of the Improved Health Outcomes Program (iHOP) Grant received by the Lincoln Trail Health Department in collaboration with the City of Elizabethtown, the Lincoln Trail Health Department and the Cooperative Extension Service.  This grant envisions that a community’s health status can be improved through convenient and structured opportunities for physical activity and nutrition education.  
  The grant provided for an AmeriCorps NCCC team to come and build the raised bed boxes, layout the garden and fill them with compost supplied by the Public Works Department of Elizabethtown.  The Team also removed old fencing, weeds and trees from around the property and helped spread the mulch between the boxes.
  The City of Elizabethtown has provided the land and the water access, with spigot, and time from the Public Works department employees to help remove debris.  
  Extension’s role for this project is to be the general manager for the neighborhood residents.  This includes coordinating efforts to replace fencing, design the garden layout, secure building materials, manage volunteers and provide tools for the construction and garden preparation.  The Cooperative Extension Service also supplied all the plants and seeds (usually leftover from other programs) to fill the gardens.  
  The Lincoln Trail Area Master Gardeners played a major role in recruiting families to plant vegetables in the raised beds; mentor the families in growing vegetables and share recipes and techniques in cooking and preparing the fresh vegetables that are harvested.
  The fifth year of the garden is one of transition.  The participants are in the leadership position, assigning boxes, policing the weeds, and organizing harvests.  With the season only half over, and the first half mostly rainy, it is too early to tell if the Haycraft Urban Garden will be successful this season.  It has been sucessful in that the participants have been eating more vegetables, have increased their physical activity and they know their neighbors better.