Author: Jennifer Palmer
Planning Unit: Jefferson County CES
Major Program: Community Gardens and Horticulture Therapy
Plan of Work: Promoting Sustainable Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Urban Forestry
Outcome: Initial Outcome
The problem was infrastructure issues as Farnsley-Moreman community garden that created unsafe gardening space at times. The community garden faced infrastructure issues that caused concern with the gardeners. These concerns were brought to my attention via calls, emails and at the garden meeting. These concerns were with the road and individuals going to the portion of the the garden that was not associated with the garden. Other issues were theft with produce. The gardeners were also not feeling safe and these issues were brought up and discussed during the onsite garden meeting. Some of these issues discussed at the garden meeting in person were speeding on the roads, the unhoused living in the woods, drug activity in the back portion of the garden. The gravel road needing repairs and the garden needing more funding for tools.
The educational program response was to look for community partners to help with solutions with these problems that the garden faced. The harden has a wonderful asset in the councilwomen for this district. Conversation was started and a meeting was set up with the councilwoman for that district. I met with councilwoman Fowler and she reached out to MSD to fix the road and to also block the road so traffic could not pass the garden to the area that illicit activities were taking place in the back portion of the garden. Large logs were placed to completely block the traffic to that area. This also has helped the speeding on the road. She has also expressed interest in helping in future funding of the garden and to help with getting an increase in tools to the garden.
The participants/target audience was the community gardeners for the garden. We have over 50 primary gardeners at this location.
Other partners (if applicable) Councilwoman for the 14th district Cindi Fowler and this started our working relationship at this community garden to meet our long term goals to create lasting improvements for the Farnsley Moreman Community Garden.
Program impact or participant response. These improvements impacted the over 50 gardeners that use this community garden.
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