Tag: urban garden

Atwood Community Garden provides fresh produce, resources to Madison

As the demand for urban garden space in Madison rises, the waitlist for renting a plot at the Atwood Community Gardens becomes longer. The supply for garden spaces is small, resulting in a three-year wait and limited accessibility for Madison-area residents.

The garden inhabits space along a bike path that runs from Waubesa Street to Jackson Street, parallel to St. Paul Avenue. The city of Madison leases the land to the Goodman Community Center, and the garden contains 115 rentable plots of land.

Dewayne Powell, Goodman Community Center vice president of financial and business services, told The Daily Cardinal Goodman’s initial reason for creating the Atwood Community Garden was to provide opportunities for urban gardening on Madison’s east side.

“The waitlist for Atwood Community Garden is so long because the supply for urban garden space is so small in Madison and the demand is so high,” Powell said. “Another factor

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Community garden cultivates local leaders in southwest Detroit

Detroit — Cadillac Urban Gardens has been a godsend to southwest Detroit since opening in 2012.

In the past decade, it has provided produce for residents, attracted 60,000 hours of volunteer work and repurposed 331 shipping containers as raised beds for fruits and vegetables.

Andrea Mendez helps supervise interns and volunteers at the garden. She plans to study food science at Michigan State to increase access to healthy food.

The urban garden also has helped local youths to become community leaders.

Youths like Yahir Hernandez, who was 15 and looking for a summer job when he was hired by the gardens in 2018. After planting and harvesting plants, he returned the next summer as a field supervisor.

He engaged with people by managing volunteers and giving garden tours. He also led a team performing air quality research.

Hernandez, now 19, is a sophomore at Michigan State University, where he studies biosystems engineering.

“They focus on helping the world in the environmental aspect while helping community members at the same time,” he said. “There’s definitely a

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