Expansion of food justice for Greater Fulton community members is one of the Neighborhood Resource Center’s core values. In keeping with this, NRC Fulton has supported a community garden located at Garber Street on a City of Richmond lot since 2018. At its initial founding, the Garber Street Community Garden was intended to be a space for volunteers to grow food to distribute throughout the community to increase access to fresh produce. We have found that community interest in gardening in this space has declined over the years.
One of NRC Fulton’s focuses for 2020 was a deliberate effort for community planning at the community garden–a shift from its initial iteration of a garden food delivery program towards empowering community members with the skills and resources to grow food for themselves and their community. We made phone calls, walked the community, and spent all of last year working to both assess and generate interest for the use of this space. It became clear to us that the Garber Street Community Garden is not able to serve the needs of the neighbors living in immediate street where it is located and that there may be more accessible options to meet other community members’ interests. In response to our neighbors’ feedback about their needs, NRC Fulton has made the decision to move out of the Garber Street Community Garden and prioritize our focus on expansion of food access in other ways.
NRC Fulton will still offer accessible home garden options and we will continually assess the feasibility of community gardening in Greater Fulton. This year, we look forward to building a strong partnership with Frank Community Farm to expand our community gardening program in a space located in Montrose Heights. We also plan to work with other community gardeners throughout the City of Richmond and the City of Richmond Parks and Recreation Department to strengthen City policies to support community-led garden efforts.
Please contact the NRC Fulton at 804-864-5797 if you are interested in taking over the community garden permit for the Garber Street Garden space.
It has been an honor to be able to support the Greater Fulton community for the last 19 years and we look forward to the work that is ahead.