Growing Hope – Ypsilanti, MI by Patty

Saturday, September 1. If the folks at Growing Hope have their way, Ypsilanti will soon be known as Ypsi-plant-i. That’s because their organization is devoted to improving people’s lives and their communities through gardening. They help train volunteers to establish community gardens in neighborhoods and schools across Washtenaw County, especially in the city of Ypsilanti. They have 25 gardens with more on the way.

We spent the afternoon with some excellent tour guides – Growing Hope board members Sharon Sheldon and Jess Cook and training and garden development coordinator Michelle Glowa. We heard about the work GH does to train people to start gardens and maintain them, market herbs grown in some of their gardens to stores like the Ypsilanti Food Co-op, and expand the city’s farmers market to a new site in downtown Ypsilanti that serves a senior citizens center and neighborhoods that couldn’t really make it to the other market location.

We stopped at one of their gardens, located behind West Middle School. The garden is in its third year and local residents can get a plot in the garden for their own use. We saw lots of flowers, corn, tomatoes, and some of the prettiest chard I’ve ever seen. And the PAR plot – the “plant a row” for the hungry plot where all the members of the garden contribute to a section of the garden that will produce food for the hungry.

But Growing Hope wasn’t done with us yet. We had one more stop, at Ypsilanti’s newest place to buy food. In 2005 a citywide health coalition conducted an assessment of the “nutrition environment” in Ypsilanti. And what they found wasn’t pretty – no grocery store besides the co-op within city limits and most places that sold food were convenience stores selling primarily alcohol or snacks. The Ypsilanti Health Coalition assessment ended with a goal of getting a grocery store to open in the city. And two months ago that goal was realized when the Dos Hermanos market opened. The grocery has a huge selection of products from Mexico and well as fresh meat and produce, including products that are in demand for Hispanic shoppers like cactus leaves and chiles.

The market is helping to fill a need in the community for fresh produce and is planning to start buying produce from the farmers market (right across the street). Growing Hope and other groups in the coalition are helping spread the word about the market so that more Ypsilanti residents have access to healthy food, whether it is at the farmers market, the Dos Hermanos market, or their local community garden.

Article Tag(s):

If you are interested in commenting on this blog, please go to our forum...