Everyone benefits from a community that can produce and distribute its own fresh food. That was the motivation of six Portland State University Community Development students who chose the NEAR Gardens project for their three-term junior colloquium, an academic requirement of their program. Now called GardenNet, the project was developed with the help of the Central Northeast Neighbors coalition (CNN) as a way to foster neighborhood bonds and improve health and well-being through the production and distribution of fresh food.
Using modern means of communication as well as old-fashioned flyer distribution and public meetings, GardenNet makes information on community gardening and access to fresh food as easy as a walk in the park. When the web site is complete it will have a map of existing community gardens as well as potential plots for new ones, and a forum to generate discussions and information sharing on gardening techniques among CNN residents.
Local Access to Fresh Foods Equals Healthy Communities
It should come as no surprise that recent studies show communities with better access to fresh food and limited access to convenience stores tend to have healthier diets and lower levels of obesity. Most often, residents of low-income, minority and rural neighborhoods have the least access to healthful foods.
Last year, Multnomah County Board responded to its own concerns for local public health by accepting the recommendations from the Portland/Multnomah Food Policy Council to create a four-phase initiative to develop and implement a long-term food action plan. The Multnomah Food Initiative is designed to help meet food security needs (as a result of economic crisis, global climate changes, etc.), create economic development opportunities, and promote nutritional health through a sustainable and fair local food system.
The fact that some CNN Coalition communities have a disproportionate number of convenient stores and fast food restaurants concerns Sandra Lefrancois, CNN Community Program Director. She says the GardenNet program is one way to share information with residents who may not know they have options and can grow or purchase fresh food within walking distance of their home.
At the Rigler School Garden a gazebo is used an outdoor classroom and captures rainwater for storage underground.
“There’s a lot of momentum in Cully to organize [garden] collaboratives,” she says. “The process of getting people involved in local access to fresh food has started. There are community gardens and yard sharing under way.”
Lefrancois adds that the next step is spreading the information between the different groups in the CNN area. GardenNet will eventually serve as the most comprehensive resource but Lefrancois is also counting on the Cully Collective Market and a community garden tour on August 30 to spread the word.
The garden tour will include community gardens at Rigler School, Urban Farm Collective, Hacienda Community Development Corporation and possibly, Ecovillage. Other gardens will be added to the August tour and Lefrancois predicts that CNN will continue to provide opportunities for residents to learn about other accessible gardening options such as container gardens and guerrilla gardening. This is impromptu gardening that might happen in an alley, for example.
Some of the beds at the Rigler School Garden.
The PSU students who developed GardenNet hope to see the fruits of their labor carried forward by a steering committee in the CNN community. “Ideally, we had hoped there would be community members who would run with it so it wouldn’t all fall on CNN,” says Grant Hein, a PSU senior. Hein worked on the map that will be available on the GardenNet web site.
Regardless of who takes the torch from here, it’s clear that GardenNet seeds have been planted. “We’ve got volunteers on the ground networking,” says Lefrancois. “They’re starting to take the lead with this.”
To learn more about upcoming events through CNN or to get involved, contact sandral@cnncoalition.org or call 503-823-2883.
