A partnership led by an arm of the Jacksonville Park Foundation is working to bring community orchards to little used property in the city.
Dr. Michael Woods, who operates the Foundation’s AGROWhood community farms initiative, presented to the Jacksonville City Council last night several proposals to bring more locally grown food to the city. Working with the City Development & Planning Office, Woods says that the initiative has located unused property that could be used to help feed the community: “We are really excited basically to go beyond a community-based garden to a community-based farm. We were really honored to be selected through Faith in Place to receive a grant to establish community-based orchards so we can continue to plant trees to help mitigate some of the climate smart initiatives that are taking place. Instead of just planting trees that are going to give shade, we also wanted to plant trees that would produce food for our community. We will be planting 200 fruit trees this Spring to establish orchards by working in partnership with the city, as well as the First Presbyterian Church, the county, and a variety of other people that are really engaged in trying to bring more food production to our community, especially in our foot desert communities.”
Woods presented the city council with a map that showed the northeastern portion of the city, primarily in Ward 1, that’s been designated a “food desert.” Residents in that area of the city are said to have to drive, ride, or walk more than a mile in a city setting to find a place to get food. Woods says he’s working with the Community Development Office and the local land bank to find properties that would be best to place the fruit trees. The goal, he says, is to build the orchards on properties that would not be suitable for home construction: “They are going to be in a variety of locations. There are a couple of things that we have to be constrained to in a sense that they must be in an environmental justice community so disadvantaged communities where blight can be addressed. One of the things we will be looking at is that we will be using spaces that are not going to have homes being built on them – along railroad tracks, vacant lots. We’re working with the city to identify some of those lands that maybe have been donated to the land bank or to underutilized resources and lands that the city currently owns, so that we can put the orchards that will beautify a community but won’t necessarily take away from housing.”
Woods presented a draft resolution to the City Council on Monday night asking that the city support locally-grown food initiatives. The resolution, he says, will help the Jacksonville Park Foundation receive better scores on potential grants. Woods says he has multiple grants that he’s applied for to continue to expand the community farm and now the orchard.
Woods says the whole goal is to help food insecurity and make both the community farms and orchards sustainable: “We’ll be providing free produce to our local food banks, and all other kinds of venues whether it be churches and so forth. In addition, we are going to be looking toward making a community-supported kitchen that would then allow for the processing of that fruit and vegetables.”
Woods noted in his presentation that many people who receive SNAP benefits have a lot of waste from their food boxes because some people have never been shown recipes or how to can fresh produce and fruit for later use. He hopes the community kitchen will allow that education and planning to move forward.
In addition, the Jacksonville Park Foundation will be using portions of its funding to retrofit a home they currently own on Church Street to become the processing center for the community farm and orchards. Currently, it is a storage facility for equipment for the community farms. Woods is also working on an initiative to revamp East Park, located off of Myrtle and Sheridan Streets. He says more information on that initiative will be presented at a later time.