by Kamila Love
The weather Monday Oct. 12 was bright and beautiful, you couldn’t ask for a more perfect day for gardening. The morning sun was shining on the busy volunteers that were tending to the future Food Forest and Goodwill Community Garden just off of 24th St. NW.
Roanoke Community Garden Association (RCGA) in partnership with Goodwill, Virginia Tech Landscape Agriculture Program put together the event funded by RCGA, Goodwill, Member One Federal Credit Union, Rutherfoord Insurance and Roanoke Valley Club.
The layout of the overall garden has a community garden at the base of the hill, the future food forest will be in the center and a community lawn space will be located at the top to provide activities for the public.
Within the next decade or so when the trees are fully grown, it will be an abundant garden providing free fresh food to the neighborhood.
“We’re planting an array of trees and just to give you a sense of the variety, we have figs, mulberries, apples, cherries, pears, persimmons, raspberries and blueberries,” RCGA director Mark Powell said. “We are incorporating basically just about any sort of perennial that will produce fruit,” he added and explained how the Food Forest was modeled on other projects around the country.
But more importantly it’s good that a food forest is being located in Roanoke, because “this is a United States Census District Designated Food Desert,” he added, meaning there’s a severe lack of fresh food or access to fresh food.
There were volunteers both young and old working on the community garden that started in 2014. On hand were volunteers from The Kiwanis Club, Forest Park Academy (FPA), RCGA, Goodwill Ind., Rutherfoord Insurance, Freedom First and Member One.
Also among the volunteers was Roanoke Mayor, David Bowers who gave a thumbs up for the event as well as got his hands dirty doing some gardening and being the “Encourager in Chief” he joked.
“This is a great event! We have young people out here from FPA,” said the Mayor who continued to salute the efforts of all the participating organizations that volunteered in the heart of the city, at Salem Turnpike and 24th Street.
“We’ve had a community garden here going on it’s second year, but this is our first orchard growing opportunity,” he added and noted “The community will learn and be able to feed itself in part by participating in this agricultural project. It’s going to be a beautiful setting on this busy intersection. It’s going to have a real positive effect of allowing people to eat and live off the land right here in this urban setting.”
Mayor Bowers, a real people person also took selfies with young people of the academy. He also did some manual labor that included yard work.
Volunteer Manager Sarah Stephens explained that the community garden at the base of the hill is only $20 a year to have a plot. “The food forest is a way to bring healthy food to the community and to beautify the area,” she stated.
The students of the academy were very involved in volunteering. “It’s very helpful for the community, it helps give people opportunities to have and eat healthy,” said Taylor, a 17-year old FPA student volunteer.
The overall garden is indeed a beautiful and positive sight for Roanoke and will have an even more positive impact for the community’s future when the food forest is completely developed. We have Ezekiel Nance owner of New Leaf Tree Care to thank for that, who help plan and redeveloped the Goodwill Community Garden. Alexis Meyer who works with Nance also contributed to the development.
The event was as beautiful as the weather that day and the energy was full of positivity and hope for a healthy and more unified future with the blossoming of Roanoke’s Food Forest. Twa-la now.
