At the monthly Greenbelt Rotary Evening Speaker Series on Wednesday, May 27, Danielle McKinney, who serves on Greenbelt City Council, described the hyper-local farmed food-sharing activism of Greenbelt Grows. The audience of about 15, including McKinney’s city council colleagues Emmett Jordan and Kristen Weaver, offered many enthusiastic ideas and well-informed suggestions.
Greenbelt Grows, a community-driven initiative, is dedicated to enhancing food security and creating connections that promote healthy and sustainable living in Greenbelt. Its stated mission is to “establish and support community gardens, increase access to fresh produce, and foster … unity and resilience among residents.”
McKinney, inspired and informed by her “fierce gardener” grandmother and her grocery store-managing father, grows vegetables in one of Greenbelt’s community garden plots. Growing more than she can use and motivated to share the bounty, she joined with like-minded gardeners to form Greenbelt Grows.
McKinney’s presentation offered practical advice, including how to maximize production, even in small spaces or for those with mobility challenges. She described her techniques for raised-container gardening and production of large yields, encouraging listeners to dig in: “Last year, the eggplants were out of control!”
However, gaps exist in Greenbelt. People may have health or financial problems or difficulties getting to where they can obtain vegetables, McKinney said. She has become passionate about addressing some of the gaps. A map showing her own research on the availability of established garden plots, including the community plots and the three Three Sisters Gardens showed uneven distribution, but also possibilities for where small pieces of land might be converted to garden use for wider access.
On the other hand, she said, “We are operating better than a lot of cities. We have a garden club, we have CHEARS, Rotary, a beautiful Farmers Market, a beautiful Co-op.” The problem she identified is a tendency to operate in silos, so Greenbelt Grows hopes to address that issue by bringing all the groups with different resources together in a system that can communicate and work together.
McKinney presented her research on three different municipalities that are having success building this kind of interconnected system. Several audience members added stories about other cities and areas making innovative efforts to enable and expand urban food gardening and sharing.
McKinney introduced a strategy she called the “harvest hub” to get food from gardeners to consumers. To help with logistics, a grant-funded city purchase of a mobile refrigerated trailer will allow greater time and distance between harvest and distribution. McKinney provided information to shoppers and vendors while tabling at the Farmers Market, where the trailer will debut in coming weeks. On-the-spot vendor donations will include weekly batches of fresh produce. Greenbelt Public Works personnel will move the trailer and take the food to Springhill Lake Elementary School regularly, where it will be picked up by families pre-selected by the school.
McKinney and Greenbelt Rotary President and fellow Greenbelt Grows food activist Jennifer Dudley discussed a gradual, realistic scaling-up process, envisioned as including donations from the Co-op and community gardeners. It will require more volunteers and composting logistics. Down the road are possibilities and locations to process foods for shelf stability and meal readiness.
Greenbelt Grows was built on a foundation of gardeners who want to help. To illustrate the mutual helpfulness of Greenbelt’s community gardeners, McKinney appreciated her gardening plot neighbor, Shaymar Higgs of The SPACE. Two audience members immediately praised Higgs’ artistic garden ornamentation and McKinney chuckled, “I mean, it’s a whole thing!”
Dudley chimed in that Higgs’ garden is among the gardens selected for the Rotary’s upcoming fundraising tour on Saturday, June 6. Rotarian Erica Johns previewed highlights of that tour of gardens all over Greenbelt, a veritable scavenger hunt to satisfy every gardening interest. From rare and delicate plants to quirky garden decor to nutrition education to spiritual retreats to high-yield food production, this is not your average garden tour.
For more information on Greenbelt Grows, including volunteer opportunities, visit greenbeltgrows.org. For information on the upcoming garden tour and convenient purchase of tax-deductible tickets, the Rotary Club website is greenbeltrotary.org.
