Community Garden of Hope

In 2010 Community UMC in Columbia Heights started a Community Garden for the benefit of the families that use the local food shelf, SACA (Southern Anoka Community Assistance). It was a collaborative effort between the church, the city, the food shelf and Wells Fargo. The city provided the land and access to water from a fire hydrant. The church provided volunteers to pot up the seeds and space for a nursery to sprout the seeds. The food shelf provided a list of interested gardeners and the seeds and Wells Fargo gave a member of the church a paid leave to pull all the pieces together. It was a huge success. 10 families had plots on which they grew produce for their families and a common area was maintained for the food shelf. By the end of the summer over 1,200 lbs of produce had been donated to the food shelf, the families had shared their produce with an additional 30 people, 15 kids from the Park and Recreation Department had the opportunity to participate in the garden finding bugs, pulling weeds and learning about plants, and an empty corner in the city had been turned into a beautiful garden.

In 2012 the garden is again planted. It has been expanded to allow 22 families to participate.