Grow
ing Places and North County Land Trust Partner with Busy Bees Preschool and Neighborhood to Build Multigenerational Learning Gardens
Growing Places (GP), partnering with North County Land Trust (NCLT), was recently awarded a $30,000 grant from the Amelia Peabody Foundation to work with neighborhood stakeholders, including Busy Bees Preschool in Fitchburg, to build a multigenerational community learning gardens where young children, their families, and the neighborhood residents can come together to learn to grow healthy food.
Bringing land and food access together, this inaugural partnership between GP and NCLT was a natural fit.
North County Land Trust raised funds to buy the land the garden will be established on from a developer who was planning to develop the single house lot in 2019. During their time working with the neighborhood to evaluate what activities might be suitable for that area, residents voiced their desire to have a place that built community and kept trouble away. Owner/Head Teacher of Busy Bees Preschool, Maria Paulino, has continually used gardening in her curriculum but was limited in the areas she was able to grow. Paulino suggested the idea of a community garden where her young students could learn to grow and eat healthy vegetables alongside their parents, grandparents, and participating neighborhood residents. Watch a video highlighting this vision here.
While the grant covers much of the expenses of setting up the raised beds, and training the kids and families for this first year of gardening, there are plenty of long and short-term goals that will need investment. If you’d like to be a part of this project as a volunteer or make a contribution towards this, contact us as info (at) northcountylandtrust (dot) org, or make a donation here.