Grow Local Colorado Grow Veggies In Denver's Parks To Feed The Homeless

All summer long, Grow Local Colorado, a group of volunteers dedicated to growing local food and sustainable communities, will be transforming our neighborhood parks into delicious vegetable gardens to harvest produce from for feeding Denver’s homeless at the end of the Summer.

According to Grow Local Colorado’s website, seven city parks will be growing this edible landscaping for end-of-summer harvest including Civic Center, Observatory, Harvey, Barnum, Harvard Gulch, Huston Lake and Garfield.

When it comes time to harvest, The Denver Post reports that Grow Local Colorado is hoping to gather around 1,500 pounds of produce to give to Denver’s Gathering Place, a daytime drop-in center for homeless or impoverished women and children.

A recent study conducted by the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative counted 11,061 homeless people living in Denver and of that population 41.8 percent were women and 26.6 percent were children living in homeless families, according to The Gathering Place.

Grow Local Colorado is the lead organizer, but they are joined by Denver’s Peace Corp, Chipotle, The Beanstalk Foundation, The Gathering Place and several other non-profit organizations, according to The Denver Post.

Since 2009, Grow Local Colorado has been partnering with Denver Parks and Recreation with the goal to replace park flowerbeds with edible landscaping. Along with volunteers, Grow Local plants, maintains, harvests the produce from the city park gardens and donates the food to local food banks or communities in need.

Learn more about these organizations, donate or volunteer your time to help support their causes by visiting the websites for The Gathering Place, Grow Local Colorado or The Beanstalk Foundation for more information.

Comments

[ZENNEPHI]

06:29 PM on 06/29/2011

Akin to the "Bean Stock Foundation", and "Displaced" myself, I found gainfull employ
for "Room & Board". My vocation was the harvesting of the illusive wild "Huckleberry"
in the Mountains above [Coure De' Lene Idaho.] Native Shoshone for "Heart of the Owl".
Hand plucking the berry, and almost wrestling with the Native Black Bear, I would be
recompenced $5 for every plastic Mayo Jug. Other "Fellow-Travelers" Involved.
The delicacy fruit would then be rendered into Perserves for Church Auxilaries "Food-
Help" Iniatives. In addition, the residual Harvest would be sanctioned off for the
"Pressing" of Naturally Fortified Huckleberry Vintage Wine.

[Darlene1029]

11:09 AM on 05/28/2011

"11,061 homeless people" that statement alone put a lump in my throat

[Rangergirl]

10:56 AM on 05/28/2011

Very cool Idea bravo for them... Anyone know what vegetabe the picture is? New one to me...Or is it deformed?

[tbadger]

01:15 PM on 05/30/2011

i could be wrong, but i am pretty sure it is a ... cashew! Yeah i thought it was odd too, because it is a tropical crop.

[Dawn Castle]

10:33 AM on 05/28/2011

Vegetable plants are beautiful. It's great that they are using them for decoration and to be productive.

[BeautifulOnDaOutside]

04:11 AM on 05/28/2011

That picture shows raw cashews, which are poisonous. I hope they aren't feeding those to homeless people.

[sabelmouse]

10:38 AM on 05/28/2011

i am sure that i have eaten raw unroasted cashews plenty of times.

[crossstateforagentleman]

08:27 AM on 05/29/2011

Well then you wouldn't be posting because you'd be dead, raw cashews are coated in a resin called urushiol, which is poisonous you, and that, I am sure of, unlike your surety of eating raw ones.

[Anne Filip]

06:24 PM on 05/27/2011

that's a very good idea - why not? roofs should be the next step!

[Deep Thinking Man]

04:36 PM on 05/27/2011

growing gardens isn't the only solution...if all people were to re-learn what wild plants are edible, big coporations wouldn't exist...and we'd all be much healthier !!!!!

[Fnordpocalypse]

03:52 PM on 05/27/2011

All parks should have gardens in them. The more community gardens out there, the less we need to rely on big agra-biz to feed ourselves.

[sabelmouse]

10:37 AM on 05/28/2011

they'' come down on us like a ton of bricks though. nothing they want less than our independence of them.

[Genep34]

01:51 PM on 05/27/2011

this is a great idea - wondering when people will convert their non functional green lawns into gardens

[Ogg-the-bear]

02:13 PM on 05/27/2011

Soon as we get rid of HOAs and CAI corporation. Good luck with that....

[sabelmouse]

10:36 AM on 05/28/2011

what we need is the daemon.
http://www.amazon.com/Daemon-Daniel-Suarez/dp/0525951113
in the the sequell '' freedom '' things really star moving.

[IMOPINIONH8D]

06:29 AM on 05/29/2011

I'm in the process of doing that this weekend. Dont plan on mowing grass again in my lifetime. Save up newspapers and mulch around the plants then cover with straw.

[Genep34]

10:45 AM on 05/29/2011

good for you and others