Central Falls Digs in for Healthier Diets Recibidos x

PROVIDENCE – Southside Community Land Trust (SCLT) and Central Falls Mayor James Diossa will celebrate the opening of Garfield Park Community Garden at 10:30 a.m. on Mon., July 9, at 128 Garfield Street in Central Falls.

The Garden will enable up to 30 local families to grow their own produce year after year, improving their diets and lowering their grocery bills. It will also help stabilize the neighborhood while preserving precious open space in a city where only 3% of the land is undeveloped.

“I would like to thank Southside Community Land Trust for partnering with the City to develop our first community garden in Garfield Park,” said Central Falls Mayor James A. Diossa. “The garden will help us educate our residents about the importance of being healthy while enabling them to grow and enjoy healthy foods.”

SCLT will provide workshops on organic gardening methods and offer residents free seeds and compost as well as other low-cost gardening resources. Community organizations, including Children’s Friend and Progreso Latino, expect to use plots for teaching adults, and public schools will use the Garden as an outdoor classroom for students.

The project begun in 2016 when the Mayor’s Office approached SCLT about building a garden to increase people’s supply of fresh, affordable food in Central Falls. Last year the Mayor signed a long-term lease with SCLT for the land. Funders that footed construction costs include the Whole Cities Foundation, Citizens Bank/LISC, Ocean State Charitable Trust, the RI Legislature and donors to SCLT’s Land Fund.

SCLT provides access to land, education and other resources so people in Rhode Island can grow food in environmentally sustainable ways, and create community food systems where locally produced, affordable and healthy food is available to all. It is located at 109 Somerset Street.

For more information, please visit our website: ww.southsideclt.org