Paseo-West Community Garden is featured in the March/April 2015 issue Cultivating Community Gardens section. Here, explore more photos of the garden and discover the mission behind this neighborhood garden.
Rows of large, leafy fruits and vegetables used to be rare at 8th Street and Troost Avenue, where an organic, urban garden now feeds the homeless and its low-income neighbors. The Paseo-West Community Garden is part of a larger mission of Hope Faith Ministries to help the homeless transition from dependence to independence.
The garden began in a vacant lot that was donated to Hope Faith Ministries with three historic townhomes. In partnership with the Kansas City Community Gardens, Hope Faith Ministries later transformed part of this lot into the main Paseo-West Community Garden.
In 2013, the garden was selected as the 2013 legacy project for William Jewell College seniors involved in its Pryor Center for Leadership Development. The students raised $15,000 to develop the garden and assisted with all aspects of the project, including garden labor, creating a website and leading gardening classes.
Anyone can come and pick fresh food for free or help volunteer. Here, Nadine Farris (right), one of the lead gardening volunteers, tends to the garden side-by-side with her son, Joel Farris. Nadine is the executive director of Women Entering Life Lessons.
“I saw a lot of families that were showing up to eat at Hope Faith because they couldn’t afford to feed their kids. It seemed only fair to me that these families should have good, healthy food to take home,” said Joy Snyder, garden coordinator.
“Our garden is a microcosm of what we can be as a people,” Snyder said. “We have planted and harvested together, broken bread together and shared many good times in our beautiful garden.”
Find more information about the Paseo-West Community Garden at growpaseo.blogspot.com.
Read the full story in the March/April issue online here: greenabilitymagazine.com/digital-issues