Community gardens provide important learning opportunities to children and communities as a whole.
The video below illustrates a functioning community garden in Vermont.
The video emphasizes that the garden builds community pairing local children with local elders of the community to educate both the children and the adults and to “bridge the gap and build community” in the area.
The video highlights that community garden is located in a “low to middle income neighborhood” where”vegetables are expensive” and the majority of people are overweight or obese.
Volunteers who work on the garden receive a weekly bag of vegetables to volunteers in exchange for one to two hours of work on the garden. So, in addition to strengthening the community socially, this garden increases the access that community members have to fresh produce.
In this case, the community garden benefits children by providing:
- Community building
- Gardening and food education and
- Access to fresh produce
Dodi Allocca