Mary Jo and Lee Emmet show off some of their recent harvest in the John Knox Community Garden.
Keizer United recently provided four grants for local community gardens to help with their operating costs during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We recognized that community gardens are more important than ever as our community is faced with hardships and food insufficiencies. We also wanted to recognize the hard work of garden coordinators,” said Keizer United President Meredith Mooney.
Keizer United reached out to five community gardens and offered a Community Garden Grant with a $150 value. Only four of the gardens responded.
“We had originally reached out to four Keizer gardens listed through Marion Polk Food Share. Out of those we have had three coordinators utilize the program and one coordinator that never responded,” Mooney said. The fifth garden was brought to the board’s attention at the Keizer United monthly meeting.
The John Knox Community Garden, Jerry & Peggy Moore Community Garden, Dayspring Community Garden and Keizer Church of Christ Community Garden all received a $150 credit at Copper Creek Merchantile. The locally-owned shop kept an invoice for all the things purchased by the garden coordinators, then sent the bill to Keizer United.
Mary Jo Emmet facilitates the community garden at John Knox Presbyterian Church in Keizer, a core garden in the Marion Polk Food Share garden network– meaning they donate at least 20 percent of their garden proceeds to people experiencing food insecurity. The garden has grown extensively in the 11 years it has been operating.
A submitted drone photo showing the breadth of the John Knox Community Photo from above.
The garden was created through a bond with Marion Polk Food Share (MPFS) that was designed to plant community gardens as a means of addressing food insecurity. It was a natural fit. John Knox was the original home of the Keizer Community Food Bank before its services outgrew the space available.
Emmet said the grant from Keizer United helped them purchase soil and chicken manure to help give the garden necessary nutrients.
According to Emmet, when community gardens were first being planted they were all in-ground gardens. Now they tend to be a collection of raised beds rather than plots of land. The John Knox Community Garden is in the process of transitioning to the raised box model, which the bags of soil will be used to fill.
The chicken manure, however, will be mixed into the plant-based compost that is provided by MPFS to give greater nutrients throughout the garden.
“This was greatly well-received and I am sure our board will revisit this idea for the next fiscal year. Probably in spring next time around, since we had such a late start on it this year,” Mooney said.
If the John Knox garden receives this grant again at the beginning of the growing season, Emmet said they will likely use it to plant flowers that attract monarch butterflies – another project the MPFS garden network is working on.
The John Knox Community Garden, Jerry & Peggy Moore Community Garden, Dayspring Community Garden and Keizer Church of Christ Community Garden all received a $150 credit at Copper Creek Merchantile. The locally-owned shop kept an invoice for all the things purchased by the garden coordinators, then sent the bill to Keizer United.
Mary Jo Emmet facilitates the community garden at John Knox Presbyterian Church in Keizer, a core garden in the Marion Polk Food Share garden network– meaning they donate at least 20 percent of their garden proceeds to people experiencing food insecurity.