Local Food Local Places Gathering

On July 16th and 17th, the Charlottesville Food Justice Network and the City of Charlottesville held a community event called Local Foods, Local Places. This event was made possible through a technical assistance grant from the Environmental Protection Agency. There was tremendous turnout at the event, with dozens of community members, 4 foundations, 7 federal and state partners, 4 city departments, 6 housing and redevelopment organizations, and 16 non-profits present. The workshop was a wonderful opportunity for the community to come together and explore together how to amplify urban agriculture and food equity in Charlottesville. 

On the first day of the event, a lunch was held at the City Schoolyard Garden at Charlottesville High School, where community members were able to meet the attending federal and state partners. Then, participants loaded onto a bus and took a tour around Charlottesville, stopping at key food equity sites. These sites included: the IRC New Roots Michie Drive Market, Friendship Court UACC garden and community center, and the Westhaven nursing clinic. After a quick break, we then headed to the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center for a dinner and opening presentation of the workshop.

Then the next day, the event was again held at the African American Heritage Center and community members spent the day brainstorming and action planning around food justice and how to create a more equitable food system in Charlottesville. The workshop was a wonderful community event and allowed continued conversation around food equity and justice. 

Garden Growing at CHS

article written by Peter Davis

As we are bringing our summer programming with our amazing youth interns to a close, I’d love to take a minute and reflect on the past few months here at Charlottesville High School and give you a peek into what is in store for the 2019-2020 school year!

Two of the most notable differences you’ll see if you visit the CHS garden are the wildflower plantings as well as the new expansions we are adding to our garden. We started smothering the grass (a much better way to get rid of grass than spraying chemicals or breaking your back with a tiller in this Virginia red clay we have here) over the winter in several areas between the building and the garden. We got strange looks when we rolled out the black tarps, but we knew it would be worth the wait. Later in the Spring, we pulled back the tarps, removed any grass remaining and planted our wildflower seeds. Now we have an abundance of zinnias, cosmos, sunflowers, forget-me-nots, baby’s breath, coneflowers and more!