Fairfield Garden Initiative seeks to grow in 2023

FAIRFIELD — The program coordinator of the newly formed Fairfield Garden Initiative said she is pleased with the progress the group made in its first year, and hopes to see even more engagement in 2023.

Faith Reeves fulfilled two roles with the Fairfield Garden Initiative in 2022, serving as the educator and then, after the initial program coordinator had to step down, doing that job as well. The initiative seeks to promote gardening among low- and moderate-income households so they can produce their own healthy food. It does this by providing families with plant starts, compost, tools and educational workshops, just to name a few things.

Reeves said the organization set a goal of serving 100 low- and moderate-income households in 2022, and ended up serving 114. She hopes to increase that number to 150 in 2023.

“Two hundred would be a wonderful goal to shoot for, but I don’t want to overstretch our ability,” she said.

The educational component of the FGI was open to gardeners of all income levels, and that included 12 workshops on setting up a garden, harvesting and preserving produce. However, direct support from the grant funds, such as the plant starts and mulch, was reserved for low- to moderate-income households. Reeves said she put a lot of effort into reaching out to those people, such as by setting up in front of The Lord’s Cupboard every other week to solicit partition and offer information about the program.

“I’ll do more of that, but it was not as successful as I’d like it to be,” Reeves said. “We need to find a way to reach that lower income demographic.”

One element of the FGI was a garden tool lending library, located in a building north of the Fairfield Food Collective on North Fourth Street. The library includes everything from shovels to gloves to garden hoses to watering cans. Reeves said people have not been using the tool library as much as she expected, and the FGI still has money in its tool budget.

“It turns out that most individuals already have tools, whether a rake or hoe or shovel, those tools are all pretty easily obtained,” Reeves said. “More than likely, we’ll reorient those tool library dollars to more needed supplies like raised beds, irrigation supplies and seeds.”

The FGI was created thanks to an $85,000 Community Development Block Grant as part of the federal CARES Act. The City of Fairfield and the Sustainable Living Coalition applied for the grant on behalf of the FGI. Reeves said the group has also received a few local donations, such as $1,000 from AERON Lifestyle Technology, and $1,500 from ISU Extension and Outreach, which also allowed FGI to use the gardens at the fairgrounds for workshops.

Reeves said all federal grant funds must be spent by May, or they will be have to be returned. She said the FGI has already spent half the funds, and plans to spend them all by the deadline. Now that the FGI is off the ground, she hopes it will be kept afloat with funding from other sources.

“So far, we’re only funded through May 2023, but our fingers are crossed that we’ll continue to be blessed with funding after that,” she said.

Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com