Nothing gives joy like smiles on young children's faces who just days earlier had been crying over the closing of their neighborhood school. On June 3 a group of forty adults and more than ten children came together to create a new space in Cedar Rapids -- a new space that will help foster community, education and activity in the Moundview neighborhood. Matthew 25, along with the Moundview Neighborhood Association, Cedar Rapids Community Schools, and Coe College, created a community garden on an empty lot next to the neighborhood fire station located at 1424 B Ave NE.
As is the case with many Matthew 25 programs, the Moundview Garden uses space that has been abandoned to create a place where people feel united and empowered. In this place, through a simple garden, lives will be changed. This community garden really emphasizes the word community. Volunteers came to built it and they will take care of it with weekly work days. The fire station offered their water, the Solid Waste Agency offered free compost, and the city's forestry department sent over free wood chips. With some generous donations from local interested parties the garden came together.
Educational activities developed through a variety of partnerships Matthew 25 is developing will be held at the garden. Eventually the garden will be looped into the alternative educational services offered at Polk. Struggling, sometimes forgotten, students will be given a hands-on tool for learning. Matthew 25 will assist with the management of all of this, with the help of the neighborhood association.
This community garden is the first garden in a new Cultivate Hope program Matthew 25 is rolling out called School Gardening. In this program Matthew 25 will install a garden and help maintain it, set up systems to keep the garden maintained by the community, and create educational activities at the garden centered on teaching community members about gardening, food, obesity, food choices and a wide range of other topics.
Keep your eyes open for other exciting gardens in the future. Also check out the Matthew 25 Urban Farm located between 400-500 F and G Avenues NW, the place making all these other exciting activities possible.
Keep your eyes open for other exciting gardens in the future. Also check out the Matthew 25 Urban Farm located between 400-500 F and G Avenues NW, the place making all these other exciting activities possible.
To explore how you can invest in the important work of Matthew 25, visit www.hub25.org or call 362-2214.