Grow Local Colorado Grow Veggies In Denver's Parks To Feed The Homeless

Edible Landscaping To Feed The Homeless This Summer

All summer long, Grow Local Colorado, a group of volunteers dedicated to growing local food and sustainable communities, will be transforming our neighborhood parks into delicious vegetable gardens to harvest produce from for feeding Denver’s homeless at the end of the Summer.

According to Grow Local Colorado’s website, seven city parks will be growing this edible landscaping for end-of-summer harvest including Civic Center, Observatory, Harvey, Barnum, Harvard Gulch, Huston Lake and Garfield.

When it comes time to harvest, The Denver Post reports that Grow Local Colorado is hoping to gather around 1,500 pounds of produce to give to Denver’s Gathering Place, a daytime drop-in center for homeless or impoverished women and children.

A recent study conducted by the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative counted 11,061 homeless people living in Denver and of that population 41.8 percent were women and 26.6 percent were children living in homeless families, according to The Gathering Place.

Grow Local Colorado is the lead organizer, but they are joined by Denver’s Peace Corp, Chipotle, The Beanstalk Foundation, The Gathering Place and several other non-profit organizations, according to The Denver Post.

Since 2009, Grow Local Colorado has been partnering with Denver Parks and Recreation with the goal to replace park flowerbeds with edible landscaping. Along with volunteers, Grow Local plants, maintains, harvests the produce from the city park gardens and donates the food to local food banks or communities in need.

Learn more about these organizations, donate or volunteer your time to help support their causes by visiting the websites for The Gathering Place, Grow Local Colorado or The Beanstalk Foundation for more information.

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