All posts by ioby

Get inspired with these 3 successful community gardens

Urban community gardens have been growing strong in the United States since at least the 1890s. That’s when Detroit’s then-mayor Hazen Pingree started a municipal community gardening program in the city’s vacant lots to combat an economic recession that left many industrial laborers, particularly recent immigrants, unemployed and hungry. (These plots became affectionately known as “Pingree’s Potato Patches.”) In the United Kingdom, community gardens’ European cousin, “allotment gardens,” date back even further, to the 1730s.

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Fight food deserts! 5 ways to combat food insecurity in your community

When we think about the fight for racial and economic justice, food doesn’t always surface to the top of the list of things to tackle. But it should! In fact, food insecurity is a key contributor to health disparities. And folks who experience food insecurity are often people with low-income and people of color. Since access to healthy food can influence mental and physical health, job security, and educational outcomes, it’s clear this is something we’ve got to overcome. You can play an important role in fighting food insecurity in your own community.

To help you get oriented in the food maze, here are a couple of working definitions and some how-to inspiration, courtesy of five ioby Leaders who have made it their business to improve the food scene where they live.

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