A Growing Concern
A Growing Concern
The Junior League of Richmond is raising $35,000 to buy a container-enclosed garden for residents in the city's East End
March 23, 2018
richmag
Developed by Envirable Grow Systems LLC, the EnviraGrow center will operate inside a 20- to 40-square-foot trailer.
Through midnight on March 23, the Junior League of Richmond is raising funds to purchase an EnviraGrow Mobile Learning Center — essentially a garden within a trailer similar to a shipping container — to be placed in the city’s East End.
“It’s being built and retrofitted in order to have an eternal garden,” says Kasey Hayes, a spokeswoman for the Junior League.
Developed by Envirable Grow Systems LLC, the sustainable community farming initiative focuses on providing access to more than 6,000 pounds of fresh produce per year while providing education and training on how to build and maintain an indoor farming system. The 20- to 40-square-foot EnviraGrow center is expected to open in June at the Virginia Cooperative Extension Center on 25th Street.
The Junior League hopes to raise $35,000 for the project through its “Little Black Dress Initiative,” in which participating members wear the same black dress for five days in recognition of the lack of choices people in poverty face. The organization notes that Richmond has one of Virginia’s highest percentages of residents living below the federal poverty threshold, nearly 25 percent, and about 40 percent of the city’s school-age children live in poverty.
Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden is also working on opening an EnviraGrow centerin collaboration with the Richmond Office of Community Wealth Building’s Conrad Culinary Training Center program. Expected to open in two or three weeks, it will have wheels, allowing movement around the city.
Based in a warehouse in Richmond’s East End, Envirable Grow Systems LLC was started by Sean Jefferson with a goal of creating controlled environment systems with integrated grow lighting, shelving and a self-contained water reservoir. Jefferson says Envirable also has a location in Washington, D.C.
This model shows what the inside of an EnviroGrow center will look like. (Photo courtesy Sean Jefferson/Envirable Grow Systems)
Junior League of Richmond Anti-Poverty Commission Duron Chavis poverty urban farmingfood deserts Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden