New Haven Farms To Expand Healthful Garden Program

New Haven Farms To Expand Healthful Garden Program

By Esteban L. Hernandez

Published 3:53 pm, Sunday, January 14, 2018

hoto: Credit: New Haven Farms

NEW HAVEN—New Haven Farms will expand its popular incubator program this spring to include 25 additional families who will manage their own garden plot and have access to fresh produce.

New Haven Farms Executive Director Russell Moore said the program has grown every year since it launched in 2015. Two new incubator sites will be placed in Fair Haven on Stevens Street, near Shelter and Clay streets, and on Davenport Avenue in the Hill neighborhood.

Fair Haven’s site will support 15 families, while the Hill is expected to serve 10. The program currently has 50 families, a majority of whom are low-income residents.

Families first participate in a wellness program operated jointly by Fair Haven Community Health Center and NHF before joining the incubator program, which provides them a plot of land to build their own vegetable garden. The goal of the wellness program is to assist people in developing more healthful eating choices to address possible health concerns. The incubator garden allows participants to continue healthful habits learned through the wellness program.

“The significance of it is not just 25 families,” Moore said. “It’s that their family members will benefit from fresh produce.”

NHF works in partnership with the New Haven Land Trust and the Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare Foundation to fund the incubator program.

Moore recently visited the Fair Haven site. At the moment, it looks barren, with what he suspected were dead collard greens near the entrance. But the site will eventually be home to 15 additional families using the land, once seeding begins in March and the season starts in May.

New Haven Farms manager Jacqueline Maisonpierre, who helped to develop the incubator garden program in 2015, said the program fits well into NHF’s mission to, “promote health and community development through urban agriculture.”

The program has just about a 100 percent retention rate, though two families have moved out of the city, Maisonpierre said.

Moore said between the seven gardens, which together comprise just about one acre, New Haven Farms produced 18,000 pounds of produce. Providing produce for 50 families means more than 200 people receive help.

“We’re really getting people to change, to make large behavioral shifts in their lives so that they can live a healthier life and reduce their dependence on medication,” Maisonpierre said.

The incubator gardens teach families “that they have the powers to change their own health outcomes,” Maisonpierre said.

New Haven Land Trust Executive Director Justin Elicker said the trust supports 52 community gardens in New Haven. Elicker said NHF’s program teaches citizens how to be more healthy.

“This partnership was a great fit for both organizations,” Elicker said. “Graduates of the wellness programs have an ability to continue their connection to the community that they developed.”

Last fall, an NHF site near Ferry Street was the site of a robbery that left a seasonal worker injured. The man who was attacked is still working for NHF; Moore said the attack seemed to make his commitment to the organization even stronger.

The attack prompted a community meeting and increased police patrol. Added safety measures, including lights, were installed on a nearby post, and have helped with security, Moore said. He was happy with both the community and local law enforcement response to the incident.

“It was galvanizing,” Moore said.

The response seems to reflect what Moore said is another important effect from their gardening programs, which is people learning by example.

“One shining example can have a ripple effect throughout the community,” Moore said.

Reach Esteban L. Hernandez at 203-680-9901