Park View, D.C.

Extra produce headed for the Senior Wellness Center

Community gardens are a great way to provide summer fresh vegetables and put a dent in your food budget. With the Wangari Gardens, the community gardens at the Bruce-Monroe Park, and the gardening opportunity at the Armed Forces Retirement Home, residents in Park View have a lot more options to grow their own food than they did even a year ago. Yet I’ve learned after only a partial year of gardening that one can often grow more than you personally need.

I’d like to hear how other local gardeners have solved the problem of surplus vegetables. The practice that’s been adopted in my household is to distribute it to the community. We’ve been able to do this in two ways:

1. We’ve been able to give some of it to Angela Strange and the Park View Kids Zone; and,
2. We’ve given quite a bit to the Bernice Fonteneau Senior Wellness Center at 3531 Georgia Avenue.

The feedback I’ve received from our community’s seniors has been extremely positive. I was also made aware that many seniors rarely get the opportunity to have garden fresh vegetables.

For me, I’m happy as long as anything that is beyond what we can use is going back into the Park View community.