BUILDING HEALTHY CITIES
An Oasis in the City Growing up in North St. Louis, Donna Washington remembers her parents bringing home fresh fruits and vegetables from the market. “Now, it’s hard to find any fresh produce in my neighborhood,” said Donna. Over the past few years, leadership and volunteers from Jubilee Community Church in the city’s Fairgrounds neighborhood have been building a concept that will do more than just bring fresh produce to their community. Project Oasis will provide a community garden, reduce stormwater flooding, create employment opportunities, and serve as a demonstration site for other local communities. “We recognized multiple problems and wanted to come up with solutions that would address them,” said Andy Krumsieg, pastor of Jubilee Community Church. “Stormwater is a big issue in the city of St. Louis. We wanted to reduce the pressure on the sewer system and capture rainwater as a resource to reuse in our garden.” The first step of Project Oasis was the installation of a 150,000-gallon underground cistern that collects rainwater from the church’s roof, which then irrigates the half-acre urban orchard and garden that were recently planted behind the church. During the last growing season, the group worked with partners, Good Life Growing and Custom Foodscaping, to plant cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers in the garden
and blackberries, figs, cherries, serviceberries, jujubes and pawpaws in the orchard. The produce that is grown will be used by the church and made available for community members to harvest. Additionally, they will sell the produce to local restaurants. “Proceeds from the sales will be used to help employ two or three people from the community during the growing season,” said Pastor Andy. “We will also be planting wildflowers throughout the garden, which will provide food for pollinators.” “The work Jubilee Community Church is doing through Project Oasis and partnership collaboration can be replicated in neighborhoods throughout St. Louis or around the state.” said Rebecca Weaver, TNC’s cities program manager. “We felt it was important to support this project and the community- driven transformation it could inspire.” The Nature Conservancy provided a grant to Jubilee Community Church that supported the garden design, installation and materials. Funds were also provided to help with storytelling, outreach and training activities. Now, Donna Washington volunteers her time to tending to the garden each week. “I enjoy working in the soil and getting my hands dirty,” said Donna. “And, I’m excited to have fresh produce in our neighborhood again.”
NATURE.ORG/MISSOURI 13
THIS PAGE Pastor Andy Krumsieg (right) and Donna Washington (left) in the garden at Project Oasis. © Kristy Stoyer/TNC
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker