The Gardens of the YMCA
The Gardens of the Ymca is one of the newest editions of the YMCA. The gardens are used for kids, teens, or even adults to learn how to garden and teach life skills. Just last year, a total of $27,000 had been awarded to the YMCA of Greater Fort Wayne to help teach their youth the ins and outs of gardening.
Tim Hallman, the Director of Christian Emphasis, started the conversation that our YMCA’s should add gardens. “We have YMCAs all throughout the city, and we have land. So how do we use our programs and our facilities and our ground, to help give access to really healthy food, and especially how to teach kids how to grow their own food, and felt like that was really empowering.”(Wane 2021) “We have a whole list of plans where kids will learn how to identify the right seeds and right soil and how to start them and take care of them, weeding, growing, nurturing, all the way to harvesting and prepping them and enjoying them,” said Hallman.“We have two acres there and we’re making plans to maybe started urban farm out there to really accelerate the educational opportunities and getting fresh food to more families,” Hallman said. (Wane 2021)
The project called, “Seeds of Change” started last summer with the youth programming. The project has started at the Jackson R. Lehman and the Renaissance Pointe, but Jorgensen and the Parkview YMCA’s are in the process of developing their gardens. The goal is to keep the garden project expanding to other YMCA’s as the years go on.
In addition to the new gardening program of the YMCA’s, adult volunteers are being sought out. Having adult or senior volunteers could help contribute skills to those learning how to garden and create an environment where people are better Abe to connect and learn life skills through gardening.
