{"id":74916,"date":"2019-07-03T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-03T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-master-gardeners-create-gardens-at-house-of-hope-to-engage-homeless-in-growing-food\/"},"modified":"2019-07-03T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-07-03T00:00:00","slug":"uri-master-gardeners-create-gardens-at-house-of-hope-to-engage-homeless-in-growing-food","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2019\/07\/uri-master-gardeners-create-gardens-at-house-of-hope-to-engage-homeless-in-growing-food\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 Master Gardeners create gardens at House of Hope to engage homeless in growing food"},"content":{"rendered":"

WARWICK, R.I. \u2013 July 3, 2019 \u2013 The formerly homeless residents at House of Hope in Warwick<\/strong> have another reason to feel hopeful. Thanks to a team of 溏心vlog免费B站 Master Gardeners, they are learning about gardening and helping to grow their own vegetables and herbs.<\/p>\n

Led by Master Gardeners Kate Aubin and Stephanie Trabucco, both Cranston<\/strong> residents, the project aims to engage the residents in gardening while also breaking down barriers with nearby neighbors.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a place where they can just go out and be in a calming, quiet, safe space, get their hands dirty if they want, and smell the flowers,\u201d said Aubin. \u201cOnce we get them more involved, they\u2019ll feel a sense of pride in seeing what they\u2019ve grown.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI like that we\u2019re providing people with good food who probably haven\u2019t had good food in a long time,\u201d added Trabucco.<\/p>\n

House of Hope Community Development Corp. seeks to prevent homelessness by providing permanent housing to homeless individuals and families while delivering the necessary services to ensure clients do not become homeless again. The organization started a garden at its Shippee Street facility in 2015, which was taken over by the Master Gardeners in 2016 and expanded to the House of Hope property on Fair Street.<\/p>\n

Jackie Mercado, a case manager at House of Hope, was so excited about the garden that she even enrolled to become a 溏心vlog免费B站 Master Gardener to contribute to the project.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been a beautiful opportunity to learn from the 溏心vlog免费B站 Master Gardeners,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m using my new found skills to show residents a sustainable way of living, bettering health, and helping rebuild their green thumb.”<\/p>\n

At Fair Street, the first garden constructed was what Aubin called a wheelchair garden \u2013 a raised bed enabling someone to tend the garden from a wheelchair.<\/p>\n

\u201cBobby was so excited that we were making a garden accessible for him,\u201d Aubin said. \u201cIt\u2019s the perfect height for him, and he\u2019s become very involved in the garden. He selected the plants he wanted to tend, and he\u2019s out here regularly maintaining it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Four more traditional raised beds \u2013 each 4 by 8 feet in size \u2013 were constructed in the front yard, surrounded by a fence to keep out the hungry rabbits and woodchucks that live in the area. House of Hope residents were surveyed about what they wanted to have planted, and occasional house meetings are held to keep them involved.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn previous years, the residents were happy to get whatever we planted, but they weren\u2019t necessarily sure what to do with it,\u201d said Trabucco. \u201cThis year we\u2019re helping them learn what the food is, how you pick it, how you cook it, and how you store it. We\u2019re getting them involved in the whole process of the circle of life of the food.\u201d<\/p>\n

溏心vlog免费B站 20 local Master Gardeners helped to build the garden, and they all continue to put in time each week helping to maintain it as well. Occasional events are held on site that include cooking demonstrations, food preservation lessons, soil testing and composting lessons.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of the reason for the events is to bring the community to House of Hope to help everyone live together more peacefully and more comfortably,\u201d Trabucco said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really important to break down the barriers within the community, and we can do that in some way with this garden,\u201d Aubin said. \u201cWhen the neighbors see the garden and all the Master Gardeners working on it, they get excited and realize that we all can work together and get along.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mercado agrees, and she has already seen how the garden is bringing the community together.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe garden has opened a new relationship for residents and their neighbors,\u201d she said. \u201cIt has shown the mutual interest that we all have for horticulture, building positive interactions, and conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n

A free workshop on the principles of organic gardening will be held at House of Hope, 69 Fair St., Warwick, on Sunday, July 14, from 10 to 11 a.m. The program is open to the public, and no registration is required.<\/p>\n

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WARWICK, R.I. \u2013 July 3, 2019 \u2013 The formerly homeless residents at House of Hope in Warwick have another reason to feel hopeful. Thanks to a team of 溏心vlog免费B站 Master Gardeners, they are learning about gardening and helping to grow their own vegetables and herbs. Led by Master Gardeners Kate Aubin and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74917,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}