Cortez lacks access to garden space for growing healthy foods, and it’s especially a problem on the older southside of town, where community engagement and access to services are also limited. So staff and volunteers with Cortez Community Gardens, a project of the Good Samaritan Center, worked with local residents and the city to create a community garden in a southside pocket park. LOR provided funding for a six-foot-tall fence needed to make the 3rd Street Garden feasible. The new 11-plot garden at Third and Harrison streets will allow residents from the surrounding neighborhood to grow healthy food beginning in the spring of 2022.
Impact
As a result of conversations with the city about the 3rd Street Garden, Cortez decided to offer community gardens as an optional amenity—like basketball courts and playgrounds—in any Cortez city park, including new ones that are built.
In The News
New Community Garden Grows on the South Side (Cortez Journal)
