American Community Gardening Association 2013 Grant Winners

Mill Village Farms, in Greenville, SC, won $1,000 from Gardener's Supply.

About the American Community Gardening Association

The American Community Gardening Association (ACGA) is a nonprofit membership organization of professionals, volunteers and supporters of community greening. The association recognizes that community gardening improves people's quality of life by providing a catalyst for neighborhood and community development, stimulating social interaction, encouraging self-reliance, beautifying neighborhoods, producing nutritious food, reducing family food budgets, conserving resources and creating opportunities for recreation, exercise, therapy and education.

In 2013, the American Community Gardening Association (ACGA) and Gardener's Supply awarded $4,000 to four community gardening organizations. Recipients were selected based on need, community involvement, influence on the community and the number of people served by the project. Gardener's Supply also supports ACGA by providing scholarships for recipients to attend the ACGA annual conference.

"All of the community gardens that applied for 2013 grants deserve praise and thanks for the good works they do in their neighborhoods," said Bill Maynard, vice president of the ACGA board of directors. "Selecting this year's grant winners was very difficult — there are so many worthy programs."

"As always, we are thrilled to be an ACGA sponsor, and to be able to help provide these grants to such sustainable, active, and effective community gardening programs," said Gardener's Supply director of gardening relations and good works, Maree Gaetani.

The 2013 ACGA/Gardener's Supply Company Grant Program winners each received $1,000 to spend on materials or equipment needed to improve or maintain their gardening projects. The winning organizations include:

• Mill Village Farms in Greenville, SC, provides an abundance of local, healthy food and community pride in an urban neighborhood where access to fresh produce is limited. At its two garden sites, the organization provides first-time job opportunities for inner-city youth, encouraging them to be hard workers, entrepreneurs, and farmers.

6th Street & Growing Community Gardens

• 6th Street & Growing Community Gardens in Newark, OH, manages two gardens in low-income neighborhoods: Newark's 6th Street neighborhood, and its Western Avenue/North 10th Street neighborhood. Both gardens have become destinations for neighbors and sources of pride for more than 100 area gardeners, as well as non-gardeners.

The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs Community Garden

• The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs Community Garden, in Warm Springs, OR, provides supplemental income opportunities, education for cooks and growers, and inspiration for the next generation of native American gardeners. Nearly 100 members of the Wasco and Warm Springs tribes participate in two garden plots, located in the heart of the reservation.

The O'Brien Community Center Garden

• The O'Brien Community Center Garden in Winooski, VT, gives the area's new Americans and low-income gardeners access to fresh, healthy produce, as well as opportunities to grow herbs and vegetables that remind them of their home countries. Many of these gardeners feed their extended families from their garden plots.