The Nottingham Urban Farm Express is based out of the low-income Nottingham Apartments, located at 1748 Washington, Kansas City, MO 64108. The Nottingham Apartments are managed by Westside Housing Organization. The garden was a resident driven initiative that started in 2012. Westside Housing was able to connect the residents with resources from Kansas City Missouri’s Health Department to build the first set of raised beds. After a successful harvest that fall, the Nottingham gardeners knew they wanted to go bigger, and they wanted to create an innovative way to share their produce with the neighborhood.
In fall of 2014, Community Capital Fund awarded the Nottingham Urban Farm Express a grant to do just that. The award will allow for 40 raised beds to be built, along with lot improvements, including a mulch road, water totes, and an outdoor demonstration kitchen to be used for cooking and canning demonstrations. As the garden gets growing, produce boxes from the garden will be sold on an income based scale to the families on the surrounding blocks.
The Nottingham Urban Farm Express is a different and innovative way to get fresh, hyper-local, organically grown, produce onto the plates of working families. It will be a hybrid of a community garden, a farm stand, and a community supported agriculture operation (CSA). The Nottingham Urban Farm Express is neighbors growing good food for neighbors. It does not get any more locally sourced than this!
Check out these crowd funding perks!
In the meantime, please contact Sonya Shifflett-Bly, sshifflett at wesidehousing.org or call 816-421-8048 for more information!