EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was originally published in the October newsletter of the North End Community Improvement Collaborative.
MANSFIELD — Access to affordable, clean, healthy food is a key component in a person’s quality of life; something NECIC has been about since the very beginning.
What started in 2008 as residents requesting small grants to plant community gardens in their North End neighborhoods has culminated in the NECIC Urban Farm and the Richland Gro-Op in 2020. NECIC’s North End Local Food Initiatives (NELFI) was created as a response to the fact that the USDA classified part of the North End (census tract 6) as a Fresh Food Desert.
NELFI began by supporting many North End residents to start community gardens to reclaim the abundant vacant lots in their neighborhoods, and to grow healthy food.
The NELFI strategy “always start with a gardener” proved to be a successful one and before long NELFI was supporting community gardens in vacant lots, schools, and churches throughout Richland County.
Meanwhile, in partnership with the Richland County Land Bank NECIC acquired some vacant land on Blust Avenue near the Ocie Hill Neighborhood Center.
These three blighted properties were repurposed and transformed into the NECIC Teaching Garden, a place where people of all ages and all skill levels can come to learn about growing food or to share their knowledge with others.
In 2009 NECIC and partners from The Richland County Health Department, OSU-Extension, and the Mansfield/Richland County Public Library came together to organize and convene the annual Raising Richland Community Gardening Summit, a public informational forum with speakers and exhibitors of interest to growers.
Another NELFI initiative born during this period was the North End Farmers Market, an effort to not only bring more affordable, healthy food options into the neighborhood, but to offer growers and other entrepreneurs a venue to sell their produce and other goods.
Similarly, NECIC worked closely with a local entrepreneur investor to reopen a neighborhood grocery store on the North End. KV Market opened in 2019, and if successful, the USDA will need to reclassify census tract 6 as no longer a Fresh Food Desert.
Staying true to the NELFI motto, the NECIC Urban Farm started with, not a gardener, but an entrepreneur with a passion for food and feeding people.
Walter Bonham of the Food Lab has worked closely with NECIC and our partners at the Ohio State University, and The Gorman Rupp Company to lead the creation of the NECIC Urban Farm located on the site of a former factory in the heart of the North End.
The Urban Farm is a community economic development project with the overall goal of keeping as many local food dollars in the community, and to provide training, opportunities, and best practices toward proving urban farming as a profitable venture, all while transforming the local food economy.
