By Haley ED Houseman

Volunteers, program employees, and other participants gathered at the South Street Farm for a “Cleaning and Greening” event on July 9.

On the evening of July 9 at the urban farm run by Groundwork Somerville, nearly twenty volunteers, program employees, and participants in the Urban Agricultural Ambassadors program gathered at the South Street Farm for a “Cleaning and Greening” event, sponsored by Cantina La Mexicana. Just west of Union Square, 138 South Street host a productive urban farm that was trimmed, weeded and cleaned by. The event is part of series that is held monthly, sponsored by a variety of local businesses.

This particular event was also first market harvest of the year for the farm. The largest farm run by Groundwork Somerville, it has been in operation since 2011. The space is expected to produce a harvest of roughly 8,000 lbs., about half of which will be donated to Project Soup, in partnership with the Homeless Coalition. The farm consists of raised garden beds, which include a variety of root vegetables as fruiting vegetable and herbs. In the future, they hope to expand on the many farms they have in operation, and continue to increase yields. At the moment the organization is focusing its attention on their mobile market, run in partnership with Shape Up Somerville.

Groundwork Somerville is working to renew and improve the shared environment through empowering partnerships and programs for the community. Groundwork Somerville’s work is supported by private funding and contributions as well as public funding. They are also supported by a variety of volunteers, nonprofit and commercial partnerships. “We’re always looking for business to expand our partnerships,” says Devin Powers, the outreach coordinator of Groundwork Somerville. The organization accepts sponsorships through food or supplies, as well as donations. Powers continues, “We rely on individual reach out from local sponsors who fund the local clean up of spaces. One of our goals is to expand our partnerships in Somerville and get our name out there.”

Photos courtesy of Devin Powers

In addition to the cleanup project, Groundwork Somerville hosts a variety of projects. In addition to the South Street farm, they run a farm in Winter Hill, as well as farming programs in all of the city’s eight public elementary and middle schools, a public charter school, and a public library. The city farms maintained by the Green Team, a cohort of 14-18 employees, as well as students participating in programs. According to the organization, recent research shows that the school garden programming has been effective in reducing child obesity rates in the Somerville Public Schools, in combination with updated school lunches, increased physical wellness, and other public health efforts. Groundwork Somerville also host a table at Union Square every other week, managed by young team members of their Youth Crew and Green Team.

The organization is also in partnership with Shape Up Somerville to bring fresh produce to areas without access to the downtown farmers’ market. The mobile market follows a weekend schedule to bring produce from local farms as well as hyper local products from Groundwork Somerville. On Fridays, the mobile market can be found Council on Aging and Winter Hill Community Innovation School, as well as the Somerville Library, and finishing at Aeronaut Brewery in the evening, around the corner from the South Street Farm. On Saturdays, the vehicle can be found at the North Street Housing Development and Mystic Housing Development, and later at Clarendon Towers and Foss Park. SNAP and WIC participants receive 50% discounts and the full price produce provides a small discount for low-income families.

Groundwork Somerville also partners with a composting program, Soil Cycle, which employs local youths from pedal-powered collection and processing operation for compostable waste for residents and businesses in Cambridge and Somerville. For those looking to grow their own produce, the organization sells red wiggler worms and composting bins to create your own compost, which can be purchased via their website at www.groundworksomerville.org.