Five years ago, Jacqueline “Jackie” Mitchell began tackling a problem as common to neighborhoods around the country as it is in Edison in the city of Kalamazoo. Too many houses were blighted or boarded up, and too many healthy food options were too far away.
“Our tagline is ‘health is wealth on side streets and backyards, too,’ but honestly if I were to change our tagline it would be ‘growing food saves lives,’ because it’s more than just the food,” Mitchell said at a recent gathering of volunteers and supporters at her home.
The gathering did more than fill bellies; it marked another milestone of the Urban Exposure Initiative, which is building both skills and entrepreneurship of community members to expand home and community gardens, urban farming, and places to grow produce and sell groceries in the neighborhood and to the neighborhood…