Charlestown Neighborhood, Boston, MA – The Charlestown Sprouts Community Garden is hosting a grand re-opening to celebrate the complete rebuilding of their community garden. The event will be held on Saturday, June 26th from 12:00 pm – 3:00 pm, rain or shine, and is free and open to the public. There will be garden tours throughout the day, live music, traditional Chinese Lion Dancing, Kung Fu, and Dragon Boat race demonstrations.
After two years of fundraising, design charrettes, planning, demolition, and construction for its Sprouts Renewal Project, Charlestown Sprouts is eager to again welcome gardeners to build a community that is centered around love and the necessity of growing food. “I am excited to have a nice space again to plant vegetables and talk to other gardeners,” says Sue Fun Tsui, a member of the Charlestown Sprouts Board of Directors and a gardener for 15 years. ”Charlestown Sprouts is an important place in Charlestown to live and be healthy – this is amazing!”
Charlestown Sprouts has operated as a community garden on Terminal Street for more than 20 years. In recent years, the garden had fallen into disrepair for a variety of reasons. The deteriorated appearance of the garden led to increased instances of vandalism and theft of vegetables and irrigation piping and valves. Through its Sprouts Renewal Project, Charlestown Sprouts set out to reduce toxins in its soils, improve soil fertility, increase growing efficiency, and make the garden healthier and more accessible. The City of Boston’s Department of Neighborhood Development Grassroots Program provided funding in 2019 to spark this process of reimagining and rebuilding the garden. In the winter of 2020, Fuss & O’Neill was hired as the design and construction management consultant. We held two community meetings to gather community input for healthy and sustainable ways to rebuild the garden. We developed a sustainable plan based on input from these meetings, helped secure permits, and provided construction administration services for the demolition that began in April of this year.
In addition to City of Boston Grassroots Program funding, Charlestown Sprouts received funding for the Sprouts Renewal Project from the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources’ Urban Agriculture Program, the Oren Campbell McCleary Charitable Trust, the City of Boston’s Charlestown Community Impact Fund, and from individual residents.
About Fuss & O’Neill, Inc.
Established in 1924, Fuss & O’Neill is a full-service engineering firm with a depth of staff and experience to conquer any project – from initial design to final construction. An ENR Top 500 Design Firm and Zweig Group Best Firm to Work For, the company is headquartered in Manchester, CT and supported by nine regional offices throughout all six New England states. Our professional staff maintains licenses and certifications across a wide range of civil engineering, traffic/transportation, planning, landscape architecture, structural, survey, design build, MEP, facilities, water/wastewater, environmental, and manufacturing disciplines. For more information, go to www.fando.com.
About Charlestown Sprouts
To date, Charlestown Sprouts has built 38 plots, most of which have been assigned to individual gardening families for the 2021 growing year. Charlestown Sprouts is planning the second phase of Sprouts Renewal to build an additional 10 to 15 new plots beginning in the late fall. Residents interested in receiving a plot to grow vegetables should contact Gerald Robbins at 617-669-4509 or by email at gmrobbins@yahoo.com.