Kids' teaching farm to grow at new plot

Fayetteville OKs house sale, parkland lease to nonprofit Apple Seeds

Mary Thompson, co-executive director of Apple Seeds speaks Thursday at the nonprofit group’s teaching farm in Fayetteville. The organization won City Council approval last month for a lease for 2 acres of land in Gulley Park adjacent to a house it had purchased to establish a similar operation. For more photos, go to www.nwadg.com/photos.
Mary Thompson, co-executive director of Apple Seeds speaks Thursday at the nonprofit group’s teaching farm in Fayetteville. The organization won City Council approval last month for a lease for 2 acres of land in Gulley Park adjacent to a house it had purchased to establish a similar operation. For more photos, go to www.nwadg.com/photos.

FAYETTEVILLE -- A nonprofit group that aims to get schoolkids and their families more interested in healthful food and healthy living will move to a larger home in Gulley Park and significantly expand its programs under a deal approved by the City Council.

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A stone sign marks the boundary Thursday of land that was purchased by Fayetteville and added to Gulley Park. Apple Seeds Inc. won City Council approval last month for a lease for 2 acres of land in the park adjacent to a house that the organization has purchased to establish a second teaching farm. For more photos, go to www.nwadg.com/photos.

Apple Seeds, which runs a teaching farm and several school programs near Ozark Natural Foods off North College Avenue, is buying one of two homes on several acres added to Gulley Park last year. The group also will get a 20-year lease to use 2 acres of the parkland in return for providing public gardening workshops and other programs throughout the year. One of Apple Seeds' co-directors said the land could be used for gardens, orchards and a greenhouse.

"Just when you thought Ward 3 couldn't get any better," Alderman Justin Tennant of the same ward joked during the City Council's Oct. 6 meeting, when it approved the $200,000 sale with only Alderman John La Tour of Ward 4 opposed. "Honestly, this is good for any part of the city."

La Tour in a later interview said he voted against the deal out of opposition to government grants that support groups like Apple Seeds. Such grants waste taxpayer money and contribute to the national debt, he said.

The group is supported by the Americorps program, said Mary Thompson, co-director. It also gets funding from private companies and foundations such as Greenhouse Grille and the Walmart Foundation.

The council also approved the sale of the neighboring house to a family for $111,500.

The two houses were part of the package when the city bought 11 acres for $1.1 million to hitch onto the 27-acre Gulley Park. The city's been trying to sell them ever since, said Connie Edmonston, Parks and Recreation director. She said the Apple Seeds deal would help accomplish that goal while dovetailing with the city's broader priorities.

"Their mission is very similar to Parks and Recreation, in that we want people to be active and to be healthy in our community," she told the City Council. "We believe this is a great partnership with a nonprofit."

Thompson said the organization would keep growing food and holding programs next to the food co-op, but with a thousand students coming through each year and the lack of an indoor kitchen, office or program space, the 8-year-old group needs to grow.

Apple Seeds' mission remains urgent, Thompson added: Arkansas' obesity rate is the country's highest at nearly 36 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The teaching farm provides field trips for kids to learn how to grow, wash and prepare produce into such snacks as toasted kale chips that they might otherwise never try, Thompson said Thursday during a tour of the farm. Tall sunflowers stood in the teaching farm behind her, withered by the season's changing, but rows of greens and flowers still grew.

Other produce goes to the schools for children to sell in miniature farmers markets, Thompson said.

"They fight over that stuff," she added with a laugh, noting the programs build off multiple school subjects. "It's science, math, literacy -- everything in the garden."

Thompson said the group plans to close on the house by the end of the month. Getting the land fully ready to support crops and trees would take at least one growing season and might be done in stages, she said.

Members of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board said they supported the group's goals wholeheartedly but felt the City Council essentially agreed to hand over a piece of public parkland without the board's input. Some board members said they hadn't even heard about the deal before their meeting Monday.

"I heard about this after the fact, and none of this was ever brought before the parks board," said board member Wade Colwell, who's also a member of the Friends of Gulley Park group that raised almost $140,000 to help the city cover the 11-acre purchase. "I don't know if that was in the best interest of the people that worked hard to make the addition to Gulley Park."

In a later interview, Colwell said other parks could be better suited to the job. He and fellow Friends of Gulley Park member Max Mahler said they were particularly concerned about the tall fence that surrounds the Apple Seeds farm and would likely pop up at the park as well.

Edmonston apologized to the board, saying no one intended to leave them out of the loop. She later said the possibility had been brought up during a board meeting in October as well.

Thompson said the group's plans for the land won't be set until after it makes a master plan and holds public sessions with the surrounding neighborhoods. She also wants to get the parks board's opinion on the fence, though deer have to be kept out somehow.

"We want to do whatever works in the grand scheme of things," Thompson said. "This is a partnership."

Metro on 11/09/2015

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