Springfield Community Gardens among recipients of $2.5M grant to boost food access

Springfield Community Gardens is one of two state grant recipients with plans to use $2.5 million in funds for boosting community-based food access and production.

The Springfield nonprofit announced in a news release it had received the grant funding, along with St. Louis-based Rustic Roots Sanctuary. The funds are from the Missouri Foundation for Health’s Seeding Equitable Food Systems grant program.

Maile Auterson, founder and executive director of Springfield Community Gardens, said the grant will support a two-year project dubbed Cultivating Connection: Building a Human-Scale Food System. Its goal is to connect local food efforts in St. Louis and southwest Missouri with infrastructure, staff and farmer outreach. It includes two farm stops that serve as small food hubs – at Spanish Lake in north St. Louis County and in Ava, according to the release. Those will provide farmers access to markets and consumers access to healthy fresh food, officials say.

“We are putting systems in place to assist small growers in St. Louis and in southwest Missouri by providing easier access to markets, fair prices for their product and the technical assistance to enhance their growing practices,” Auterson said via email. “These types of activities are what it takes to truly alleviate food insecurity in our state and will serve as a model for decentralizing our food economy, paying farmers fair prices and providing nutritious food to our neighbors."

Funding also will assist Springfield Community Gardens with building Osage Prairie Farm in Springfield. The farm will serve as a training site in certified organic farming and provide produce for Springfield Public Schools, the CoxHealth campus and various senior centers, according to the release. Osage Prairie Farm is in development at St. John’s Chapel United Church of Christ, 4344 S. Fremont Ave., according to Springfield Community Gardens officials.

According to a Facebook post from the nonprofit in late September, a $10,000 grant from the Community Foundation of the Ozarks Inc. aided Springfield Community Gardens in the relocation of Amanda Belle’s Farm, 851 E. Primrose St., on the edge of the Cox Medical Center South campus, to the future Osage Prairie Farm site.

Additionally, part of the food equity initiative involves the Open Field Health Collaborative, a network of physician facilitators, according to the release. In partnership with Springfield Community Gardens, OFHC codeveloped Health Circles – facilitated gatherings centered on shared leadership and care. Hosted at farm stops, farms, senior centers and other small food hubs, Health Circles integrate access to fresh food with health education, clinician involvement and social support.