The Eastside Lansing Allen Neighborhood Association plans to expand its Garden in a Box program, a sustainability project designed to provide residents and senior citizens with flowers and vegetables.
The Allen Neighborhood Center launched the program with a $9,000 grant. Volunteers distributed 24 garden boxes to Eastside neighbors. Each box contained 
plants, and volunteers delivered them to households interested in gardening but unable to grow their own food.
“It’s really a way to support the development of a gardening culture on the Eastside,” says Joan Nelson with the Allen Neighborhood Center. Nelson says the Center is iapplying for additional grants to fund more Garden in the Box units.
The Eastside is also developing a 10-week fall gardening course for Eastsiders interested in honing their gardening skills.
“I am thrilled about this, frankly,” Nelson says. “Ultimately our goal is to increase by ten percent every year for the next five years the number of households growing vegetables on the Eastside.”
Source: Joan Nelson, Allen Neighborhood Center
Ivy Hughes, development news editor, can be reached here.
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