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Urban Farming Demonstration Model, aka “Tri-City’s Victory Garden”
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The Urban Farming Demonstration Model, aka “Tri-City’s Victory Garden” was started
on May 12th as part of Pomona’s Citywide Beautification Day.
As a result of Pomona Chamber of Commerce’s efforts a collaborative partnership
was started between individuals from Tri-City Mental Health Center, Amy’s Farm (Ontario,
CA), and Cal Poly Pomona’s Department of Landscape & Agriculture. This prototype
victory garden was also an indirect partnership with Operation E.T.H.A.N. (Everyone
Together Healing All Neighborhoods) in memory of a young boy killed in a senseless
drive-by shooting.
Victory gardens, also called war gardens or food gardens for defense, were vegetable,
fruit and herb gardens planted at private residences in the United States, Canada,
and United Kingdom during World War I and World War II. Aside from the economic
reasons that they were encouraged, the victory gardens were also considered a civil
"morale booster" — in that gardeners could feel empowered by their contribution
of labor and rewarded by the produce grown.
This gardens’ work also integrates many principles of “permaculture”, which demonstrate
"moral and ethical design system applicable to food production and land use, as
well as community design. It seeks the creation of productive and sustainable ways
of living by integrating ecology, landscape, organic gardening, architecture, agroforestry,
green or ecological economics, and social systems. The focus is not on these elements
themselves, but rather on the relationships created among them by the way they are
placed together; the whole becoming greater than the sum of its parts.”
At Tri-City, we see this Urban Farming Demonstration Model as a positive model in
integrating the ideals behind the victory garden, the principles of permaculture,
along with the goals of mental health.
The work you see acknowledges the efforts of individuals from Amy’s Farm, Ontario;
Cal Poly Pomona, Department of Landscape & Agriculture; Tri-City staff and clients;
Tri-City BIACO; and the other countless individuals who may have dropped in and
helped…even for only an hour or two.
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