Mechanicsville Farm Stand Project
We will provide training to some of the local homeless and disadvantaged residents so they can begin to help themselves in fixing up or building their own structures. The Farm Stand will be the first focus for this training effort, and we are anxious to give the neighborhood a chance to pitch in to build it.
For this project, we'll need lumber, tools, fasteners, and paint/stain. We expect to partner with a local farming non-profit, Patchwork City Farms, to create a series of raised bed gardens to provide training and space for people in the Mechanicsville neighborhood to grow vegetables. We are planning 30 raised beds, 3 feet X 12 feet each. The beds will be built from structural lumber harvested from deconstructed buildings and will each be approximately 20" deep. In addition to the lumber, we need to provide wood chips, soil, tools, seeds and water. This project will allow folks in our neighborhood to play an even greater role in our project, and will help to teach our kids about farming, cooperation, consistency and self-sufficiency.
The picture shown is a farm stand built by a team of students as part of an extremely successful project called "If you Build It", in North Carolina.