City Sprouts loves having regulars come back to our community garden year after year! One of the groups that garden at our North Community Garden is the people over at the Kelly House. We'll let them introduce themselves below:
We are Edward and Willa Kelly Community Collaborative, Inc, or more commonly known as Kelly House. Our organization was established in 2001 and began as an affordable housing project for families and individuals with limited financial and other resources, offering 42 single-family homes located in North and South Omaha. In 2011 we began to explore and reform to address the needs of underserved special needs populations at risk for homelessness by providing affordable housing and developed a program promoting self-care and independent living in a supportive housing environment. We currently house 13 adults through this program.
Kelly House has been involved in the community garden over the last 2 years. This year, we have planted several things for the first time, and we're really excited to see things starting to sprout and grow! While some are more excited about gardening than others, all of our residents are involved on some level I'm managing our plot.
Eugene has become our garden waterer, and frequently enjoys "torturing the chickens with his chicken talk," while J.R. prefers watching them and feeding them, and he's most excited for tomatoes and zucchini to make bread.
Justin likes to come and check on the cherry tree and enjoy the cooler part of the day at the sitting area and observe the bees.
Charles likes having a place nearby to walk and appreciate. We can't really pick favorites because we're really looking forward to our harvest of everything, but this year is the first time we have grown cucumbers and eggplant, and we're pretty excited to make pickles with our cucumbers and make eggplant parmesan if our eggplant is successful!
Learn more about the Kelly House here: