RAP Celebrates 10 Years of the Community Garden
For a decade, the small garden at the corner of Azalea Terrace and Park Street, sitting within the footprint of Willow Branch Park, has served as a gathering place and growing space for neighborhood gardeners.
The Riverside Avondale Preservation (RAP) Community Garden celebrated its 10th anniversary this year, marking a decade of growth, literal and figurative, for the neighbors who tend it. Operating as a public-private partnership between the City of Jacksonville’s Parks and Recreation Department, JaxParks and RAP, the garden currently boasts 32 plots maintained by 52 gardeners.
To mark the garden’s milestone anniversary, with major support from Bold City Properties, all the wooden garden beds were replaced. Later this fall, new educational signage created by Carson Schwab, a student from UNF’s Environmental Leadership Program, will be installed to help educate visitors about seasonal produce, insects and more.
“The Community Garden is a gathering point for so many people from this neighborhood and beyond,” said RAP Executive Director Shannon Blankinship. “I’m proud that RAP has continued to manage and operate a public space that means so much to so many people.”
The garden first opened in April 2016 and was designed by Dorina Bakari of Jacksonville’s American Institute of Architects through its Emerging Design Professionals subcommittee.
The future is bright for the Community Garden, with plans to add a Kids Pizza Garden next spring, providing a free, interactive space for children to harvest their favorite pizza toppings like tomatoes, peppers and herbs. Those interested in supporting this new addition can make donations at riversideavondale.networkforgood.com/projects/214731-general-donation-form, noting that the gift is for the Kids Pizza Garden.